On hearing his story, Tromp instantly turned about and made straight for the English coast, which he had left only a few hours before. In this case, at all events, his instructions were explicit. He had been ordered to prevent Dutch vessels from being visited or searched, and to recover them if captured. Blake, on seeing the Dutch fleet returning, stood off to meet it. He did not know the real reason that had made Tromp alter his course: he had passed the merchant-ships a few days after their meeting with Young, and had done nothing to them. He believed that Tromp was seeking an occasion of quarrel, and watching for an advantage to brave them on their own coast. The Dutch admiral came on with his flag at the main-top, and when he was well within range, Blake fired a gun across his bows to make him strike, and after an interval a second, and yet again a third at his flag; the ball going through the main-sail and killing a man on deck. Tromp then, still with the States’ colours aloft, fired a single gun at Blake’s flag, ran up a red flag,--the prearranged signal for battle,--and poured a broadside into Blake’s ship, and the two fleets entered into a fierce encounter.[721] The fight lasted from four or five o’clock until nine, Blake being assisted by Bourne, who came from the Downs with his small squadron and assailed Tromp in the rear. The Dutch fleet, with the loss of two ships, gradually drew off towards the French coast, and Blake kept his position all night and anchored some leagues off Dungeness. This was the first great fight over the striking of the flag, and it occasioned immediate war between the two countries. Encounters on a small scale had been not infrequent before, but no foreign fleet had hitherto ventured to challenge an English fleet in this way off the English coast. Tromp himself, thirteen years before, when he possessed an overwhelming force, readily struck his flag to Pennington’s small squadron in the Downs. After the battle attempts were made to justify Tromp’s action, but not at all on the ground that the demand for him to strike his flag to the English admiral was unjust or contrary to custom. Blake was accused of having precipitated the battle. Tromp, it was said, had men aloft ready to strike the top-sails, or had already done so; he had sent a man up to strike his flag; he was preparing to send his boat to Blake after the second gun was fired to ask him the reason of his firing, and so forth. But the Dutch admiral well knew the custom of the narrow sea, and had no need to ask Blake the reason of his firing across his bows.[722] When the nature of his instructions with reference to saluting is considered, along with his memorandum and the discussions connected with it, his action before Dover Castle on the day before, and the variation in his own subsequent accounts of his intentions and proceedings, the inference is strong that he had resolved not to strike to the weaker fleet of the Commonwealth.