out to begin the attack the same night. Five warships were assigned to attack the west of Ostend at first light, distracting enemy forces and destroying the batteries emplaced there. Five other ships were to ensure that the mouth of Ostend harbour was kept open for the British, and to attack any shipping they found to the east of the town. Two bomb ketches were to respectively anchor to the north-north-west and east of the town to bombard it. The rest of the ships and Coote's soldiers would then be left to the main attack, for which Popham attached a naval brigade formed with seamen from his largest vessels to bolster it. Another contingent of sailors were assigned to take the mines ashore that would destroy the gates. Armed cutters were organised to go ahead of the force to show them the way in. While Popham's crews had been trained to arrive at their positions in the dead of night without the use of signals, a turn in the weather forced Popham to abandon the first attack. The expedition stayed at sea for another two days before on 18 May a captured ship revealed to Popham and Coote that the invasion craft at Flushing were making haste down the canal for Ostend and Dunkirk. With the weather having improved, it was decided that the attack should immediately go forward. The ships reached their various starting points at 1 a.m. on 19 May, by which time the wind had gotten up again and the sea was becoming rougher. Popham deliberated putting off the attack again, but was stopped in this from intelligence taken from a newly captured pilot boat that the nearby garrisons were all very small. Hearing the news, Coote begged Popham for the landings to go ahead, expecting that by the time their mission had been completed the weather would have quietened enough that the troops could reembark safely. Popham put the landings into effect immediately without waiting for the troopships to organise themselves, so that the de-embarkation was done out of the pre-arranged order. Coote's troops began to be landed, unobserved, on sandbanks east of Ostend. The presence of British troops was not first reported by the Dutch for several hours, and at 4:15 a.m. the Ostend batteries opened fire on the British ships of the two harbour parties. Popham's bomb ketches then began to return fire, quickly