miles distance. During the night a storm dispersed some Dutch vessels. Next morning, at noon the two fleets began to move southwest, with the English hugging the coast and the Dutch keeping some distance. The forces were separated by the Rip-Raps and the Varne Shoal and therefore unable to engage. Ultimately the curve of the shoreline, the cape of Dungeness or the "Hook of the Shingles" jutting out, forced the English to turn on a southerly course. Between the Varne Shoal and Dungeness a narrow exit exists. Blake had hoped to escape through it but when he arrived already about seventeen Dutch ships were waiting for him. Nevertheless, he continued his manoeuvre. At about 15:00, the leading ships of both fleets met in what a contemporary account called a "bounteous rhetoric of powder and bullet". Blake's Triumph was the first larger ship to sail through the exit. At that moment Tromp's Brederode arrived and the Dutch commander immediately hoisted the red "bloodflag" as a sign to attack. Blake, noticing this, tacked to cross the bow of the Brederode, giving his opponent a broadside. In response, Tromp also tacked and fired a salvo. The next English ship, the Garland, then moved between the Triumph and the Brederode in an attempt to cross the latter's bow also. This failed however, the Garland ramming the bow of the Brederode at starboard with such force that both ships remained entangled. The snout and bowsprit of the Brederode broke off. The larger crew of the Brederode swiftly boarded the Garland. Tromp encouraged his men by promising a reward of five hundred guilders to the first who would strike the English flag. One sailor climbed into the main mast of the Garland and replaced the St George's Cross with the Prince's Flag. In despair, captain Richard Batten blew up his own upper deck to drive away the Dutch. Meanwhile, the third English ship to arrive, the Anthony Bonaventure, grappled the port of the Brederode. Covering the deck of the Dutch ship with canister shot, it soon forced its crew below deck. Noticing the plight of his commander, Vice-Admiral Johan Evertsen in turn boarded the port of the Anthony Bonaventure with his Hollandia, so that four ships were now attached. In ferocious fighting his men, losing sixty, killed the entire crew of the Anthony Bonaventure, including Captain Walter Hoxton. When Tromp's secretary, standing next to him, was