Antonio de Oquendo Antonio de Oquendo ( San Sebastián , October 1577 – A Coruña , 7 June 1640 ) was a Spanish admiral ; in 1639 he was in command of the Spanish forces at the Battle of the Downs . Naval career . Antonio was the son of Captain - General Miguel de Oquendo , who died in October 1588 when his ship foundered off Pasajes , while coming back from the ill - fated campaign of the Armada Invencible . In 1594 he entered naval service . He commanded a naval squadron made of his flagship , the " Delfín de Escocia " , and the " Dobladilla " , two 500 ton galleons . On 7 August 1604 he captured an English privateer at the Battle of the Gulf of Cádiz . In 1607 he was appointed commander of the Biscay squadron , which was that year enlarged and renamed the squadron of the Bay of Biscay . From the same year he also functioned as the General of the Fleet of the Viceroyalty of New Spain . In 1619 he temporarily replaced Juan Fajardo de Entenza y de Guevara , arrested for insubordination , as commander of the Squadron of the Ocean , the Atlantic high seas navy . Ordered to be Fajardo ' s successor he refused , at the same time trying to make the government aware of the many shortcomings in the naval organisation ; as a result he was himself incarcerated . Soon his imprisonment was changed for a forced stay in a convent . After a while Prince Philbert arranged his release ; De Oquendo was then given command for a few years of the yearly Spanish treasure fleet , transporting the silver from the Andes to Spain . In 1624 he was brought to trial on accusations of fraud and nepotism but managed to show that the charges were fabricated by his enemies within the fleet . Nevertheless he was barred from command of the treasure fleet for four years and condemned to pay an indemnity of 12 , 000 ducats for having caused the loss of the galleons " Espíritu Santo " and " Santísima Trinidad " near Cuba through neglect of duty . Later promotions . In 1626 De Oquendo became Admiral - General of the Ocean Fleet , under Captain - General Fadrique de Toledo . In 1628 by his own initiative he relieved La Mámora , at the time besieged by the Moors . In 1631 he commanded a troop convoy destined for Brazil , to retake the city of Pernambuco , the previous year conquered by the Dutch West India Company . On 12 September he engaged and defeated a Dutch WIC fleet under Admiral Adriaan Pater , allowing him to successfully land the troop contingent . The Spanish lost one vessel , the Dutch three . De Oquendo was now promoted to the highest rank , that of Captain - General . In 1636 he was arrested for duelling an Italian nobleman in Madrid . In 1637 he refused to reinforce the fleet of the Kingdom of Naples because his squadron was undermanned and poorly supplied . He was punished by being appointed governor of Mahón , the capital of the island of Minorca . Role in the Battle of the Downs . However in 1639 the situation of Spain in the Thirty Years War strongly deteriorated . France had blocked the usual land route to the Army of Flanders and in August De Oquendo was made a viscount and given command of a large transport fleet to ship reinforcements from Cadiz to Dunkirk . On 15 September he was intercepted near the Strait of Dover by the squadron of Dutch Lieutenant - Admiral Maarten Tromp , who was reinforced two days later by a flotilla of Vice - Admiral Witte de With . Though the Dutch force was rather small , consisting of only seventeen vessels , it managed by a clever use of the line - of - battle to severely damage the larger and crowded Spanish ships . De Oquendo feared that if he entered the narrow channel to Dunkirk , he would be trapped in that port , so he opted to take refuge in The Downs , in neutral English waters at the coast of Kent . As Charles I of England had concluded a secret treaty with Spain against the Dutch , De Oquendo hoped to move his troops to Flanders by means of English shipping . On 31 October the Dutch fleet , grown to over a hundred ships , violated English neutrality and attacked the Spanish fleet , succeeding in destroying or capturing many enemy vessels . De Oquendo himself escaped but was heavily wounded and morally broken . He never fully recovered . After his return to Spain he soon died in La Coruña .