Battle of Plymouth The Battle of Plymouth was a naval battle in the First Anglo - Dutch War . It took place on 26 August 1652 ( New Style , 16 August Old Style ) and was a short battle , but had the unexpected outcome of a Dutch victory over England . General - at - Sea George Ayscue of the Commonwealth of England attacked an outward bound convoy of the Dutch Republic commanded by Vice - Commodore Michiel de Ruyter . The two commanders had been personal friends before the war . The Dutch were able to force Ayscue to break off the engagement , and the Dutch convoy sailed safely to the Atlantic while Ayscue sailed to Plymouth for repairs . Background . On 29 July De Ruyter was appointed Vice - Commodore , an originally Dutch creation between Captain and Rear - Admiral , with the confederate Dutch fleet and shortly after took over command , in the absence of Vice - Admiral Witte de With , of a squadron assembling in the Wielingen , off the coast of Zealand , to escort a large convoy . Around 10 August , De Ruyter took sea before the merchantmen had arrived , to seek out an English fleet of forty ships , commanded by Ayscue , which he knew had left The Downs on 29 July . De Ruyter ' s squadron at that moment consisted of 23 warships and six fireships , with a total of about 600 cannon and 1700 men . As De Ruyter reported to the States - General of the Netherlands , most crews were badly trained , many ships poorly maintained and he had just two months of supplies . Nevertheless he preferred to give battle early without the burden of having to protect the convoy . Reaching the English Channel , he soon discovered that Ayscue was not interested in fighting the Dutch squadron , but avoided it in the hope of intercepting the convoy . To lure Ayscue out De Ruyter started to cruise off the coast of Sussex , causing an uproar with the local population , but Ayscue , despite his fleet having grown to 42 ships , did not react . Meanwhile De Ruyter had lost two ships , sent out to escort a single incoming merchantman to the mouth of the Somme river , when they collided , sinking one , the " Sint Nicolaes " , and severely damaging the other , " Gelderlandt " . On 21 August De Ruyter at last did rendezvous with the convoy of sixty merchantmen off Gravelines in the southern North Sea . He was pleased to notice that it brought ten warships with it , bringing his total to 31 . On 23 August De Ruyter re - entered the Channel near Calais . His instructions were to escort the convoy to the Atlantic ; there most ships would head for the Mediterranean together with their ten escorts , while the original squadron would have to wait to pick - up merchantmen coming from the West Indies and transporting silver . Ayscue ' s fleet had then grown to 47 vessels : 38 men - of - war , among which armed merchantmen ; five fireships , and four smaller vessels . Battle . On 25 August , the English spotted the Dutch fleet off the coast of Plymouth , and took sea . Ayscue the next day , off the coast of Brittany , around 13 : 30 attempted a direct attack from the north against the convoy , having the weather gauge . He hoped it would scatter , allowing him to capture some very profitable prizes , but De Ruyter unexpectedly separated his naval squadron and changed course to meet Ayscue ’ s attack , shielding the merchantmen . Ayscue ’ s ships were on average more heavily armed , but extremely disorganised because the fastest vessels , among them Ayscue ' s flagship the " George " and the " Vanguard " of his vice - admiral William Haddock , had broken formation in the hope of catching , during a running battle , straggling Dutch merchantmen ; they were now unable to form a line of battle and fully exploit their advantage in firepower over the Dutch . The Dutch squadron however , sailing to the northwest , was in a rough defensive leeward line formation , with the Frisian acting Rear - Admiral Joris Pieterszoon van den Broeck commanding the van , De Ruyter himself commanding the centre and Hollandic Rear - Admiral Jan Aertsen Verhoeff commanding the rear . Around 16 : 00 the Dutch fleet and seven forward English vessels met and almost immediately passed through each other – both sides afterwards claiming to have " broken the enemy line " . Having thus gained the weather gauge the Dutch at once exploited this by turning and attacking from the north . They would describe this as a second breaking of the line but probably the battle soon degenerated into a confusing mêlée . With their best ships now surrounded by the mass of Dutch vessels and bearing the brunt of the fight , the slower remainder of the English fleet , largely consisting of poorly trained hired merchantmen , was , reaching the scene of the battle , not overly zealous to get involved . Their numerical superiority thus also gained the English little . The largest Dutch vessel , the Dutch East India Company warship " Vogelstruys " , by Dutch standards heavily armed with a lower tier of 18 - pounders , got separated from the rest of the Dutch fleet and was attacked by three English ships at once and boarded . Her crew was close to surrendering when her captain , the Frisian Douwe Aukes , threatened to blow her up first . Faced with this alternative the crew rallied , drove off the English boarding team and put up such a fight that the English vessels , much damaged and two even in a sinking condition , broke off the attack . The Dutch employed their favourite tactic of disabling enemy vessels by firing at their masts and rigging with chain shot ; at the end of the afternoon Ayscue , feeling rather unsupported , decided to break off the unsuccessful engagement and to retreat to Plymouth to repair his ships before any became so damaged they would be captured . The " Bonadventure " could only disengage after an English fireship , the " Charity " commanded by Captain Simon Orton , set itself alight and frightened off the attacking Dutch vessels . De Ruyter in his journal concluded : Neither side lost a warship , but both sides suffered heavy casualties among their crews . The Dutch had about sixty dead and fifty wounded . The reports on the English losses differ : one set the number as high as seven hundred casualties including the wounded ( most from the failed attack on the " Vogelstruys " ) , another mentioned 91 dead , among them Ayscue ' s flag captain Thomas Lisle . Rear - Admiral Michael Pack had a leg amputated and shortly afterwards died of the complications . The English spent one fireship . De Ruyter pursued the English fleet after its retreat . On the morning of the next day both forces transpired to be still close to each other and De Ruyter hoped by aggressively pursuing to capture some stragglers ; several English ships were in tow and might well be abandoned if he pressed hard enough . However Ayscue , fearing for his reputation , on 27 August convinced the English council of war to again give battle if necessary and brought his entire force safely back to Plymouth on 28 August . De Ruyter then sent two warships to escort the merchant fleet through the Channel to the Atlantic . For a while he considered trying to attack the enemy fleet at anchorage in Plymouth Sound , but in the end decided against it as he did not have the weather gauge . Then hearing that General - at - Sea Robert Blake was sailing to the west with a superior force of 72 , he chose to withdraw to the west and kept assembling incoming West Indies ships throughout September . On 25 September Blake had reached Portland and sent out a squadron of eighteen sail commanded by William Penn to intercept De Ruyter , but the latter escaped east along the French coast while Blake had been forced by a storm to seek shelter in Torbay . De Ruyter escorted twelve merchantmen safely to Calais on 2 October when his supplies had nearly run out . In October nine or ten of the Dutch ships , among them De Ruyter ' s flagship the " Kleine Neptunis " , then had to return to port for repairs , probably because of insufficiently repaired damage from the battle . Loss of prestige for the English and the beginning of fame for De Ruyter . The English ships had expected to easily defeat the Dutch in a set battle because of their superiority in armament and numbers . While the failure came as an unpleasant surprise to the English , the Dutch populace rejoiced in the tactical draw , hailing De Ruyter , who had not been well known among the larger public , as a naval hero . The English accused some merchantmen captains of cowardice . Ayscue was blamed for poor leadership and organisation : his attempt to present the encounter as a victory failed to convince . He lost command after this battle , though probably for political reasons : he had known royalist sympathies . Less important was his emphasis on capturing prizes while avoiding battle ; in the first year of the war this was a very common attitude , the English mainly seeing the conflict as one large privateer ing campaign , allowing them to gain riches at the expense of the Dutch ; only with the Battle of the Gabbard would they really try to establish naval dominion . This victory was very important to the naval career of De Ruyter : it was the first time he commanded an independent force as a fleet commander . Before , he only had had subcommand of a flotilla aiding Portugal in 1641 . As a result of the battle he acquired the nickname " The Sea Lion " . Before he could return home , De Ruyter was first involved in the Battle of the Kentish Knock but arriving in Middelburg he was received by the States of Zealand and rewarded with a golden honorary chain of a hundred Flemish pounds for both battles because he in the first had shown " masculine courage " and in the second " courageous prudence " — having convinced Witte de With to a timely retreat . Ships involved . No full list exists , and especially the English order of battle is poorly known ; the following are lists of known participants , with the Dutch list being the one still extant and containing the names of the original 23 warships and six fireships with which De Ruyter sailed from the Wielingen Capt . Thomas Varvell is the son - in - law of Capt . John Flower who is owner of Increase and father of Katherine Flower . England ( George Ayscue ) . Ships marked * are probables .