Aware of this disadvantage, The Royal Prince tried to get out of her opponent’s reach, but the light wind would not serve her, and de Ruyter brought about a collision, driving the port bow of The Seven Provinces into the enemy’s starboard side.
The English marines on the poop commenced a steady fire of musketry, but the Dutch 36-pounders tore a hole in their enemy’s close-pressed side and the deck guns crippled her masts.
The smoke was already so thick that the sky was entirely obscured; the stifling vapour was rent across by the flashes of fire from the guns and the fresh spurts of white smoke that followed each shot.
The roar of the great cannon below was incessant; splinters flew from each ship, and the planks of the Dutch vessel became so heated with her own cannonade that seamen had to stand ready with buckets of water to extinguish the flames.
As the enemy was so close in their embrace the Dutch from the nettings kept up a continuous fire that picked off numbers of the English crew, while the swivel guns on the forecastle heavily raked the enemy’s masts and rigging.
Michael de Ruyter, walking up and down the upper deck giving his orders, stopped beside the chair of Cornelius de Witt.
The air was foul with the smell of powder, and they could hardly hear each other for the thunder of the guns.
“How long will she hold out, Admiral?” asked the Ruard.
“I think she will be badly beaten in a very little while,” answered de Ruyter, with his thumbs in his embroidered sash.
The musketry fire was playing round Cornelius de Witt, but he did not even seem to notice it. A ball had buried itself in the deck a few inches from the stool where his bandaged feet rested; two of his guards had already fallen, been carried to the rails by the silent survivors and flung overboard.