Defying all discipline, he left, without orders, de Ruyter’s squadron, to which he belonged, and advanced to The Royal James across the black pool of waters the battle enclosed. The exploit was daring to recklessness, for the English ship carried 102 guns and 900 men, while his little vessel was only armed with 70 guns and 300 men.
An angry broadside from the great ship met her rash foe; Captain Van Brakel approached without replying.
The Royal James, alarmed at this manœuvre, spread her topsails and tried to sheer off; but Van Brakel was too quick. He hauled his wind, drew up alongside the English, threw out his grappling irons and seized her, while his quarter-deck guns blew away her cordage and rigging.
Despite The Royal James’ desperate efforts the two ships remained locked together. There was a rush of Dutch to the sides, an answering charge on the part of the English, and the crews mingled in a fierce hand-to-hand fight with muskets, pistols, swords, and even sticks and fragments of iron.
Van Brakel, regardless of a broken collar-bone and a cut on his forehead that blinded him, led his men himself.
The sheer Anglo-Saxon genius for fighting rose in the English; let their cause be good or bad they could not have fought more fiercely.
The Earl of Sandwich, with a broken sword in his hand, and panting a little by reason of his stoutness, ran up with his officers.
“Don’t let the damned Dutchmen board!” he shouted, and a yell of fury rose to answer him.
The Netherlanders, silent but equally in earnest, pressed over the bodies of their comrades and closed with the English on the deck of their own ship, clinging to the rails, the grappling irons, even to the guns, some of which many succeeded in ramming under the very eyes of the gunners.