six o'clock in the morning
A council of war was held that night , and it was decided that the fleet should move up the bay with the tide next morning , and attack the Spanish fleet . The next morning at daybreak the ships got up their anchors and sailed up the channel , each commander vying with the rest in his eagerness to be first in the fray . They were soon hotly engaged with the enemy ; the fort , men of war , and galleys opening a heavy fire upon them , to which , anchoring as close as they could get to the foe , the English ships hotly responded . The galleys were driven closer in under the shelter of the fire of the fort , and the fire was kept up without intermission from six o'clock in the morning until four in the afternoon . By that time the Spaniards had had enough of it . The galleys slipped their cables and made sail for a narrow channel across the spit , covered by the guns of the fort . Three of them were captured by Sir John Wingfield in the vanguard , but the rest got through the channel and escaped .