eight o'clock
`` They told me , though I know naught about it , that Rear-Admiral Lawson charged with the Blue Squadron right through the Dutch line , and so threw them into confusion . However , about three o'clock , the fight having begun at eleven , Van Tromp began to draw off , and we got more sail on the _ Resolution _ and followed them for some hours , they making a sort of running fight of it , till one of their big ships blew up , about nine in the evening , when they laid in for shore . Blake came up in the night with eighteen ships . The Dutch tried to draw off , but at eight o'clock we came up to them , and , after fighting for four hours , they hauled off and ran , in great confusion , for the flats , where we could not follow them , and so they escaped to Zeeland . We heard that they had six of their best ships sunk , two blown up and eleven taken , but whether it was so or not I knew not , for , in truth , I saw nothing whatever of the matter . `` We sailed to the Texel , and there blocked in De Ruyter 's squadron of twenty-five large ships , and we thought that there would be no more fighting , for the Dutch had sent to England to ask for terms of peace . However , we were wrong , and , to give the Dutchmen their due , they showed resolution greater than we gave them credit for , for we were astonished indeed to hear , towards the end of July , that Van Tromp had sailed out again with upwards of ninety ships .