Minutes of a Council of War, held before the Battle of Dungeness.

Administrative / biographical background
On the evening of 29th November 1652, during the First Dutch War, the Dutch fleet of seventy-eight men-of-war under Admiral Maarten Tromp lay under the cliffs of the South Foreland, near Dover, while the English fleet of forty-three warships under General-at-Sea Robert Blake anchored in Dover Road, the two fleets being prevented from engaging by a North West gale force. When the wind lifted on the 30th November, the two fleets finally engaged off Dungeness, an action which resulted in the defeat of the English and Tromp's gaining control of the Straits. This document, hurriedly drawn up (as indicated by the scribal interpolations) following an urgent council of war on board Robert Blake's flagship the TRIUMPH, bears witness to his council's resolutions before the battle to 'gett out of ye Downes And endeavour to prevent the Enemy from intercepting those shipps...expected from the West', not to follow the Enemy if he should bear away to the East, to engage with the 'great shipps' first 'and soe all one after another as neere as might bee', but to waive a sign for a ship's distress as being 'Daungerous' . In fact, in the ensuing battle a number of English ships refrained from joining in while the 'great ships' (including the VANGUARD and VICTORY) were heavily pressed. Robert Blake wrote to the Council of State on the 1st December of a prevailing 'baseness of spirit' and he personally brought a charge of neglect of duty against his brother Benjamin. Benjamin Blake, with four other commanders, was afterwards brought to trial and discharged from his command.