[2] In September 1652 the government of the Commonwealth of England, the Council of State, mistakenly believing that the United Provinces after their defeat at the Battle of the Kentish Knock would desist from bringing out a fleet so late in the season, sent away ships to the Mediterranean and the Baltic.

At the same time the largest English vessels remained in repair and active ships were undermanned as sailors deserted or rioted because their wages were in arrears.

On 21 November 1652 Old Style, 1 December New Style, Lieutenant-Admiral Maarten Tromp, again (unofficial) supreme commander after his successor Vice-Admiral Witte de With had suffered a breakdown because of his defeat at the Battle of the Kentish Knock, set sail from the naval port of Hellevoetsluis with 88 men of war and five fireships, escorting a vast convoy of 270 merchantmen bound for France, the Mediterranean and the Indies.

With the convoy, accompanied by sixteen warships, safely delivered through the Straits of Dover, Tromp turned to the west in search of the English, and on 29 November 1652 he discovered the English fleet of 42 capital ships and ten smaller vessels anchored in the Downs, between the landheads of North Foreland and South Foreland, commanded by General at Sea Robert Blake.

Blake may not have realised how large the Dutch fleet was, or he may have feared to become trapped like the Spanish had been some years earlier in the Battle of the Downs.

Noticing the plight of his commander, Vice-Admiral Johan Evertsen in turn boarded the port of the Anthony Bonaventure with his Hollandia, so that four ships were now attached.

In ferocious fighting his men, losing sixty, killed the entire crew of the Anthony Bonaventure, including Captain Walter Hoxton.

When Tromp's secretary, standing next to him, was killed by a musket ball, he exhorted the combined crews of the Brederode and the Hollandia to assault the Garland, exclaiming "Children, things cannot go on this way.

[4] Blake tried to assist the Garland and the Anthony Bonaventure but was constantly attacked by Dutch flagships such as the Princes Louise of Johan de Liefde and the Monnickendam of Pieter Florisse.

Annoyed, Commodore Michiel de Ruyter on the Witte Lam entered the exit in the opposite direction to attack the mass of the English ships but no one followed him and he was forced to withdraw.

Two new frigates, the Ruby and the Sapphire, managed to escape, but the Hercules, an armed merchantman, was run ashore by her captain, Zachary Browne.

Most of the crew fled inland and the Hercules, and Browne, were captured by the Haes in 't Veld of Bastiaan Centsen, who managed to refloat the vessel.

[4] Returning to the Strait of Dover, Tromp allowed his merchant convoy to split up, each group of merchantmen continuing its way towards their individual destination together with their protecting warships.

Tromp considered attacking Blake in the Medway, but despite offering a reward of fifty Flemish pounds, in the entire Dutch fleet not a single pilot could be found who dared to navigate these dangerous waters.

The Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty responded by requiring all impressed vessels to be under the command of naval captains, and issuing Sailing and Fighting Instructions which significantly enhanced an admiral's authority over his fleet.

A legend says that Tromp attached a broom to his mast as a sign that he had swept the sea clean of his enemies, but in his book The Command of the Ocean, N.A.M.