[5][6] Although minor, the battle had significant consequences in testing English armaments used against the Spanish armada two years later when England was under threat of invasion.

After the Treaty of Nonsuch in 1585 and the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots, in February 1587, Philip II of Spain decided to invade England and war was declared.

[10] Philip II's maritime force lay mainly within the Straits of Gibraltar where two squadrons of galleys were cruising under Giovanni Andrea Doria.

[11] Five of the Levant company's ships left London in November 1585 – the 300 ton galleon Merchant Royal (being head of the fleet) under "acting admiral" Edward Wilkinson and the William and John were bound for Tripoli and the Toby for Constantinople.

[12] On 13 July 1586, near the island of Pantelleria, between Tunis and Sicily, the English fleet sighted a number of ships that turned out to be galleys, eleven in all supported by two frigates.

[5][8] The Spanish and Maltese galleys could not get close enough to the English ships to use their big fifty-pounder guns, mounted in the waist line, without being seriously damaged.

William and John was very nearly a casualty after briefly grounding as the English were hugging the shoreline, but the wind was strong enough to carry the ship forward to safety.

[3] They put into Algiers for supplies, and then successfully ran the gauntlet of a second group of Spanish galleys which was waiting for them in the Gibraltar straits.