Ruyter was short of munitions in the contest already commenced against the French and English fleet.
"Out of thirty-two battles I have been in I never saw any like it," said the Dutch admiral after the battle of Soultbay (Solebay) on the 7th of June.

"Ruyter is admiral, captain, pilot, sailor, and soldier all in one," exclaimed the English.

Cornelius van Witt in the capacity of commissioner of the Estates had remained seated on the deck of the admiral's vessel during the fight, indifferent to the bullets that rained around him.

The issue of the battle was indecisive; Count d'Estrees, at the head of the French flotilla, had taken little part in the action.
It was not at sea and by the agency of his lieutenants that Louis XIV.
aspired to gain the victory; he had already arrived at the banks of the Rhine, marching straight into the very heart of Holland.

"I thought it more advantageous for my designs, and less common on the score of glory," he wrote to Colbert on the 31st of May, "to attack four places at once on the Rhine, and to take the actual command in person at all four sieges...
.