Already it has been told how a great fleet sent under Antonio de Oquendo to drive the Dutch from the narrow seas was crushed by Admiral Tromp at the battle of the Downs.

In the same year the most formidable armada ever sent from the Peninsula across the ocean set sail for Brazil.

It consisted of no less than eighty-six vessels manned by 12,000 sailors and soldiers under the command of the Count de Torre.

Unpropitious weather conditions, as so often in the case of Spanish naval undertakings, ruined the enterprise.

Making for Bahia they were detained for two months in the Bay of All Saints by strong northerly winds.
Meanwhile Joan Maurice, whose naval force at first was deplorably weak, had managed by energetic efforts to gather together a respectable fleet of forty vessels under Admiral Loos, which resembled the English fleet of 1588 under Effingham and Drake, in that it made up for lack of numbers and of size by superior seamanship and skill in manoeuvring.