The natural steadfastness and heroism of the Hollanders could not wholly supply that professional pride and sense of military honor which it is the object of sound military institutions to encourage.

Popular feeling in the United States is pretty much at sea in this matter; there is with it no intermediate step between personal courage with a gun in its hand and entire military efficiency.
Opdam, seeing the battle going against him, seems to have yielded to a feeling approaching despair.

He sought to grapple the English commander-in-chief, who on this day was the Duke of York, the king's brother.

He failed in this, and in the desperate struggle which followed, his ship blew up.

Shortly after, three, or as one account says four, Dutch ships ran foul of one another, and this group was burned by one fire-ship; three or four others singly met the same fate a little later.