The rear was separated (C'), in permitting which either Ruyter or the immediate commander was at fault; but the attempts made by the French to surround and isolate it failed, probably because of damaged spars, for one French ship did pass entirely around the separated division.

The action ended at 4.30 P.M., except in the rear, and the Spanish galleys shortly after came up and towed the disabled Dutch ships away.

Their escape shows how injured the French must have been.

The positions, C, C', are intended to show the Dutch rear far separated, and the disorder in which a fleet action under sail necessarily ended from loss of spars.
Those who are familiar with Clerk's work on naval tactics, published about 1780, will recognize in this account of the battle of Stromboli all the features to which he called the attention of English seamen in his thesis on the methods of action employed by them and their adversaries in and before his time.

Clerk's thesis started from the postulate that English seamen and officers were superior in skill or spirit, or both, to the French, and their ships on the whole as fast; that they were conscious of this superiority and therefore eager to attack, while the French, equally conscious of inferiority, or for other reasons, were averse to decisive engagements.