The British loss was forty-four killed, and one hundred and twenty-eight wounded.
Nelson returned to the Downs, bitterly grieved, but not greatly discouraged.

The mishap, he said, was due to the boats not arriving at the same moment; and that, he knew, was caused by conditions of currents, which would ever prevent the dull flatboats of the enemy moving in a concert that the cutters of ships of war had not attained.
"The craft which I have seen," he wrote, "I do not think it possible to _row_ to England; and sail they cannot." As yet, however, he had not visited Flushing, and he felt it necessary to satisfy himself on that point.

On the 24th of August, taking some pilots with him, he went across and inspected the ground, where the officer in charge of the British observing squadron was confident something might be effected.

Nelson, however, decided otherwise.

"I cannot but admire Captain Owen's zeal in his anxious desire to get at the enemy, but I am afraid it has made him overleap sand-banks and tides, and laid him aboard the enemy.