Battle
A Spanish fleet of ninety vessels and 5,500 men under the direction of Don Francisco de Moncada, Marquis of Aytona, but in fact commanded by Count Jan van Nassau Siegen, a catholic cousin of the Calvinist Dutch House of Orange, mostly consisting of small transports, departed from Antwerp.
The project could not be kept a secret however and a Dutch task force of fifty ships, also largely consisting of small rivercraft but containing some larger flyboats, under Zealandic Vice-Admiral Marinus Hollare, intercepted the fleet in the Eastern Scheldt. Seeing their intended route blocked, the Spanish first tried to capture the more southern island of Tholen instead, to show something for their efforts, but this attempt was thwarted by a regiment of two thousand English and Scots mercenaries under the command of Colonel Thomas Morgan from the continental fortress of Steenbergen who marched at low tide through the shallow sea to the island, arriving just in time to deter a landing. Van Nassau in his desperation then took the bold decision to attempt to sneak past the Dutch fleet during the night and so achieve the original goal after all. [1]
The Spanish movement however was noticed despite a fog; despite their small number the Dutch first allowed the enemy fleet to pass completely before cutting them off. Once this was achieved the Dutch suddenly attacked the Spanish from behind in the Slaak of Volkerak channel and were routed. Hundreds drowned as they tried to escape the ships and those that did escape were captured by the waiting Dutch and English troops ashore. Over 4,000 troops and seamen were captured along with the majority of ships. Van Nassau himself and two ships accompanying him managed to escape to Antwerp; it is not exactly known how many others escaped, perhaps as much as a third of his fleet.
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Dutch Ceylon was a governorate established in present-day Sri Lanka by the Dutch East India Company. Although the Dutch managed to capture most of the coastal areas in Sri Lanka, they were never able to control the Kingdom of Kandy located in the interior of the island. Dutch Ceylon existed from 1640 until 1796.
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The period between the Capture of Brielle and the Pacification of Ghent was an early stage of the Eighty Years' War between the Spanish Empire and groups of rebels in the Habsburg Netherlands.
Spain 
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