Qualla: Battle of Portland

Battle of Portland: Introduction

Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit James Grant, Public domain. Tromp had 152 merchantmen to protect, and the English had cut him off. On 28 February 1653, off the long pebble spit of Chesil Beach with Portland Bill at his stern, the Dutch admiral signaled a general attack and bore down on Robert Blake's flagship Triumph at point-blank range. Brederode fired one broadside, then turned and fired another from the other side, then turned again and fired a third, all of this within a few hundred meters. Blake veered away and decided to fight at long range. Both men would later die for this war. Tromp would be killed by an English musket ball five months later at Scheveningen. Blake would survive the conflict but die of fever in 1657, still in active service. What they began here, in the Channel off Portland, was three days of running gunnery that taught the English how to fight at sea.

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Image: James Grant | Public domain

Battle of Portland: The Two Republics

Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit James Grant, Public domain. The First Anglo-Dutch War was a fight between two seventeenth-century commercial powers for control of trade routes. England and the United Provinces had been allies in the long struggle against Habsburg Spain, but with Charles I dead, with Oliver Cromwell consolidated as Lord Pr...

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Image: James Grant | Public domain

Battle of Portland: The Education of an Admiralty

Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit «ВЭС». (СПб; 1914 год)., Public domain. England lost the first major fleet action at Dungeness in November 1652. Tromp drove Blake into the Thames estuary and emerged from the battle with what English propaganda claimed was a broom lashed to his masthead, signaling that he had swept the Channel clean. The English Admir...

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Image: «ВЭС». (СПб; 1914 год). | Public domain

Battle of Portland: Brederode Against Triumph

Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit James Grant, Public domain. Tromp's convoy had been waiting at La Rochelle for the weather to break. He sailed on 24 February with 152 merchantmen and reached the Channel four days later, where lookouts spotted Blake's fleet trying to bar his way. The Dutch admiral had the weather gauge, the wind in his fav...

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Image: James Grant | Public domain

Battle of Portland: Two More Days, and a Wound in the Thigh

Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit James Grant, Public domain. The second day was English. With the wind now in their favor, Blake's fleet tried five separate times to break the Dutch line and failed. But while the fleets fought, twelve Dutch merchantmen made a run for it against Tromp's explicit orders, and Blake's frigates caught them. By ...

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Image: James Grant | Public domain

Battle of Portland: The Bitter Lesson

Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit James Grant, Public domain. Both sides claimed victory. The Dutch crowds rejoiced at what they were told was a glorious defense. Tromp and his flag officers, returning home, knew better. They told the States-General that the English had begun to use line tactics that no amount of Dutch seamanship could over...

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Image: James Grant | Public domain