sentences:  France had blocked the usual land route to the Army of Flanders and in August De Oquendo was made a viscount and given command of a large transport fleet to ship reinforcements from Cadiz to Dunkirk.On 15 September he was intercepted near the Strait of Dover by the squadron of Dutch Lieutenant-Admiral Maarten Tromp, who was reinforced two days later by a flotilla of Vice-Admiral Witte de With.Though the Dutch force was rather small, consisting of only seventeen vessels, it managed by a clever use of the line-of-battle to severely damage the larger and crowded Spanish ships.