While Darby was beating down Channel in the early days of August, 1781, Vice-Admiral Hyde Parker, lately Rodney’s second in command in the West Indies, was returning to England convoying a large merchant fleet from the Baltic.  On the 5th of August, at daylight, a Dutch squadron, also with a convoy, but outward bound, from the Texel to the Baltic, was discovered in the south-west, near the Doggersbank.  Heading as the two enemies then were, their courses must shortly intersect.  Parker, therefore, ordered his convoy to steer to the westward for England, while he himself bore down for the enemy.  The Dutch Rear-Admiral, Johan Arnold Zoutman, on the contrary, kept the merchant vessels with him, under his lee, but drew out the ships of war from among them, to form his order on the side towards the enemy.  Each opponent put seven sail into the line.  The British vessels, besides being of different rates, were chiefly very old ships, dragged out from Rotten Row to meet the pressing emergency caused by the greatly superior forces which were in coalition against Great Britain.  Owing to the decayed condition of some of them, their batteries had been lightened, to the detriment of their fighting power.  Two of them, however, were good and new seventy-fours.  It is probable that the Dutch vessels, after a long peace, were not much better than their antagonists.  In fact, each squadron was a scratch lot, in the worst sense of the phrase.  The conduct of the affair by the two admirals, even to the very intensity of their pugnaciousness, contributes a tinge of the comic to the history of a desperately fought action.  The breeze was fresh at north-east, and the sea smooth.  The Dutch, being to leeward, awaited attack, forming line on the port tack, heading south-east by east, a point off the wind, under topsails and foresails, a cable’s length apart.  There is little room to doubt that an adversary who thus holds his ground means to make a stand-up fight, but Parker, although the sun of a midsummer day had scarcely risen, thought advisable to order a general chase.  Of course, no ship spared her canvas to this, while the worse sailers had to set their studdingsails to keep up; and the handling of the sails took the men off from the preparations for battle.  Parker, who doubtless was still sore over Rodney’s censure of the year before, and who moreover had incurred the Admiralty’s rebuke, for apparent hesitation to attack the enemy’s islands while temporarily in command in the West Indies, was determined now to show the fight that was in him.  “It is related that, upon being informed of the force of the Dutch squadron in the morning, he replied (pulling up his breeches), ’It matters little what their force is; we must fight them if they are double the number.’” At 6.10 A.M. the signal was made for line abreast, the ships running down nearly before the wind.  This of course introduced more regularity, the leading ships taking in their lighter sails to permit the others to reach their places; but the pace still was rapid.  At 6.45 the order was closed to one cable, and at 7.56 the signal for battle was hoisted.  It is said that at that moment the 80-gun ship was still securing a studding-sail-boom, which indicates how closely action trod on the heels of preparation.