Action of 12–17 January 1640

Part of the Eighty Years' War, Dutch–Portuguese War

Date	12–17 January 1640
Location	Itamaracá, off Pernambuco, Brazil
Result	Tactically Inconclusive

Belligerents

Iberian Union:

United Provinces

Commanders and leaders

Fernando de Mascarenhas

Willem Loos †

Strength

30 Galleons,
34 armed transports,
13 small vessels

30 warships and supply ships,
10 small vessels

Casualties and losses

2 vessels lost

2 vessels
or 8 vessels lost

Iberian Union:

The Action of 12–17 January 1640 was a naval battle between a Dutch fleet and a combined Spanish-Portuguese fleet during the Eighty Years' War. The battle took place on the Brazilian coast off Pernambuco and was an attempt by a fleet consisting of approximately eighty vessels transporting about 5,000 soldiers under the command of Portuguese Admiral Fernando de Mascarenhas to land reinforcements to bolster the Portuguese militia besieging the city of Recife. On 12 January this fleet was intercepted by a Dutch task force of about forty ships commanded by Willem Loos. The ensuing battle lasted with occasional breaks until the evening of 17 January, when the Spanish and Portuguese fleet retreated and sailed away to the north.

About 30 Spanish and Portuguese vessels under Admiral don Lope de Hoces arrived off the Dutch Brazil in November 1635. Although the fleet failed to overran Pernambuco, supplies and 2,500 Spanish, Portuguese, and Neapolitan reinforcements were successfully landed at the Lagunas under General Luis de Rojas. The Dutch vessels in the area were driven off and De Hoces spent some months escorting a sugar convoy to the Spanish Main and preparing a counter-invasion of the Dutch-held island of Curaçao which was finally abandoned because the siege train was lost in a wreck. The expedition was seen as success in Spain, however, because the landed troops greatly contributed to defeat John Maurits of Nassau's attack over Bahia. Another expedition was planned at Hoces'a arrivel to retake the Dutch base of Pernambuco.

The command of this expedition would be entrusted to Miguel de Noronha, 4th Count of Linhares, for which he was appointed Capitán General del Mar Océano, but he eventually declined to lead the fleet as he did not trust in the success of the expedition.García Álvarez de Toledo, 6th Marquis of Villafranca also rejected its command, but not the Count of Torre, Dom Fernando de Mascarenhas, former Portuguese governor of Tangier. The same day that the French siege of Hondarribia was lifted, he was given the command of 41 ships, of which 23 were Portuguese and were commanded by Admiral Dom Francisco Melo de Castro and Vice Adm. Dom Cosme Couto de Barbosa, and 18 were Castilian under Admiral Juan de la Vega y Bazán and Vice Adm. Francisco Díaz de Pimienta. 5,000 soldiers of infantry were embarked aboard this ships. Half of them were of the Tercio de Anfibios, a unit specialized in the naval fighting.

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