The two unnamed 24-gun Dutch escorts may have come from within the merchant convoy rather than from the regular navy. One reconstruction has the merchants drawing lots to decide which vessels would carry guns and perform escort duty instead of returning with a normal cargo. Those ships would receive a small share of the profits earned by the rest of the convoy, making the defensive burden commercially worthwhile. Because only 25 merchant ships were captured, surviving records do not clearly reveal which two had served as the armed escorts.
Notable Point · 9:32-10:16
How merchantmen could be assigned convoy-defense duty
Two unnamed 24-gun escorts may have been merchant ships armed for the voyage and compensated from the convoy's shared profits.