Dealing with Galleons as United Provinces

I was playing as United Provinces and had just managed to get up a nice trading empire,while fending off Bavaria,that wanted my provinces. Then Spain decided to attack my trade nodes with a fleet that had 4 galleons in it,and I can't deal with that kind of firepower at this point. Besides pulling out of the trade zone altogether,how do I cope with this? They don't want the trade nodes,they seem content chasing my ships around the zone. Is there a way to cripple Spains economy at the start,so,that they can't build the things in such numbers.as I was enjoying my game,until this happened..

Most ships can out run a galleon. I know this may sound odd but what you have to do is set your battles on the shortest settings for these battles and spend 20 min. running away from them.

If you do not get sunk then you win as the defender and the attacker has to retreat. I hope you have a few good fast war ships to deal with any brigs or whatever he has.

I hope this helps you out just a bit.