Another great battle took place on the 3rd and 4th of June, between Van Tromp and Generals Deane and Monk. On the first day the Dutch seem to have had somewhat the advantage: on the second Blake arrived with a reinforcement of eighteen sail, which turned the scale in favour of the English. Bad health obliged him then to quit the sea, so that he was not present at the last great victory of July 29, in which Van Tromp was killed. But out of respect for his services the Parliament presented him with a gold chain, as well as the admirals who had actually commanded in the battle. When Cromwell dissolved the Long Parliament, and assumed the office of Protector, Blake, though in his principles a republican, did not refuse to acknowledge the new administration. In conjunction with Deane and Monk he published a declaration of their resolution, “notwithstanding the late change, to proceed in the performance of their duties, and the trust reposed in them against the enemies of the Commonwealth.” He is reported to have said to his officers, “It is not our business to mind state-affairs, but to keep foreigners from fooling us.” He sat in the two first Parliaments summoned by the Protector, who always treated him with great respect. Nor was Cromwell’s acknowledged sagacity in the choice of men at fault, when he chose Blake to command a strong fleet, sent into the Mediterranean in November, 1654, to uphold the honour of the English flag, and to demand reparation for the slights and injuries done to the nation during that stormy period of civil war, when our own discord had made others daring against us. In better hands such a mission could not have been placed. Dutch, French, and Spaniards alike concurred in rendering unusual honours to his flag. The Duke of Tuscany and the Order of Malta made compensation for injuries done to the English commerce. The piratical states of Algiers and Tripoli were terrified into submission, and promised to abstain from further violence. The Dey of Tunis held out, confident in the strength of his fortifications. “Here,” he said, “are our castles of Goletta and Porto Ferino: do your worst; do you think we fear your fleet?” Blake took the same course as, in our own time, Lord Exmouth did against Algiers: he bore right into the bay of Porto Ferino; engaged the fortress within musket shot, and in less than two hours silenced or dismounted its guns; and sending a detachment of boats into the harbour, burnt the shipping which lay there. After this example he found no more difficulty in dealing with the African states.
War having been declared between Spain and England, in 1656, Blake took his station to blockade the bay of Cadiz. At this period his constitution was much broken, insomuch that, in the expectation of a speedy death, he sent home a request that some person proper to be his successor might be joined in commission with him. General Montague was accordingly sent out with a strong squadron. Being obliged to quit the coast of Spain in September to obtain water for his fleet, Blake left Captain Stayner with seven ships to watch the enemy. In this interval the Spanish Plate fleet appeared. Stayner captured four ships richly laden with bullion; the rest escaped. Montague conducted the prizes home, so that Blake was again left alone in the Mediterranean. In the ensuing spring, having learnt that another Plate fleet had put into the island of Teneriffe, he sailed thither, and arrived in the road of Santa Cruz, April 20. The bay was strongly fortified, with a formidable castle at the entrance, and a connected chain of minor forts all round it. The naval force collected there was also considerable, and strongly posted, the smaller vessels being placed under the guns of the forts, the galleons strongly moored with their broadsides to the sea; insomuch that the Spanish Governor, a man of courage and ability, felt perfectly at ease as to the security of his charge. The master of a Dutch ship, which was lying in the harbour, was less satisfied, and went to the Governor to request leave to quit the harbour; “For I am sure,” he said, “that Blake will presently be among you.” The Governor made a confident reply. “Begone if you will, and let Blake come if he dares.” Daring was the last thing wanting; nor did the Admiral hesitate, as a wise man might well have done, about the real difficulties of the enterprise in which he was about to engage. The wind blowing into the bay, he sent in Captain Stayner with a squadron to attack the shipping, placed others in such a manner as to take off, and, as far as possible, to silence the fire of the castle and the forts, and himself following, assisted Stayner in capturing the galleons, which, though inferior in number, were superior in size and force to the English ships. This was completed by two o’clock in the afternoon, the engagement having commenced at eight in the morning. Hopeless of being able to carry the prizes out of the bay against an adverse wind, and a still active enemy, Blake gave orders to burn them: and it is probable that he himself might have found some difficulty in beating out of the bay under the fire of the castle, which was still lively, when on a sudden, the wind which had blown strong into the bay, suddenly veered round to the south-west, and favoured his retreat, as it had favoured his daring approach. Of this, the most remarkable, as it was the last exploit of Blake’s life, Clarendon says, “The whole action was so incredible, that all men who knew the place wondered that any sober man, with what courage soever endowed, would ever have undertaken it; and they could hardly persuade themselves to believe what they had done: while the Spaniards comforted themselves with the belief, that they were devils and not men who had destroyed them in such a manner. So much a strong resolution of bold and courageous men can bring to pass, that no resistance or advantage of ground can disappoint them; and it can hardly be imagined how small a loss the English sustained in this unparalleled action, not one ship being left behind, and the killed and wounded not exceeding two hundred men; when the slaughter on board the Spanish ships and on shore was incredible.”
It will be recollected with interest that, on the same spot, Nelson lost his arm, in an unsuccessful night-attempt to capture Santa Cruz with an armed force in boats.
For this service the thanks of Parliament were voted to the officers and seamen engaged, with a diamond ring to the Admiral worth 500l. Blake returned to his old station off Cadiz; but the increase of his disorders, which were dropsy and scurvy, raised a desire in him to return to England, which, however, he did not live to fulfil. He died as he was entering Plymouth Sound, August 17, 1657. His body was transported to London, and buried with great pomp in Westminster Abbey, at the public expense. After the Revolution it was thought unworthy to remain in that treasure-house of England’s departed greatness; and with the bones of others who had found a resting-place there during the short period of the Commonwealth, it was transferred to St. Margaret’s churchyard. It has been disputed whether this was done with more or less of indecency; but the matter is little worth inquiry. The real indecency and folly lay in thinking that any ground, however sanctified by the reverent associations of centuries, could be polluted by the tomb of a man whose leading passion was the glory of his country, and who made the name and flag of that country respected wheresoever he carried it: a man of whom not one mean or interested action is recorded, and whose great qualities extorted praise even from the Royalists. Bate, in his ‘Elenchus Motuum,’ speaks of him as a man “blameable in this only, that he joined with the parricides;” and it may be remarked that Dr. Bate’s horror of a parricide did not prevent his being physician to Cromwell, as well as to Charles I. and II.
We conclude with Clarendon’s character of this great man. “He was of private extraction, yet had enough left him by his father to give him a good education, which his own inclination disposed him to receive in the University of Oxford, where he took the degree of a Master of Arts, and was enough versed in books for a man who intended not to be of any profession, having sufficient of his own to maintain him in the plenty he affected, and having then no appearance of ambition to be a greater man than he was. He was of a melancholic and sullen nature, and spent his time most with good fellows, who liked his moroseness, and a freedom he used in inveighing against the licence of the time and the power of the court. They who knew him inwardly, discovered that he had an anti-monarchical spirit, when few men thought the government in any danger.” After a short sketch of Blake’s actions in the civil war, the noble author continues, “He then betook himself wholly to the sea, and quickly made himself signal there. He was the first man that declined the old track, and made it manifest that the science might be attained in less time than was imagined, and despised those rules which had long been in practice, to keep his ship and his men out of danger; which had been held in former times a point of great ability and circumspection, as if the principal art requisite in the captain of a ship had been to be sure to come safe home again. He was the first man who brought the ships to contemn castles on shore, which had been thought ever very formidable, and were discovered by him to make a noise only, and to fright those who could be rarely hurt by them. He was the first who infused that proportion of courage into the seamen, by making them see by experience what mighty things they could do, if they were resolved, and taught them to fight in fire as well as upon water, and though he has been very well imitated and followed, he was the first that gave the example of that kind of naval courage, and bold and resolute achievements.”
The earliest life of Blake which we have seen is in the second volume of a collection entitled ‘Lives English and Foreign,’ published at the beginning of the last century. Clarendon’s History of the Rebellion, Heath’s Chronicle of the Civil Wars, the Memoirs of Ludlow, Whitelock, and other contemporary authorities, will furnish minute accounts of the many battles of which we have here only made short mention.
Engraved by R. Woodman.
L’HÔPITAL.
From the original by Janet, in the Musée Royal, Paris.
Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge.
London, Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street.
