Blake had weakened his fleet by many detachments, and lay with no more than forty sail in the Downs, very ill provided both with men and ammunition, and expecting new supplies from those whose animosity hindered them from providing them, and who chose rather to see the trade of their country distressed, than the sea officers exalted by a new acquisition of honour and influence.
Van Trump, desirous of distinguishing himself, at the resumption of his command, by some remarkable action, had assembled eighty ships of war, and ten fireships, and steered towards the Downs, where Blake, with whose condition and strength he was probably acquainted, was then stationed. Blake, not able to restrain his natural ardour, or, perhaps, not fully informed of the superiority of his enemies, put out to encounter them, though his fleet was so weakly manned, that half of his ships were obliged to lie idle without engaging, for want of sailors. The force of the whole Dutch fleet was, therefore, sustained by about twenty-two ships. Two of the English frigates, named the Vanguard and the Victory, after having, for a long time, stood engaged amidst the whole Dutch fleet, broke through without much injury, nor did the English lose any ships till the evening, when the Garland, carrying forty guns, was boarded, at once, by two great ships, which were opposed by the English, till they had scarcely any men left to defend the decks; then retiring into the lower part of the vessel, they blew up their decks, which were now possessed by the enemy, and, at length, were overpowered and taken. The Bonaventure, a stout well-built merchant ship, going to relieve the Garland, was attacked by a man of war, and, after a stout resistance, in which the captain, who defended her with the utmost bravery, was killed, was likewise carried off by the Dutch. Blake, in the Triumph, seeing the Garland in distress, pressed forward to relieve her, but in his way had his foremast shattered, and was himself boarded; but, beating off the enemies, he disengaged himself, and retired into the Thames, with the loss only of two ships of force, and four small frigates, but with his whole fleet much shattered. Nor was the victory gained at a cheap rate, notwithstanding the unusual disproportion of strength; for of the Dutch flagships, one was blown up, and the other two disabled; a proof of the English bravery, which should have induced Van Trump to have spared the insolence of carrying a broom at his top-mast, in his triumphant passage through the Channel, which he intended as a declaration, that he would sweep the seas of the English shipping; this, which he had little reason to think of accomplishing, he soon after perished in attempting.
There are, sometimes, observations and inquiries, which all historians seem to decline by agreement, of which this action may afford us an example: nothing appears, at the first view, more to demand our curiosity, or afford matter for examination, than this wild encounter of twenty-two ships, with a force, according to their accounts who favour the Dutch, three times superiour. Nothing can justify a commander in fighting under such disadvantages, but the impossibility of retreating. But what hindered Blake from retiring, as well before the fight, as after it? To say he was ignorant of the strength of the Dutch fleet, is to impute to him a very criminal degree of negligence; and, at least, it must be confessed, that from the time he saw them, he could not but know that they were too powerful to be opposed by him, and even then there was time for retreat. To urge the ardour of his sailors, is to divest him of the authority of a commander, and to charge him with the most reproachful weakness that can enter into the character of a general. To mention the impetuosity of his own courage, is to make the blame of his temerity equal to the praise of his valour; which seems, indeed, to be the most gentle censure that the truth of history will allow. We must then admit, amidst our eulogies and applauses, that the great, the wise, and the valiant Blake, was once betrayed to an inconsiderate and desperate enterprise, by the resistless ardour of his own spirit, and a noble jealousy of the honour of his country.
It was not long, before he had an opportunity of revenging his loss, and restraining the insolence of the Dutch. On the 18th of February, 1652-3, Blake, being at the head of eighty sail, and assisted, at his own request, by colonels Monk and Dean, espied Van Trump, with a fleet of above one hundred men of war, as Clarendon relates, of seventy by their own publick accounts, and three hundred merchant ships under his convoy. The English, with their usual intrepidity, advanced towards them; and Blake, in the Triumph, in which he always led his fleet, with twelve ships more, came to an engagement with the main body of the Dutch fleet, and by the disparity of their force was reduced to the last extremity, having received in his hull no fewer than seven hundred shots, when Lawson, in the Fairfax, came to his assistance. The rest of the English fleet now came in, and the fight was continued with the utmost degree of vigour and resolution, till the night gave the Dutch an opportunity of retiring, with the loss of one flagship, and six other men of war. The English had many vessels damaged, but none lost. On board Lawson's ship were killed one hundred men, and as many on board Blake's, who lost his captain and secretary, and himself received a wound in the thigh.
Blake, having set ashore his wounded men, sailed in pursuit of Van Trump, who sent his convoy before, and himself retired fighting towards Bulloign. Blake ordered his light frigates to follow the merchants; still continued to harass Van Trump; and, on the third day, the 20th of February, the two fleets came to another battle, in which Van Trump once more retired before the English, and, making use of the peculiar form of his shipping, secured himself in the shoals. The accounts of this fight, as of all the others, are various; but the Dutch writers themselves confess, that they lost eight men of war, and more than twenty merchant ships; and, it is probable, that they suffered much more than they are willing to allow, for these repeated defeats provoked the common people to riots and insurrections, and obliged the states to ask, though ineffectually, for peace.
In April following, the form of government in England was changed, and the supreme authority assumed by Cromwell; upon which occasion Blake, with his associates, declared that, notwithstanding the change in the administration, they should still be ready to discharge their trust, and to defend the nation from insults, injuries, and encroachments. "It is not," said Blake, "the business of a sea-man to mind state affairs, but to hinder foreigners from fooling us." This was the principle from which he never deviated, and which he always endeavoured to inculcate in the fleet, as the surest foundation of unanimity and steadiness. "Disturb not one another with domestick disputes, but remember that we are English, and our enemies are foreigners. Enemies! which, let what party soever prevail, it is equally the interest of our country to humble and restrain."
After the 30th of April, 1653, Blake, Monk, and Dean sailed out of the English harbours with one hundred men of war, and finding the Dutch with seventy sail on their own coasts, drove them to the Texel, and took fifty doggers. Then they sailed northward in pursuit of Van Trump, who, having a fleet of merchants under his convoy, durst not enter the Channel, but steered towards the Sound, and, by great dexterity and address, escaped the three English admirals, and brought all his ships into their harbour; then, knowing that Blake was still in the north, came before Dover, and fired upon that town, but was driven off by the castle.
Monk and Dean stationed themselves again at the mouth of the Texel, and blocked up the Dutch in their own ports with eighty sail; but hearing that Van Trump was at Goree, with one hundred and twenty men of war, they ordered all ships of force in the river and ports to repair to them.
On June the 3rd, the two fleets came to an engagement, in the beginning of which Dean was carried off by a cannon-ball; yet the fight continued from about twelve to six in the afternoon, when the Dutch gave way, and retreated fighting.
On the 4th, in the afternoon, Blake came up with eighteen fresh ships, and procured the English a complete victory; nor could the Dutch any otherwise preserve their ships than by retiring, once more, into the flats and shallows, where the largest of the English vessels could not approach.