battle of the English commonwealth; fought, as every battle ought to be fought, with the most desperate resolution on both sides. Blake, Deane, Penn, Monk, and Lawson commanded the English; Van Tromp, De Ruyter, Evertz, Swers, and Floritz commanded the Dutch. Both nations had done their best, and the best men of both were there. It was a grand fight—far more deadly than even the battle of Trafalgar. The first day the English clearly had the best of it, taking or destroying eight ships. The second day was a running fight up channel. The third day Blake drove Van Tromp into Calais roads; and in the night the Dutch admiral slipped away with the remains of his fleet into shallow water on the coast of Holland. Altogether the English took some forty or fifty ships, and proved to the world that the parliamentary commonwealth could face all comers on the blue water. We need not follow Blake through his other actions with the Dutch. They fitted out new fleets, but with no better success. They had found their master at sea, even by their own acknowledgment. The red cross of England was triumphant; and in the seventh and last battle that was fought between the commonwealths, Van Tromp, perhaps as gallant and as good a seaman as ever stepped, was shot through the heart. This was in July, 1653, after which there were negotiations and a peace, and the Dutch did consent to strike their flag.
At the end of 1653 Blake again sailed up the Mediterranean, where he had various matters to settle with the powers that had allowed Rupert to dispose of his prizes. His fame was now established, and all men treated him with respect. He first sent to the duke of Tuscany for £60,000, being the price of the vessels that had been sold in his ports. The duke hesitated; but Blake told him that pay he must. The pope also was compelled to refund 20,000 pistoles. Blake then went to Tunis, to demand reparation of the piracies of the Barbary corsairs. He found Tunis a strong port, with every preparation for his reception. The dey treated him with haughty insolence; and Blake, seeing the danger of an attack so long as the dey was on the alert, pretended to sail away, as if he was afraid to encounter the two fortresses that defended the harbour. He remained away about a week, and allowed the caution of the barbarian to relax. On the 3d April, 1655, however, the Tunisian pirates, to their amazement, saw the English fleet enter the port and anchor close to the forts. A heavy cannonade was at once commenced, and in the cover of the smoke Blake sent his boats to fire nine large ships which formed the piratical fleet. In four hours from the firing of the first shot, the whole of the vessels which had been the terror of the seas were completely destroyed. From Tunis Blake went to Tripoli, where he was no longer under the necessity of fighting; thence to Algiers, where the terror of his name made the dey of Algiers consent to a treaty, and to the deliverance of all English captives at a small fixed price. He also delivered a number of Dutch captives, by private subscription, and every sailor in the English fleet subscribed a dollar to relieve the Hollanders. In the Mediterranean, the power of England had made itself felt in a manner that astonished the world.
Blake now returned to England, and prepared for his expedition against the Spaniards. Before sailing he made his will, dated on board the Naseby, March 13, 1655-56. The task of humbling Spain, and crippling her commerce, was performed with the most unprecedented success. Blake discovered new capabilities in ships, and did with them what no man had done before. In September, 1656, a squadron he had left to guard Cadiz fell in with four galleons and two other ships coming home, laden with silver, and the other valuables which the Spaniards at that time brought so extensively from their colonies. These Captain Stayner for the most part destroyed, but succeeded in capturing the most valuable, a royal galleon, which contained so much silver that, when it was landed at Portsmouth, thirty-eight waggons were required to convey it to London.
Blake's great performance, however, in this war, was his attack on Santa Cruz, in the island of Teneriffe—a performance that has, perhaps, never been equalled, certainly never surpassed, in the annals of naval warfare. The second silver fleet, consisting of six galleons, and sixteen other ships, was on its way to Europe; but hearing of the fate of the former fleet, it ran into the Canaries, and took up a position in the harbour of Santa Cruz, which was esteemed one of the strongest and safest in the world. The harbour, shaped like a horse-shoe, was defended by powerful forts and a castle; and inside, the ships were drawn up with their broadsides to the sea. The Spanish admiral naturally thought his position impregnable, as no seamen in the world, save the English, would ever have dreamed of attacking such an array. A Dutch captain, however, who was there with his vessel, and who had seen something of Blake in the former war, went to the Spanish admiral, and requested leave to retire from the harbour. The Spaniard laughed at him, but let him go, while the Dutchman assured the Don that Blake would soon show him something remarkable.
On the 20th April, 1657, Blake fought this wonderful battle, equal to anything that has ever been done on land or sea. He was sick—his health was breaking—he had worn out the sheath of the spirit, but the blade was as bright as ever. From his sickbed he rose to survey his work—arrived at a brief conclusion—called a council of war, and proposed at once to go in to the attack. It was agreed to, hopelessly by some. The men were called to prayers, then to breakfast, then to action. Stayner, now vice-admiral, was appointed to lead the van, and attack the ships. Blake reserved the castle and the land batteries to himself. On they went, amid a hurricane of shot. By two o'clock of the day it was all over with the Spaniards; and at evening, when the sun went down, not a mast, nor a sail, nor a spar, nor a single pennon was seen of all the array on which the sun had risen. All were given to one universal conflagration. Sunk, burnt, and destroyed—as the naval orders run—not a floating thing was there, save masses of blackened wreck. Blake, like Oliver, had given his enemies to darkness. Blake's care was now to get his fleet out of the harbour, and the story runs that a sudden change of wind, which had not been known for years, enabled him to sail out without the loss of a ship.
Blake had thus accomplished every duty that a seaman can be called upon to perform. He was master of the seas, and none dared hoist a hostile flag in the presence of the Commonwealth. But his health was failing—he was going away fast to another world, and the last act of his life was one of peaceful glory. After resolutely demolishing the Spaniards, and putting down the Dutch traders, who would have carried on the Spanish trade under the Dutch flag, he turned his last efforts to the release of the christian captives who were in the hands of the Salee rovers. Not a shot did he now require to fire. The whole maritime world now knew that Blake was master of the ocean, and the terror of his vengeance was sufficient to make even the corsairs listen to his just demands. Blake had finished his career. In his old flag-ship, the St. George, he set out for England, a worn-out and dying man. Often he asks if England is yet at hand, and when at last the Lizard is sighted, it is too late. Blake is dying, and he expires as the St. George approaches Plymouth. He died on the 17th August, 1657, and on the 4th September he was buried, at Cromwell's expense, in Westminster abbey. After the Restoration, Charles II. committed the wretched atrocity of disinterring his body, and it was thrown into a pit in the yard of Westminster abbey. For the more minute facts in the life of Blake the public is indebted to the researches of Mr. Hepworth Dixon.—P. E. D.
BLAKE, William, a painter, and what is rarer, a genius, if ever one lived, was the son of a hosier in Carnaby Market, and born 1757. He was educated by the quiet man, his father, for the counter; but he soon leaped over this, and broke his way into the Eden of art—an Eden not guarded by flaming angels, it is true, but by the more horrid and deterring forms of hunger, consumption, scorn, despair, poverty, and death. The father wondered how the boy could throw aside stockings to waste his time over cheap prints of Raphael and Reynolds; but his mother knowing (so wise is love) that the angels had whispered to her child, secretly encouraged him in the straight and narrow way. At ten he became an artist; at twelve a poet;—what millions would great kings have given to have insured the talents of the poor hosier's son for their brainless bantlings! The father moved by the sight of drawings on the back of shop bills, and innumerable sketches on the counter, tried to place his son with an "eminent artist;" but the eminent artist was too imaginative in his charges. Blake, afraid of being chained beyond escape, prayed his father to bind him to an engraver, and at fourteen years old he was bound to an engraver in Green Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields. Here he worked hard for his master, studied at odd times and evenings under Flaxman and Fuseli, and when he could run to his room, locked himself in, and made drawings, illustrated with verses, to hang up in his mother's room. He was always at work—called amusement, idleness, and money-
