Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 3.djvu/822

804 with the exception of two ships. In consequence of the Portuguese protest against his proceedings, a formal investi gation was instituted in England, which resulted in the approval of the home authorities. The thanks of Par liament were voted to Blake, and he was appointed warden of the Cinque Ports. He was continued in his office of admiral and general of the sea; and in May following he took, in conjunction with Ayscue, the Scilly Islands. For this service the thanks of Parliament were again awarded him, and he was soon after made a member of the Council of State. In 1652 war broke out with the Dutch, who had made great preparations for the conflict. In March the command of the fleet was grven to Blake for nine months ; and in the middle of May the Dutch fleet of forty-five ships, led by their great admiral Van Tromp, appeared in the Downs. Blake, who had only twenty ships, sailed to meet them, and the battle took place off Dover on May 1 9. The Dutch were defeated in an engagement of four or five hours, lost two ships, and withdrew under cover of darkness. Attempts at accommodation were made by the States, but they failed. Early in July war was formally declared, and in the same month Blake captured a large part of the Dutch fishery-fleet and the twelve men- of-war that formed their convoy. On September 28, Blake and Penn again encountered the Dutch fleet, now com manded by De Ruyter and De Witt, in the Downs, defeated it, and chased it for two days. The Dutch took refuge in Goree. A third battle was fought near the end of November. By this time the ships under Blake s com mand had been reduced in number to forty, and nearly the half of these were useless for want of seamen. Van Tromp, who had been reinstated in command, appeared in the Downs, with a fleet of eighty ships besides ten fire-ships. Blake, nevertheless, risked a battle, but was defeated, and withdrew into the Thames. It was in his first elation at this victory that Van Tromp carried the broom at his mast head in his passage through the Channel, as a pledge of his determination to sweep the English off the seas. His bra vado was speedily avenged. The English fleet having been refitted, put to sea again in February 1653; and on the 18th, Blake, at the head of eighty ships, encountered Van Tromp in the Channel. The Dutch force, according to Clarendon, numbered 100 ships of war, but according to the official reports of the Dutch, only seventy. The battle was severe, and continued through three days, the Dutch however retreating, and taking refuge in the shallow waters off the French coast. In this action Blake was severely wounded. In the change of Government introduced by the dismissal of the Long Parliament by Cromwell (April 1653) Blake did not interfere. &quot; It is not,&quot; he said, &quot; the business of a seaman to mind state affairs, but to hinder foreigners from fooling us.&quot; The three English admirals put to sea again in May ; and on June 3d and 4th another battle was fought near the North Foreland. On the first day Dean and Monk were repulsed by Van Tromp ; but on the second day the scales were turned by the arrival of Blake, and the Dutch retreated to the Texel. Ill health now compelled Blake to retire from the service for a time, and he did not appear again on the seas for about eighteen months; meanwhile he sat as a member of the Little Parliament (Barebones s). In November 1654 he was selected by Cromwell to conduct a fleet to the Mediterranean to exact compensation from the Duke of Tuscany, the knights of Malta, and the piratical states of North Africa, for wrongs done to English merchants. This mission he executed with his accustomed spirit and with complete success. Tunis alone dared to resist his demands, and Tunis paid the penalty of the destruction of its two fortresses by English guns. In the winter of 1655-50, war being declared against Spain, Blake was sent to cruise off Cadiz and the neighbouring coasts, to intercept the Spanish shipping. One of his captains captured a part of the Plate fleet in September 1656. In April 1657 Blake, then in very ill health, suffering from dropsy and scurvy, and anxious to have assistance in his arduous duties, heard that the Plate fleet lay at anchor in the bay of Santa Cruz, in the island of Teneriffe. The position was a very strong one, defended by a castle and several forts with guns. Under the shelter of these lay a fleet of sixteen ships drawn up in crescent order. Captain Stayner was ordered to enter the bay and fall on the fleet. This he did. Blake followed him. Broadsides were poured into the castle and the forts at the same time ; and soon nothing was left but ruined walls and charred fragments of burnt ships. The wind was blowing hard into the bay ; but suddenly, and fortunately for the heroic Blake, it shifted, and carried him safely out to sea. &quot; The whole action,&quot; says Clarendon, &quot;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.&quot; The English lost one ship and 200 men killed and wounded. The thanks of Parliamant were voted to officers and men ; and a very costly jewel (diamond ring) was presented to Blake, &quot; as a testimony,&quot; says Cromwell in his letter of June 10th, &quot; of our own and the Parliament s good acceptance of your carriage in this, action.&quot; &quot; This was the last action of the brave Blake.&quot; After again cruising for a time off Cadiz, his health failing more and more, he was compelled to make homewards before the summer was over. He died at sea, but within sight of Plymouth, August 17, 1657. His body was brought to London and embalmed, and after lying in state at Greenwich House was interred with great pomp and solemnity in Westminster Abbey. In 1661 Charles II. disgraced himself by ordering the exhumation of Blake s body, with those of the mother and daughter of Cromwell and several others. They were cast out of the abbey, and were reburied in the churchyard of St Margaret s. &quot; But that regard,&quot; says Johnson, &quot;which was denied his body has been paid to his better remains, his name and his memory. Nor has any writer dared to deny him the praise of intrepidity, honesty, contempt of wealth, and love of his country.&quot; Clarendon bears the following testimony to his excellence as a commander : &quot; He was the first man that declined the old track, and made it apparent that the science might be attained in less time than was imagined. He was the first man that brought ships to contemn castles on the shore, which had ever been thought very formidable, but were discovered by him to make a noise only, and to fright those who could be rarely hurt by them.&quot; A life of Blake is included in the work entitled Lives, English and Foreign. Dr Johnson wrote a short life of him, and in 1852 appeared Mr Hepworth Dixon s fuller narrative, Robert Blake, Admiral and General at Sea.  BLAKE,, poet and painter, was born in London, on 28th November 1757. His father, James Blake, kept a hosier s shop in Broad Street, Golden Square ; and from the scanty education which the young artist received, it may be judged that the circumstances of the family were not very prosperous. For the facts of William Blake s early life the world is indebted to a little book, called A Father s Memoirs on a Child, written by Dr Malkin, and published in 1806. Here we learn that young Blake quickly developed a taste for design, which his father appears to have had sufficient intelligence to recognize and 1 assist by every means in his power. At the age of ten the boy was sent to a drawing school kept by Mr Pars- 