General-at-Sea Robert Blake
Robert Blake, said by some to be the greatest British Admiral before Nelson, was one of those great characters that scarcely appear once in an age, and then are only made known by the extraordinary pressure of extraordinary events. Admiral Robert Blake, born in 1589, at Bridgwater, in Somersetshire, was educated at Oxford, and took the degree of bachelor of arts in 1617. In 1640 he was returned to Parliament for Bridgwater, on account of his well-known republican principles, and served in the Parliament's army, with great repu- tation, during the civil wars. But he highly disapproved of bringing the King to trial ; and was frequently heard, with his usual bluntness, to say, " he would as freely venture his life to save the King, as ever he did to serve the Parliament."
Yet after the King's death he warmly adhered to the republican party, and, next to Cromwell, was the ablest officer they had. In 1648 he was appointed, with the Colonels Dean and Popham, to command the fleet, and on this new element soon evinced the greatness of his talents ; for having pursued the squadron of Prince Rupert to Malaga, and destroyed all the ships except two, he was constituted sole Admiral; and in September, 1652, defeated the Dutch fleet, commanded by Van Tromp, Ruyter, and De Witt, in a sanguinary engagement off the Downs, in which the Dutch lost four ships of war, and had 2,000 men wounded or slain. And again in February, he defeated them in the Channel, when they lost twelve ships of war and thirty merchantmen. And in July, in the following year, he arrived in time to give such effective aid to the fleet under Monk and Dean, off the North Foreland, that a complete victory was obtained, when the Dutch lost nineteen ships of war.
In April, 1653, when Cromwell turned out the Parliament, and assumed the supreme power, Blake kept order in his fleet, and addressed this celebrated short and pithy speech to his officers, "It is not for as to mind state affairs, but to keep foreigners from fooling us."
Proceeding to the Mediterranean, in 1654, with orders to procure satisfaction for the in. juries done to our merchants, he was treated with the most marked respect by the French and Dutch officers at Cadiz, as well as the Algerines, who, taking the English prisoners out of the Sallee rovers, presented them to Blake, in order to purchase his favor, and afterwards willingly concluded a peace with him. But at Tunis, the Dey having rashly defied him, saying, "Here are our castles of Goletto and Porto Ferino ; do your worst," Blake in two hours' cannonade rendered the castle defenceless, and burnt with his boats nine Tunisian ships in the road.
From Tunis he sailed to Tripoli, and obliged the Bashaw to restore the English prisoners. Then returning to Tunis, granted them, as a great favor, a peace ; and having obliged the Knights of Malta to restore the effects taken by their privateers, spread every where such a terror of the British fleet, that most of the princes and the states of Italy sent solemn embassies to the Protector.
Ou the 20th of April, 1657, he made his famous attack on the Spanish ships and galleons, lying strongly posted in the Bay of Santa Cruz, in 1he island of Teneriffe, and sunk or burnt the whole of them. This was thought to be one of the most remarkable actions that ever hap. pened at sea. "It was so miraculous (says the Earl of Clarendon) that all men who knew the place, wondered that any sober man, with what courage soever endowed, would have undertaken it ; and they could hardly persuade themselves to believe what they had done: whilst the Spaniards comforted themselves with the belief that they were devils and not men, who had destroyed them in such a manner." This was the last great exploit of the renowned Blake.
He was consigned with a dropsy and scurvy ; and having hastened home that he might yield up his last breath in his native country, as the ship came into Plymouth Sound he expired in 1657.
It has been observed, that never man so zealous for a faction was so much respected and esteemed even by the opposite factions. Disinterested, generous, liberal, ambitious only of true glory, dreadful only to his avowed enemies, he forms one of the most perfect characters of that age, and the least stained with those errors and violences which were then so predominant. The Lord Clarendon observes, " that he was the first man who brought ships to contemn castles on shore, which had ever been thought very formidable, and were discovered by him to make a noise only, and to fright those who could rarely be hurt by them. He was the first that infused that degree of courage into seamen, by making them see by experience what mighty things they could do, if they were resolved ; and the first that taught them to fight in fire as well as in water."
During the life of Blake he had been honoured with a gold chain, put round his neck by the Protector, who, on being informed of his death, ordered him a pompous funeral at the public charge ; but, it has been said, " the tears of his countrymen were the most honor. able panegyric on his memory." If any other were required, it may surely be found in the choice of his name for a royal ship of the line, in the fourteenth year of a war arising out of the mischiefs of republicanism.
The tribute paid to the memory of so determined a republican as Blake, in conferring his name on a seventy-four gun ship in the royal navy, in the 49th year of the reign of his late Majesty, 1808, formed a noble and dignified contrast with the puerile virulence and Jacobinical frenzy, exercised by the revolutionists of France against every name which bore the remotest allusion to talents or virtue, distinguished under any form of government at variance with their own. And this name of Blake may be considered as an evidence, not only of the triumph of distinguished naval worth, butas the firmest triumph of the true principles of freedom over the wild fanatical frenzy of the French Revolution.
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