XV.

iard; which, in truth, with all its circumstances, was BOOK very wonderful, and will never be forgotten in Spain, and the Canaries. That fleet had rode out all the 1657. winter storms before Cales and the coast of Portugal, after they had sent home those former ships which they had taken of the West Indian fleet, and understood by the prisoners, that the other fleet from Peru, which is always much richer than that of Mexico, was undoubtedly at sea, and would be on the coast by the beginning of the spring, if they received not advertisement of the presence of the English fleet; in which case they were most like to stay at the Canaries. The admiral concluded, that, notwithstanding all they had done, or could do to block up Cales, one way or other they would not be without that advertisement; and therefore resolved to sail with the whole fleet to the length of the Canaries, that, if it were possible, they might meet with the galleons before they came thither; and if they should be first got in thither, they would then consider what was to be done.

With this resolution the fleet stood for the Canaries, and about the middle of April came thither; and found that the galleons were got thither before them, and had placed themselves, as they thought, in safety. The smaller ships, being ten in number, lay in a semicircle, moored along the shore; and the six great galleons, (the fleet consisting of sixteen good ships,) which could not come so near the shore, lay with their broadsides towards the offing. Besides this good posture in which all the ships lay, they were covered with a strong castle well furnished with guns; and there were six or seven small forts, raised in the most advantageous places of the

BOOK bay, every one of them furnished with divers a good XV. pieces of cannon; so that they were without the 1657. least apprehension of their want of security, or ima

gination that any men would be so desperate, as to assault them upon such apparent disadvantage.

When the English fleet came to the mouth of the bay of Santa Cruz, and the general saw in what posture the Spaniard lay, he thought it impossible to bring off any of the galleons; however, he resolved to burn them, (which was by many thought to be equally impossible,) and sent captain Stayner with a squadron of the best ships to fall upon the galleons; which he did very resolutely; whilst other frigates entertained the forts, and lesser breastworks, with continual broadsides to hinder their firing. Then the general coming up with the whole fleet, after full four hours' fight, they drove the Spaniards from their ships, and possessed them; yet found that their work was not done; and that it was not only impossible to carry away the ships, which they had taken, but that the wind that had brought them into the bay, and enabled them to conquer the enemy, would not serve to carry them out again; so that they lay exposed to all the cannon from the shore; which thundered upon them. However, they resolved to do what was in their power; and so, discharging their broadsides upon the forts and land, where they did great execution, they set fire to every ship, galleons, and others, and burned every one of them; which they had no sooner done, but it happened the wind turned, and carried the whole fleet without loss of one ship out of the bay, and put them safe to sea again.

a divers] six

b it happened] Not in MS.

XV.

The whole action was so miraculous, that all men BOOK who knew the place, wondered that any sober men, with what courage soever endued, would ever have 1657. 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. So much a strong resolution of bold and courageous men can bring to pass, that no resistance and advantage of ground can disappoint them. And it can hardly be imagined, how small loss the English sustained in this unparalleled action; no 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 the shore, was incredible.

turns with

way.

The fleet after this, having been long abroad, Blake refound it necessary to return home. And this was the fleet; the last service performed by Blake; who sickened dies in the in his return, and in the very entrance of the fleet into the sound of Plymouth, expired. He wanted no pomp of funeral when he was dead, Cromwell causing him to be brought up by land to London in all the state that could be; and to encourage his officers to venture their lives, that they might be pompously buried, he was, with all the solemnity His burial, possible, and at the charge of the public, interred in Harry the Seventh's chapel, among the monuments of the kings. He was a man of a private extraction; yet had enough left him by his father to give him a good education; which his own inclination disposed

and] and then, according to

the method of that time,

d to venture their lives] to be

killed

e a private extraction] an ordinary extraction

and charac

ter.

1657.

BOOK him to receive in the university of Oxford; where XV. 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 a sullen nature, and spent his time most with goodfellows, 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. When the troubles begun, he quickly declared himself against the king; and having some command in Bristol, when it was first taken by prince Rupert and the marquis of Hertford, being trusted with the command of a little fort upon the line, he refused to give it up, after the governor had signed the articles of surrender, and kept it some hours after the prince was in the town, and killed some of the soldiers; for which the prince resolved to hang him, if some friends had not interposed for him, upon his want of experience in war; and prevailed with him to quit the place by very great importunity, and with much difficulty. After this, having done eminent service to the parliament, especially at Taunton, at land,f 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 de

After this-at land,] Not in MS.

XV.

spised those rules which had been long in practice, BOOK to keep his ship and his men out of danger; which had been held in former times a point of great abi- 1657. lity and circumspection; as if the principal art requisite in the captain of a ship had been to be sure to come home safe 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 rarely be hurt by them. He was the first that 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 hath 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.

ment comes

1658.

After all this lustre and glory, in which the pro- The parliatector seemed to flourish, the season of the year together threatened some tempest and foul weather. January Jan. 20. brought the parliament again together. They did not reassemble with the same temper and resignation in which they parted; and it quickly appeared how unsecure new institutions of government are; and when the contrivers of them have provided, as they think, against all mischievous contingencies, they find, that they have unwarily left a gap open to let their destruction in upon them.

Cromwell thought he had sufficiently provided for his own security, and to restrain the insolence of the commons, by having called the other house; which

g that gave the example of that drew the copy of naval that kind of naval courage] courage