BLAKE. 47 



7. ROBERT BLAKE. 



ROBERT BLAKE was born at Bridgewater, in Somersetshire, September 1599. 

 He was well educated and had a taste for literature. He entered Oxford at 

 16 years of age, was assiduous in books, lectures, and devotions, and liked fishing 

 and shooting. His course at the university was impaired by his reputation for 

 Puritan leanings and by his short stature, against which one of the officials had 

 a prejudice. At 27 his father died and Robert abandoned his scholarly ambitions 

 to pay his father's debts. Having now become a pronounced Puritan, Blake ran 

 for Parliament (1640), and when war broke out with the King's party, in 1642, 

 he served with the parliamentary forces under Sir John Horner. He resisted Roy- 

 alist forces in southwestern England and reentered Parliament from Taunton in 

 1645. In 1649 he was appointed, with two others, to the command of the fleet. 

 He fought three great campaigns. The first was against the royalist fleet under 

 Prince Rupert. This fleet had entered the harbor of Kinsale, Ireland, and 

 there Blake blockaded it. Reduced to desperation, Rupert's fleet tried, suc- 

 cessfully, to break the blockade, and Blake followed it to the Tagus river and 

 blockaded it there. Since the King of Portugal refused Blake's demand for per- 

 mission to attack the enemy, Blake fell on the Portuguese merchant fleet return- 

 ing from Brazil and captured seven ships as prizes, burning three. Prince Rupert's 

 fleet, denied further refuge at the Tagus, fled to the Mediterranean, and here, in 

 1650, near Cartagena, Blake destroyed the greater part of it. 



The second campaign began in 1652 with the declaration of war against the 

 Dutch. In May Tromp's fleet of 45 ships met Blake's of 20 ships off Dover, and 

 the Dutch, having lost 2 ships, withdrew at night. Blake captured a large part 

 of the Dutch fishing fleet and drove off the Dutch fleet under De Ruyter and 

 De Witt. Again the Dutch fleet appeared under Tromp, and this time Blake was 

 defeated and forced to take refuge in the Thames. He fought against the Dutch 

 fleet twice more, driving them off. 



The third campaign was in the south, against the Moors and the Spanish. 

 The former were forced to cease their piratical attacks on the British, and when 

 Tunis resisted its two fortresses were destroyed. Learning that the Plate fleet 

 of Spain lay at anchor in the bay of Santa Cruz, Teneriffe, Blake proceeded there 

 and reduced the castle and forts and burned the ships, losing only one of his own. 

 The Spaniards declared that they had to fight against devils and not men. At this 

 time a new principle was established, that naval vessels might be effective against 

 castles and land fortifications. Blake died in 1657. 



Robert Blake was simple in tastes and habits, dignified and refined. A pure 

 patriot, frank, generous, sincere, modest, magnanimous. He was blunt in speech 

 and had a sense of humor. 



Robert Blake was one of a famous fraternity. Humphrey, born in 1600, 

 was tried for nonconformity and fled to Carolina; later, he was in Robert's fleet, 

 but the latter felt he did not do his duty at Teneriffe and sent him home in dis- 

 grace. William, born in 1603, became a learned man, a doctor of laws of the Uni- 

 versity of Padua. George became a goldsmith and banker. Samuel was a farmer, 

 joined with his brothers in the English Civil War, and was killed; his son 

 Robert served in his uncle's fleet. Nicholas, like his father and grandfather, 

 engaged in Spanish trade. Benjamin went to sea and became captain in the navy. 

 Alexander was probably farmer. 



