ru 



BLAKE, ROBERT. 



BLAKE, WILLIAM. 



716 



days UM English maintained the pursuit, the lightness and uncertainty 

 of UM wind prereoWd them from again closing with the enemy, who 

 escaped into Gore*. AfUr tiii. battle, the drafting off detachment* on 

 different MrrioM reduced the English flt in the Channel to forty mil 

 With thu fore* Blake lay in the Down*, when Van Tromp again stood 

 over to the Engluh ooMt with eighty men-of-war. Blake's spirit wu 

 too high for him to deelioe the battle, even sgainit tbeae oddi an act 

 of imprudence for whioli be suffered severely. An action wa fought 

 off the Goodwin Sands, November 29. Two of hia ships were taken 

 and four destroyed ; the rest were so much shattered that they were 

 glad to ran for shelter into the Thames. The Dutch remained master* 

 of the narrow seas; and Van Tromp, in an idle braTado, sailed through 

 the Channel with a broom at his maat-head, to intimate that he had 

 swept it clear of English ships. However, neither the nation nor the 

 admiral were of a temper to submit to this insult, and great diligence 

 haTing been used in refitting and recruiting the fleet, Blake put to sea 

 again in February 1<6S with eighty ships. On the 18th ho fell in 

 wilh Van Tromp, with nearly equal fore*, escorting a large convoy of 

 merchantmen up the Channel A running battle ensued, which was 

 continued during three consecutive days. On the 20th the Dutch shins, 

 which, to suit the nature of their coast, were built with a smaller 

 draught of water than the English, obtained shelter in the shallow 

 water* of Calais. In thin long and obstinate fight the Engluh loot ono 

 man-of-war the Dutch, eleven men-of-war and thirty merchantmen ; 

 bat the number killed is said to hare amounted to 1500 on each tide. 

 Blake himself was severely wounded in the thigh. 



Another great battle took place on the 3rd and 4th of June, between 

 Van Tromp and Oenerals Deane and Honk. On the first day the 

 Dutch had the advantage ; on the second Blake arrived with a rein- 

 forcement of eighteen sail, which turned the scale in favour of the 

 English. Bad health then obliged him to quit the sea, so that he was 

 not present at the great victory of July 29 (the last which took place 

 during this war), in which Van Tromp was killed ; but out of respect 

 for bis services, the parliament in presenting gold chains to the 

 admirals who commanded in that battle gave one to him also. When 

 Cromwell dissolved the long parliament and assumed the office of 

 Protector, Blake, though in his principles a staunch republican, did 

 not refuse to acknowledge the new government. Probably he expected 

 to find the administration more energetic ; and he is reported to have 

 said to his officers, " It is not our business to mind state affairs, but to 

 keep foreigners from fooling us." He sat in the first two parliaments 

 summoned by the protector, who always treated him with great 

 respect. Xor wan Cromwell's acknowledged sagacity in the choice of 

 men at fault when he sent Blake at the head of a strong Beet into the 

 Mediterranean, in November 1654, to uphold the honour of the 

 Knglish flag, and to demand reparation for alights and injuries done 

 to the nation during that stormy period of civil war, when internal 

 discord bad made others daring against English vessels. Such a 

 mission could not have been placed in better hands. Dutch, French, 

 an > Spanish concurred in rendering unusual honours to hia flag. The 

 Dnke of Tuscany and the KnighU of Malta made compensation for 

 injurirs done to English commerce ; and the piratical states of Algiers 

 and Tripoli were terrified into submission, and promised to abstain 

 from further depredations. The Day of Tunis alone resisted, but 

 was speedily forced to conclude peace on satisfactory terms. These 

 transaction* occurred in the spring of 1656. 



On the breaking out of war between Spain and England in 1666, 

 Bhk* took his station to blockade the Bay of Cadiz. At this time 

 his constitution was greatly impaired, insomuch that in the expectation 

 of speedy death be aent home a request that some person proper to be 

 his successor wight be joined in commission with him. General 

 Montague wu accordingly sent out with a strong squadron ; but in 

 the following spring that officer returned home in charge of some 

 valuable prize* laden wilh bullion, and Blake was again left alone in 

 the Mediterranean, when he beard that a Spanish plate-fleet had put 

 into the ialand of Teoeriffe. Ho immediately sailed thither, and 

 arrived in the road of .-anta Crux April 20th. The bay was strongly 

 fortified, with a formidable caitle at the entrance and a chain of 

 smaller fort* at intervals round it. There was also a considerable 

 naval force, strongly posted, the smaller vessels being placed under the 

 guns of the forte, ana the galleons strongly moored with their broad- 

 sides to UM sea; insomuch that the Spanish governor, a man of 

 courage awl ability, felt perfectly at ease as to the security of his 

 charge. The master of a Dutch ship which was lying in the harbour 

 was IM attsOed, and went to the governor to request leave to quit 

 UM harbour, for " I am sure," he said, " that Blake will presently be 

 ainonc you." The governor made a confident reply : " Begone if you 

 will, and lei Blake come if he dare," Daring was the last thing 

 wanted ; nor did the admiral hesitate, as a wim man might well have 

 dooe, a UM real difficulties of the enterprise in which he was about 

 to engage. The wind blowing into the bay, he aent in Captain .Stayner 

 with a squadron to attack the shipping placed others in such a manner 

 as to take off, aod a* for as possible to silence the fire of the castle and 

 UM foru-and himself following, satiated Steyner in capturing the 

 galUon*, which, though inferior in number, were superior in sice and 

 faro* to UM English ships. This was completed by two o'clock in the 

 MM. liopsleas of Uing able to carry UM prUes out of the bay 

 t an advene wind and a still active enemy, Blake gave orders to 



burn them. It is probable that he himself might have found some diffi- 

 culty in beating out of the bay under the fire of the castle, which was 

 still lively, but that on a sudden the wind, which had blown strong 

 into the bay, veered round to the south-west and favoured hi* retiring, 

 M it had favoured bis daring approach. In this action Blnka left one 

 ship behind, and the killed and woi'nded did not exceed 200 men ; 

 while the slaughter on board the Spanish ships and on shore is spoken 

 of as incredible. 



For this service the thanks of parliament were voted to the officers 

 and seamen engaged, with a diamond ring to the admiral worth 600k 

 Blake returned to his old station off Cadiz; but the increase of his 

 disorders, which were dropsy and scurvy, tua<le him wish to r. tin n t<> 

 England a wish however he did not live to accomplish, lie died as 

 he was entering Plymouth Sound, August 17, 1657. His body 

 transported to London, was buried with great pomp in Westminster 

 Abbey, at tho public expense. After the Restoration it was clinin: 

 and, with the bones of others who had taken part with tho Common- 

 wealth, was removed to St. Margaret's churchyard. 



Blako was of a blunt and singularly fearless temper, straightfor- 

 ward, upright, and honest in an unusual degree. He seems never to 

 have sought his own advancement by any underhand means, and his 

 pecuniary integrity waa unimpeached. He left his paternal estate 

 unimpaired, but notwithstanding the great sums which passed through 

 his hands, it is said that be did not leave 600t behind him of his own 

 acquiring. His temper was liberal, and his behaviour to his Bailors 

 most kind. " He was," says Clarendon, " the first man that in naval 

 matters declined the old track, and mode it manifest that the science 

 might be attained in less time than was imagined, and despised those 

 rules which bad long been in practice to keep his ship and men out 

 of danger, which had been held informer time a point of great ability 

 and circumspection, as if the principal art requisite in the captain of 

 a ship had been to be sure to come safe home again. He was the first 

 man who brought the ships to contemn castle* on shore, which had 

 been thought ever very formidable, and were discovered by him t" 

 make a noise only, and to fright those who could be rarely hurt by 

 them." 



(Clarendon ; Heath ; Whitelock ; Lndlow ; and other contemporary 

 authorities ; Lira, Engluh and foreign ; Life, by Dr. Johnson ; Gal- 

 lei-y of Portrait!, vol. v. ; Dixon, Robert Blake, Admiral and General 

 at Sea.) 



BLAKE, WILLIAM, was the son of a London hosier, and was born 

 in London in 1757. At the age of fourteen his father was induced by 

 his son's passion for drawing to apprentice him to an engraver of the 

 name of liasire. He was a diligent and enthusiastic student ; the day 

 he devoted to the graver, and the night to poetry, for the graphic art 

 absorbed but one-half of him, and he was utterly indifferent to the 

 goods of this life : he used to say " My business is not to gather 

 gold, but to moke glorious shapes, expressing god-like sentiments." 

 When he was twenty-six yearn of age he married Catherine Boutcher, 

 who survived him, and was a most devoted and attached wife, and 

 fully appreciated the peculiarities of his mind. With his wife always 

 by his side Blake produced a series of designs and poems, win 

 quite unique in the peculiar spirit of their conception, but notwith- 

 standing their peculiarity, are replete with beauties of the highest 

 order. The spirit of universal benevolence and a just appreciation of 

 the greatness of life, animate and inanimate, breathed in his poems, 

 and cannot easily be surpassed ; but the mere versification in often 

 very inharmonious. When Blake was thirty years of age, Klaxman 

 and another gentleman published a collection of his poems, and pre- 

 sented the printed sheets to the poet, under the hope that he might 

 derive some profit from the sale of them. 



The fi-st of his own publications were the 'Songs of Innocence and 

 of Experience, showing the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul,' 

 which ap|>eared with about sixty-five etched illustrations in 1789. 

 Several of these poems ore remarkable for their true pathos. These 

 etchings and poems are executed in a very peculiar and original 

 manner; the designs are drawn and the poems written upon tho 

 copper, with a secret composition ('Uncovered to him by the spirit 

 of his brother Robert, as he Kays) ; and when the uncovered parte of 

 the plate were eaten away by aquafortis, the rest remained as if in 

 stereotype. His wife worked off the plates in the press, and Blake 

 tinted the impressions, designs, and letter-press, with a variety of 

 pleasing colours. 



His next work was ' The Gates of Paradise,' in sixteen small designs, 

 of a very mystical character. This was followed by a series, dated 

 Lambetu, 1794, of twenty-seven very strange but powerful designs, 

 under the title of ' Urizen,' in which he seems to have attempted to 

 represent hell and its mysteries. After the completion of this work, 

 Blake was employed by Mr. Edwards, a bookseller, to illustrate Young's 

 ' Night Thought*,' which he filled with marginal designs, so much to 

 the satisfaction of Klaxman in many parte, that he introduced I'.lake 

 to Hayloy the poet, who wished him to moke some illustrations to 

 the ' Life of Cowpcr,' and persuaded him to remove, ib 1800, to Kelp- 

 ham in Sussex. Klaxman was a constant friend to Blake, and tho 

 latter in his eorrenpondenc* with him usually addressed him 'Dear 

 Sculptor of Eternity ' and in the first letter he wrote to him from 

 Kelpham he called him ' Sublime Archangel.' 



At this time Blake's mind was confirmed in that extraordinary state 



