294 OUR HERITAGE THE SEA 



European nation, were languishing in the most terrible 

 slavery, was a task that might well have been 

 undertaken by an international fleet, could such a 

 phenomenon have been witnessed under the condi- 

 tions then existing. It would have been quite as 

 worthy an object as that achieved by Don John of 

 Austria at Lepanto, even if of less magnitude and 

 European concern as regarded the fate of Christian 

 nations. But Blake did not wait for such a union 

 of forces, he was content to do what he conceived to 

 be his duty, and abide the result. That result was 

 a glorious one, for although he did not succeed in 

 extirpating those piratical hordes and laying waste 

 their strongholds, he inflicted so tremendous a punish- 

 ment upon them that he entirely crippled their 

 operations, weakened them so that they were never 

 again able to do more than just petty acts of piracy. 



All unconsciously, too, Blake then laid the founda- 

 tion of Britain's naval power in the Mediterranean, 

 a power which, through all the vicissitudes of later 

 times, she was to retain. It was then, and it is now, 

 an amazing spectacle, this island kingdom far in the 

 Northern Sea dominating by sheer naval force the 

 policies of all the countries bordering upon the Medi- 

 terranean, and defying all attempts to dislodge her 

 from that proud position. Now, of course, owing to 

 the opening of the Suez Canal, our predominance in 

 the Mediterranean is of paramount importance to us 

 in view of our enormous Eastern traffic, for no reason- 

 able man can have any doubt that, if it were possible 

 to oust us from Gibraltar and Malta and forbid us 

 to maintain a Mediterranean fleet, a very short time 

 would elapse before our trade to the East would be 



