MARITIME HISTORY 



king, could have conveyed away his men by sea had there been any ships to receive them, for 

 Charles had not then," nor at any time, a fleet, and the fort at Polruan, held by the royalists, could 

 have been silenced in an hour by a 4O-gun ship. But the Parliamentary admiral, the earl of 

 Warwick, had only some eight vessels, and was busily engaged off the coasts of Dorsetshire and 

 Devonshire, nor had the belated efforts of the authorities in London to reinforce him been successful. 

 On 14 July, 1644, when Henrietta Maria left Falmouth, there were only three ships, of which one 

 was a man-of-war, watching the port, and this small squadron was unable to do more than exchange 

 a few shots with the ten or twelve vessels escorting the queen. The great expansion of the navy 

 that characterized this period had not yet commenced, and the part that, small as it then was, it 

 could play, and did play, in the destruction of the royalist party was understood by few, if any, 

 contemporaries. 



Cornwall was not again the scene of important military movements until 1646, when Fairfax 

 entered the county to meet the Prince of Wales. By that time enthusiasm for the royal cause was 

 cooling, and the Parliamentary leader was even welcomed when it was known that a scheme was 

 on foot to bring over French troops, and that the earl of Glamorgan was going to send over Irish 

 soldiers. The prospect became so desperate that, after a short stay at Pendennis, Prince Charles 

 left for the Scillies on 2 March. His advisers found St. Mary's weak militarily, almost famine 

 stricken, and dependent on the mainland for supplies. On 12 April a Parliamentary fleet appeared 

 off the islands, but it was driven away by bad weather, and the prince took advantage of the respite 

 to escape, on the i6th, to Jersey. The State's ships, under Vice-admiral William Batten, reappeared 

 a few days later, but then went back to Cornwall to blockade Pendennis, which was also besieged by 

 land, until it surrendered on 1 7 August. 1 Then the Scillies were again taken in hand. Practically 

 no resistance was made, negotiations took place at Falmouth, and the royalist commissioners were 

 carried to and fro in a State's ship. The admiral, Sir George Ayscue, was careful to disabuse the 

 islanders of the fear the royalist leaders had instilled into them that they were to be transported and 

 the islands resettled, and then found them very friendly. The surrender was completed on 

 1 2 September, and, in Ayscue's opinion, if the royalists had understood their value they might have 

 been made a second Algiers. 2 How they were to be an Algiers without ships, or how they were to 

 be held without a fleet, Ayscue did not explain, and he was at the moment expounding a practical 

 lesson entirely at variance with his theory. The year 1648 was a critical one for the new govern- 

 ment. In May a portion of the fleet went over to the Prince of Wales and royalist hopes ran high. 

 Ireland was aflame, a Scotch army was in England, and local risings were numerous. One of these 

 was at Scilly, where the garrison revolted to Charles, and the accession was considered important as 

 providing a station connecting the royalists in Holland with Ireland. Early in 1649 Prince 

 Rupert made a dash with a few ships from Holland to Kinsale, and in March landed Irish soldiers at 

 the Scillies to serve under the governor Sir John Grenville. Rupert expected ' ere long to see Scilly 

 a second Venice,' but he did not know that Venices are not made by fleets too weak to do anything 

 but run away. When Blake appeared off Kinsale Rupert had to fly for his life, and Grenville was 

 left to his own resources. For a time just as long as he was left alone his resources were sufficient 

 to do some mischief in a puny way ; small privateers made the islands their headquarters, and, 

 although not able to fight men-of-war, were destructive among coasters and small merchantmen. 3 

 The Commonwealth navy was fully occupied elsewhere, and undue respect was felt for Grenville's 

 capacity for defence. The affair was brought to a head by the action of the Dutch in 1651. In 

 1650 Charles had offered the Scillies to a syndicate of Dutch merchants as security for a loan of 

 50,000, and it was perhaps cause and effect that in March, 1651, Tromp appeared off the islands 

 with a fleet, demanding reparation for the piracies committed on Dutch vessels. The Council of 

 State at once took alarm. Representations were made at the Hague that Tromp's presence was, in 

 the language of diplomacy, ' an unfriendly act,' and Blake was ordered to take command of Sir 

 George Ayscue's fleet, then ready to sail for the West Indies, fight Tromp if necessary, and not 

 leave Cornish waters until he had reduced the Scillies. 4 Blake arrived on 1 5 April with upwards of 

 twenty ships and nine companies of infantry, and we have a very lucid account of the operations 

 from the bishop of Down, who, more clear-sighted than many of his military contemporaries, saw 



1 Raglan Castle, the last place that held out for the king, surrendered two days later. St. Mawes had 

 yielded on 1 1 March ; the tradition of Roaring Meg,' a great gun there, still lingers in the neighbourhood. 

 A z6-gun fort on the Helford River capitulated on 1 8 March, and St. Michael's Mount on I 5 April. Colonel 

 John Arundel, the governor of Pendennis, was known as ' John for the King,' and as ' Old Tilbury,' the last 

 from having been stationed at Tilbury Fort in 1588. 



' Hiit. MSS. Com. (Portland MS.) i, 392. 



* In London, where they were not likely to minimize the number, only twenty-five privateers altogether 

 were attributed to the Scillies, Jersey, the Isle of Man, and Galloway (Whitelocke, Memorials (ed. 1682), 

 464*0. 



4 S. P. Dom. Interreg. i April, 10 May, 1651 ; Rymer, Foedera, xix, 599. 



501 



