290 OUR HERITAGE THE SEA 



for the Navy what Cromwell had done for the Army. 



There is something almost miraculous in the rise of 



Blake to be one of the greatest, if not the greatest, naval 



captain the world had ever seen. In this the centenary 



year of Trafalgar, it is difficult indeed to think of any 



other British admiral than the immortal Nelson, and 



yet it seems ungrateful to forget Blake, whom even 



Nelson acknowledged to be his superior. This is not 



the place to go into much detail concerning the deeds 



of Blake, but he cannot lightly be passed over, because 



he represents to the full the new naval spirit of 



England. Up till his day the possession of a powerful 



fleet seemed to be an irresistible temptation to its 



owners to be aggressors, to use it for purposes of 



oppression ; but such an idea was entirely foreign 



to Blake's essentially Christian spirit. " Defence, not 



defiance," was his motto, and the policing of the seas 



for the protection of British trade, and incidentally 



the trade of other nations, a part of his self-imposed 



duty. True he had first to drive off the sea the fleet 



of the Royalists, who, in his opinion, as well as in that 



of all who were best and noblest among Englishmen of 



that day, were inimical to freedom at home in the 



true sense of the word. In the prosecution of this 



arduous duty he learned his profession, learned to 



depend upon his seamen, although he might have 



been expected to have all the prejudices of the 



soldier. Following up the splendid traditions of the 



Elizabethan seamen, he grew to depend upon the sailor 



at sea instead of the soldier, and to care for his sailors 



with such fatherly solicitude that they gave him love 



and loyalty such as had never before been shown to a 



like degree from sailors to their officers. 



