Harper's New Monthly Magazine, No. XXVI, July 1852, Vol. V

Catherine trembled; she stood silent a minute, and then, with a low, firm voice, replied, "Here, on your child's grave, I promise you. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God." She kept her promise and never repented it.

LIFE OF BLAKE, THE GREAT ADMIRAL

Robert Blake was born at Bridgewater, in August, 1599. His father, Humphrey Blake, was a merchant trading with Spain – a man whose temper seems to have been too sanguine and adventurous for the ordinary action of trade, finally involving him in difficulties which clouded his latter days, and left his family in straitened circumstances: his name, however, was held in general respect; and we find that he lived in one of the best houses in Bridgewater, and twice filled the chair of its chief magistrate. The perils to which mercantile enterprise was then liable – the chance escapes and valorous deeds which the successful adventurer had to tell his friends and children on the dark winter nights – doubtless formed a part of the food on which the imagination of young Blake, "silent and thoughtful from his childhood," was fed in the "old house at home." At the Bridgewater grammar-school, Robert received his early education, making tolerable acquaintance with Latin and Greek, and acquiring a strong bias toward a literary life. This penchant was confirmed by his subsequent career at Oxford, where he matriculated at sixteen, and where he strove hard, but fruitlessly, for scholarships and fellowships at different colleges. His failure to obtain a Merton fellowship has been attributed to a crotchet of the warden's, Sir Henry Savile, in favor of tall men: "The young Somersetshire student, thick-set, fair-complexioned, and only five feet six, fell below his standard of manly beauty;" and thus the Cavalier warden, in denying this aspirant the means of cultivating literature on a little university oatmeal, was turning back on the world one who was fated to become a republican power of the age. This shining light, instead of comfortably and obscurely merging in a petty constellation of Alma Mater, was to become a bright particular star, and dwell apart. The avowed liberalism of Robert may, however, have done more in reality to shock Sir Henry, than his inability to add a cubit to his stature. It is pleasant to know, that the "admiral and general at sea" never outgrew a tenderness for literature – his first-love, despite the rebuff of his advances. Even in the busiest turmoil of a life teeming with accidents by flood and field, he made it a point of pride not to forget his favorite classics. Nor was it till after nine years' experience of college-life, and when his father was no longer able to manage his res angusta vitæ, that Robert finally abandoned his long-cherished plans, and retired with a sigh and last adieu from the banks of the Isis.

When he returned to Bridgewater, in time to close his father's eyes, and superintend the arrangements of the family, he was already remarkable for that "iron will, that grave demeanor, that free and dauntless spirit," which so distinguished his after-course. His tastes were simple, his manners somewhat bluntly austere; a refined dignity of countenance, and a picturesque vigor of conversation, invested him with a social interest, to which his indignant invectives against court corruptions gave distinctive character. To the Short Parliament he was sent as member for his native town; and in 1645, was returned by Taunton to the Long Parliament. At the dissolution of the former, which he regarded as a signal for action, he began to prepare arms against the king; his being one of the first troops in the field, and engaged in almost every action of importance in the western counties. His superiority to the men about him lay in the "marvelous fertility, energy, and comprehensiveness of his military genius." Prince Rupert alone, in the Royalist camp, could rival him as a "partisan soldier." His first distinguished exploit was his defense of Prior's Hill fort, at the siege of Bristol – which contrasts so remarkably with the pusillanimity of his chief, Colonel Fiennes. Next comes his yet more brilliant defense of Lyme – then a little fishing-town, with some 900 inhabitants, of which the defenses were a dry ditch, a few hastily-formed earth-works, and three small batteries, but which the Cavalier host of Prince Maurice, trying storm, stratagem, blockade, day after day, and week after week, failed to reduce or dishearten. "At Oxford, where Charles then was, the affair was an inexplicable marvel and mystery: every hour the court expected to hear that the 'little vile fishing-town,' as Clarendon contemptuously calls it, had fallen, and that Maurice had marched away to enterprises of greater moment; but every post brought word to the wondering council, that Colonel Blake still held out, and that his spirited defense was rousing and rallying the dispersed adherents of Parliament in those parts." After the siege was raised, the Royalists found that more men of gentle blood had fallen under Blake's fire at Lyme, than in all other sieges and skirmishes in the western counties since the opening of the war.

The hero's fame had become a spell in the west: it was seen that he rivaled Rupert in rapid and brilliant execution, and excelled him in the caution and sagacity of his plans. He took Taunton – a place so important at that juncture, as standing on and controlling the great western highway – in July, 1644, within a week of Cromwell's defeat of Rupert at Marston Moor. All the vigor of the Royalists was brought to bear on the captured town; Blake's defense of which is justly characterized as abounding with deeds of individual heroism – exhibiting in its master-mind a rare combination of civil and military genius. The spectacle of an unwalled town, in an inland district, with no single advantage of site, surrounded by powerful castles and garrisons, and invested by an enemy brave, watchful, numerous, and well provided with artillery, successively resisting storm, strait, and blockade for several months, thus paralyzing the king's power, and affording Cromwell time to remodel the army, naturally arrested the attention of military writers at that time; and French authors of this class bestowed on Taunton the name of the modern Saguntum. The rage of the Royalists at this prolonged resistance was extreme. Reckoning from the date when Blake first seized the town, to that of Goring's final retreat, the defense lasted exactly a year, and under circumstances of almost overwhelming difficulty to the besieged party, who, in addition to the fatigue of nightly watches, and the destruction of daily conflicts, suffered from terrible scarcity of provisions. "Not a day passed without a fire; sometimes eight or ten houses were burning at the same moment; and in the midst of all the fear, horror, and confusion incident to such disasters, Blake and his little garrison had to meet the storming-parties of an enemy brave, exasperated, and ten times their own strength. But every inch of ground was gallantly defended. A broad belt of ruined cottages and gardens was gradually formed between the besiegers and the besieged; and on the heaps of broken walls and burnt rafters, the obstinate contest was renewed from day to day." At last relief arrived from London; and Goring, in savage dudgeon, beat a retreat, notwithstanding the wild oath he had registered, either to reduce that haughty town, or to lay his bones in its trenches.

Blake was now the observed of all observers; but, unlike most of his compeers, he abstained from using his advantages for purposes of selfish or personal aggrandizement. He kept aloof from the "centre of intrigues," and remained at his post, "doing his duty humbly and faithfully at a distance from Westminster; while other men, with less than half his claims, were asking and obtaining the highest honors and rewards from a grateful and lavish country." Nor, indeed, did he at any time side with the ultras of his party, but loudly disapproved of the policy of the regicides. This, coupled with his influence, so greatly deserved and so deservedly great, made him an object of jealousy with Cromwell and his party; and it was owing, perhaps, to their anxiety to keep him removed from the home sphere of action, that he was now appointed to the chief naval command.

Hitherto, and for years afterward, no state, ancient or modern, as Macaulay points out, had made a separation between the military and the naval service. Cimon and Lysander, Pompey and Agrippa, had fought by sea as well as by land: at Flodden, the right wing of the English was led by her admiral, and the French admiral led the Huguenots at Jarnac, &c. Accordingly, Blake was summoned from his pacific government at Taunton, to assume the post of "General and Admiral at Sea;" a title afterward changed to "General of the Fleet." Two others were associated with him in the command; but Blake seems at least to have been recognized as primus inter pares. The navy system was in deplorable need of reform; and a reformer it found in Robert Blake, from the very day he became an admiral. His care for the well-being of his men made him an object of their almost adoring attachment. From first to last, he stood alone as England's model seaman. "Envy, hatred, and jealousy dogged the steps of every other officer in the fleet; but of him, both then and afterward, every man spoke well." The "tremendous powers" intrusted to him by the Council of State, he exercised with off-handed and masterly success – startling politicians and officials of the ancien régime, by his bold and open tactics, and his contempt for tortuous by-paths in diplomacy. His wondrous exploits were performed with extreme poverty of means. He was the first to repudiate and disprove the supposed fundamental maxim in marine warfare, that no ship could attack a castle, or other strong fortification, with any hope of success. The early part of his naval career was occupied in opposing and defeating the piratical performances of Prince Rupert, which then constituted the support of the exiled Stuarts. Blake's utmost vigilance and activity were required to put down this extraordinary system of freebooting; and by the time that he had successively overcome Rupert, and the minor but stubborn adventurers, Grenville and Carteret, he was in request to conduct the formidable war with Holland, and to cope with such veterans as Tromp, De Witt, De Ruyter, &c.

On one occasion only did Blake suffer ever a defeat; and this one is easily explained by – first, Tromp's overwhelming superiority of force; secondly, the extreme deficiency of men in the English fleet; and, thirdly, the cowardice or disaffection of several of Blake's captains at a critical moment in the battle. Notwithstanding this disaster, not a whisper was heard against the admiral either in the Council of State or in the city; his offer to resign was flatteringly rejected; and he soon found, that the "misfortune which might have ruined another man, had given him strength and influence in the country." This disaster, in fact, gave him power to effect reforms in the service, and to root out abuses which had defied all his efforts in the day of his success. He followed it up by the great battle of Portland, and other triumphant engagements.

Then came his sweeping tours de force in the Mediterranean; in six months he established himself as a power in that great midland sea, from which his countrymen had been politically excluded since the age of the Crusades – teaching nations, to which England's very name was a strange sound, to respect its honors and its rights; chastising the pirates of Barbary with unprecedented severity; making Italy's petty princes feel the power of the northern Protestants; causing the pope himself to tremble on his seven hills; and startling the council-chambers of Venice and Constantinople with the distant echoes of our guns. And be it remembered, that England had then no Malta, Corfu, and Gibraltar as the bases of naval operations in the Mediterranean: on the contrary, Blake found that in almost every gulf and island of that sea – in Malta, Venice, Genoa, Leghorn, Algiers, Tunis, and Marseilles – there existed a rival and an enemy; nor were there more than three or four harbors in which he could obtain even bread for love or money.

After this memorable cruise, he had to conduct the Spanish war – a business quite to his mind; for though his highest renown had been gained in his conflicts with the Dutch, he had secretly disliked such encounters between two Protestant states; whereas, in the case of Popish Spain, his soul leaped at the anticipation of battle – sympathizing as he did with the Puritan conviction, that Spain was the devil's stronghold in Europe. At this period, Blake was suffering from illness, and was sadly crippled in his naval equipments, having to complain constantly of the neglect at home to remedy the exigencies of the service. "Our ships," he writes, "extremely foul, winter drawing on, our victuals expiring, all stores failing, our men falling sick through the badness of drink, and eating their victuals boiled in salt water for two months' space" (1655). His own constitution was thoroughly undermined. For nearly a year, remarks his biographer, "he had never quitted the 'foul and defective' flag-ship. Want of exercise and sweet food, beer, wine, water, bread, and vegetables, had helped to develop scurvy and dropsy; and his sufferings from these diseases were now acute and continuous." But his services were indispensable, and Blake was not the man to shrink from dying in harness. His sun set gloriously at Santa Cruz – that miraculous and unparalleled action, as Clarendon calls it, which excited such grateful enthusiasm at home. At home! words of fascination to the maimed and enfeebled veteran, who now turned his thoughts so anxiously toward the green hills of his native land. Cromwell's letter of thanks, the plaudits of parliament, and the jeweled ring sent to him by his loving countrymen, reached him while homeward bound. But he was not again to tread the shores he had defended so well.

As the ships rolled through the Bay of Biscay, his sickness increased, and affectionate adherents saw with dismay that he was drawing near to the gates of the grave. "Some gleams of the old spirit broke forth as they approached the latitude of England. He inquired often and anxiously if the white cliffs were yet in sight. He longed to behold once more the swelling downs, the free cities, the goodly churches of his native land… At last, the Lizard was announced. Shortly afterward, the bold cliffs and bare hills of Cornwall loomed out grandly in the distance. But it was too late for the dying hero. He had sent for the captains and other great officers of his fleet, to bid them farewell; and while they were yet in his cabin, the undulating hills of Devonshire, glowing with the tints of early autumn, came full in view… But the eyes which had so yearned to behold this scene once more were at that very instant closing in death. Foremost of the victorious squadron, the St. George rode with its precious burden into the Sound; and just as it came into full view of the eager thousands crowding the beach, the pier-heads, the walls of the citadel, &c., ready to catch the first glimpse of the hero of Santa Cruz, and salute him with a true English welcome – he, in his silent cabin, in the midst of his lion-hearted comrades, now sobbing like little children, yielded up his soul to God."

The corpse was embalmed, and conveyed to Greenwich, where it lay in state for some days. On the 4th of September, 1657, the Thames bore a solemn funeral procession, which moved slowly, amid salvos of artillery, to Westminster, where a new vault had been prepared in the noble abbey. The tears of a nation made it hallowed ground. A prince, of whom the epigram declares that, if he never said a foolish thing, he never did a wise one – saw fit to disturb the hero's grave, drag out the embalmed body, and cast it into a pit in the abbey-yard. One of Charles Stuart's most witless performances! For Blake is not to be confounded – though the Merry Monarch thought otherwise – with the Iretons and Bradshaws who were similarly exhumed. The admiral was a moderate in the closest, a patriot in the widest sense.

In the chivalric disposition of the man, there was true affinity to the best qualities of the Cavalier, mingled sometimes with a certain grim humor, all his own. Many are the illustrations we might adduce of this high-minded and generous temperament. For instance: meeting a French frigate of forty guns in the Straits, and signaling for the captain to come on board his flag-ship, the latter, considering the visit one of friendship and ceremony, there being no declared war between the two nations – though the French conduct at Toulon had determined England on measures of retaliation – readily complied with Blake's summons; but was astounded on entering the admiral's cabin, at being told he was a prisoner, and requested to give up his sword. No! was the surprised but resolute Frenchman's reply. Blake felt that an advantage had been gained by a misconception, and scorning to make a brave officer its victim, he told his guest he might go back to his ship, if he wished, and fight it out as long as he was able. The captain, we are told, thanked him for his handsome offer, and retired. After two hours' hard fighting, he struck his flag; like a true French knight, he made a low bow, kissed his sword affectionately, and delivered it to his conqueror. Again: when Blake captured the Dutch herring-fleet off Bochness, consisting of 600 boats, instead of destroying or appropriating them, he merely took a tithe of the whole freight, in merciful consideration toward the poor families whose entire capital and means of life it constituted. This "characteristic act of clemency" was censured by many as Quixotic, and worse. But "Blake took no trouble to justify his noble instincts against such critics. His was indeed a happy fate: the only fault ever advanced by friend or foe against his public life, was an excess of generosity toward his vanquished enemies!" His sense of the comic is amusingly evidenced by the story of his ruse during a dearth in the same siege. Tradition reports, that only one animal, a hog, was left alive in the town, and that more than half starved. In the afternoon, Blake, feeling that in their depression a laugh would do the defenders as much good as a dinner, had the hog carried to all the posts and whipped, so that its screams, heard in many places, might make the enemy suppose that fresh supplies had somehow been obtained.

The moral aspects of his character appear in this memoir in an admirable light. If he did not stand so high as some others in public notoriety, it was mainly because, to stand higher than he did, he must plant his feet on a bad eminence. His patriotism was as pure as Cromwell's was selfish. Mr. Dixon, his biographer, alludes to the strong points of contrast, as well as of resemblance between the two men. Both, he says, were sincerely religious, undauntedly brave, fertile in expedients, irresistible in action. Born in the same year, they began and almost closed their lives at the same time. Both were country gentlemen of moderate fortune; both were of middle age when the revolution came. Without previous knowledge or professional training, both attained to the highest honors of their respective services. But there the parallel ends. Anxious only for the glory and interest of his country, Blake took little or no care of his personal aggrandizement. His contempt for money, his impatience with the mere vanities of power, were supreme. Bribery he abhorred in all its shapes. He was frank and open to a fault; his heart was ever in his hand, and his mind ever on his lips. His honesty, modesty, generosity, sincerity, and magnanimity were unimpeached. Cromwell's inferior moral qualities made him distrust the great seaman; yet, now and then, as in the case of the street tumult at Malaga, he was fain to express his admiration of Robert Blake. The latter was wholly unversed in the science of nepotism, and "happy family" compacts; for, although desirous of aiding his relatives, he was jealous of the least offense on their part, and never overlooked it. Several instances of this disposition are on record. When his brother Samuel, in rash zeal for the Commonwealth, ventured to exceed his duty, and was killed in a fray which ensued, Blake was terribly shocked, but only said: "Sam had no business there." Afterward, however, he shut himself up in his room, and bewailed his loss in the words of Scripture: "Died Abner as a fool dieth!" His brother Benjamin, again, to whom he was strongly attached, falling under suspicion of neglect of duty, was instantly broken, and sent on shore. "This rigid measure of justice against his own flesh and blood, silenced every complaint, and the service gained immeasurably in spirit, discipline, and confidence." Yet more touching was the great admiral's inexorable treatment of his favorite brother Humphrey, who, in a moment of extreme agitation, had failed in his duty. The captains went to Blake in a body, and argued that Humphrey's fault was a neglect rather than a breach of orders, and suggested his being sent away to England till it was forgotten. But Blake was outwardly unmoved, though inwardly his bowels did yearn over his brother, and sternly said: "If none of you will accuse him, I must be his accuser." Humphrey was dismissed from the service. It is affecting to know how painfully Blake missed his familiar presence during his sick and lonely passage homeward, when the hand of death was upon that noble heart. To Humphrey he bequeathed the greater part of the property which he left behind him. In the rare intervals of private life which he enjoyed on shore, Blake also compels our sincere regard. When released for awhile from political and professional duties, he loved to run down to Bridgewater for a few days or weeks, and, as his biographer says, with his chosen books, and one or two devout and abstemious friends, to indulge in all the luxuries of seclusion. "He was by nature self-absorbed and taciturn. His morning was usually occupied with a long walk, during which he appeared to his simple neighbors to be lost in profound thought, as if working out in his own mind the details of one of his great battles, or busy with some abstruse point of Puritan theology. If accompanied by one of his brothers, or by some other intimate friend, he was still for the most part silent. Always good-humored, and enjoying sarcasm when of a grave, high class, he yet never talked from the loquacious instinct, or encouraged others so to employ their time and talents in his presence. Even his lively and rattling brother Humphrey, his almost constant companion when on shore, caught, from long habit, the great man's contemplative and self-communing gait and manner; and when his friends rallied him on the subject in after-years, he used to say, that he had caught the trick of silence while walking by the admiral's side in his long morning musings on Knoll Hill. A plain dinner satisfied his wants. Religious conversation, reading, and the details of business, generally filled up the evening until supper-time; after family prayers – always pronounced by the general himself – he would invariably call for his cup of sack and a dry crust of bread, and while he drank two or three horns of Canary, would smile and chat in his own dry manner with his friends and domestics, asking minute questions about their neighbors and acquaintance; or when scholars or clergymen shared his simple repast, affecting a droll anxiety – rich and pleasant in the conqueror of Tromp – to prove, by the aptness and abundance of his quotations, that, in becoming an admiral, he had not forfeited his claim to be considered a good classic."

The care and interest with which he looked to the well-being of his humblest followers, made him eminently popular in the fleet. He was always ready to hear complaints, and to rectify grievances. When wounded at the battle of Portland, and exhorted to go on shore for repose and proper medical treatment, he refused to seek for himself the relief which he had put in the way of his meanest comrade. Even at the early period of his cruise against the Cavalier corsairs of Kinsale, such was Blake's popularity, that numbers of men were continually joining him from the enemy's fleet, although he offered them less pay, and none of that license which they had enjoyed under Prince Rupert's flag. They gloried in following a leader sans peur et sans reproche– one with whose renown the whole country speedily rang – the renown of a man who had revived the traditional glories of the English navy, and proved that its meteor flag could "yet terrific burn."