1650 officers, Blake, Dean, and Popham, the first of whom had already distinguished himself as a captain of dragoons, in the Admiral siege of Bristol, and had defended Lyme and Taunton Blake. with unshaken obstinacy against the Royalists. He now drove Rupert into the harbour of Kinsale, and thence to the Tagus, where the Portuguese King (John IV.) granted the prince a safe asylum during the winter. But the stout-hearted republican captain appeared at the mouth of the river in the following spring (March,1650), and demanded the expulsion of the royal freebooter. The King refused, and Blake, attempting to cross the bar, was fired upon by the Portuguese forts. The English admiral then made prize of twenty Portuguese ships, richly laden, which so alarmed King John, that he compelled Rupert to quit the Tagus. The latter repaired to the Mediterranean, where he maintained himself by piracy; was driven thence by Blake, to the West Indies, where his brother Maurice perished in a storm; and, in the end, he sold his two remaining ships to Cardinal Termination Mazarin, in the harbour of Nantes (March, 1652), and of Rupert's gave up all further attacks against the Commonwealth. career. office of Stadtholder. 11. The Dutch War. Its causes. The relations between England and the United Provinces were altered by the death of the Prince of Orange, in 1650, as that prince, had he lived, would doubtless have excited a war against the republic, because he had married a daughter of Charles I. A few days after his death, his widow gave birth to a son, William III., the same who subsequently ascended the English throne (November 14th, 1650). This circumstance emboldened the democratic party in the States; they abolished the office of Stadtholder, and recovered The Dutch their ascendancy in the government. This revolution abolish the induced the English council of state to propose to the Dutch the incorporation of the United Provinces with the Commonwealth, and thus, by the formation of a powerful republic, to defend Protestantism and liberty against the rest of Europe. The proposal was insultingly received by the Proposed Dutch, who, on the whole, were friendly disposed towards tion of the the English royalists, and protected the Duke of York, republics. and other members of the ex-royal family, at the Hague. St. John and Strickland, the ambassadors who were sent over to make the proposition, were also ill treated by the populace. After the battle of Worcester, the Dutch repented of these rash proceedings; they deemed it prudent to conciliate their fellow republicans, and they begged for a renewal of the negotiations. But victory had enlarged the pretensions of the English parliament; and they incorpora two CHAP. X. had now determined to restore their country to that naval supremacy which Elizabeth had maintained, but which her imbecile successors had suffered to pass away. The salute of the English flag, the right of search, the limits of the fisheries, became the subjects of ardent contention between the two governments; and the parliament directly attacked the great carrying trade of the Dutch, a monopoly they had now enjoyed The Navi- for many years, by passing the celebrated Navigation Act, gation Act. which enacted: (1) That no goods, the produce of Asia, Africa, or America, should be imported into this country in ships which were not the property of England, or its colonies; (2) and that no produce or manufacture of any part of Europe should be imported, unless in ships the property of England, or of the country of which such merchandise was the proper growth or manufacture. An exception was made in favour of commodities from the Levant, the East Indies, and the ports of Spain and Portugal, which might still be imported from the usual places of trading, for the simple reason that the English could not have procured them elsewhere. This act, however, was not a wise measure, and whether its immediate results were beneficial to the country may be doubted. The statesmen of that period, and for long after, did not understand that buying and selling, freighting and unloading vessels, bringing home foreign products to exchange with our own growth or manufacture, were not of national benefit, merely as conducing to the enrichment of merchants, but chiefly beneficial, as they supplied the necessities, or increased the enjoyment of the great mass of the people. Still, however, they had glimpses of this truth, and when France prohibited all trade with England, in 1649, the parliament retaliated, by a like prohibition upon the import of French goods, except linen, because of its general and necessary use. Modern statesmen have been wiser, in this respect, and the Navigation Act, like many other political superstitions, has been abolished.* While the nego 12. Blake's first actions with Van Tromp. tiations between England and the Provinces regarding this celebrated measure were still going on, the fleets of Blake and the Dutch admiral, Van Tromp, came to a conflict on the 19th of May, 1652. The Dutchman had come into the Downs with a fleet of 42 sail, ostensibly to receive some anchors and cables lost on the coast, but instructed to resist the newly claimed right of search, and to salute the English flag or not, just as he thought Action off proper. Blake, with 23 ships, met him off Dover, and Dover. summoned him to lower his flag. Van Tromp paid no regard, but turning suddenly round, sent a broadside into Blake's * Knight's Pop. Hist., IV., 152. 1652 two ligerents. flag-ship. An action immediately took place, which lasted four hours, and ended in the flight of the Dutch, who lost two ships. The battle led to a series of angry altercations between the two nations, the end of which was that war was declared against the States (July 8th). The Dutch appear to have been anxious for peace; the English council was disposed for war. Still, the Dutch did not fear the result of war; the sea was their native element, and their maritime superiority had long been acknow. ledged by all the powers of Europe. Their ships were Relative far more numerous than those of the English; their strength of commanders were more experienced; their men were better disciplined. They had a more practised body of tacticians, who had been educated for a special service connected with the rich commerce of their Indian and American settlements. On the other hand, there was in the English fleet a devoted zeal, which feared no encounter, however unequal, and was indifferent to the grounds of a quarrel, in the determination to uphold the national honour.* But the genius of Blake soon gave decided superiority to the English flag. The rule of naval warfare had been, hitherto, to keep a ship and men out of danger; he despised this, and declined following in the old track altogether. He was the first man who taught sailors to contemn castles on shore, which had always been thought very formidable, but Tactics of which he soon showed made a noise only, and did little Blake. hurt. He infused courage into his men by making them see by experience what mighty things they could do if they were resolved; he taught them to fight in fire as well as in water, and thus led them to the performance of those bold and resolute achievements which are still, and ever will be, the admiration of English seamen.† The great admiral's first business, after the declaration of war, was to assert the bounds of the English fisheries. Sir George Ayscough, who had just returned from the reduction of Barbadoes, remained at home to scour the Channel. Blake set off with 105 ships, carrying 4,000 guns; in the seas of the north of Scotland, he dispersed 600 herring busses, and cap- He distured or sunk 12 ships of war which were protecting the Dutch fishermen's operations. In the meantime, Van Tromp the north. sailed from the, Texel, with 79 men-of-war and 10 fire ships, to engage Ayscough's squadron; but a calm came on, and he was unable to engage. He then sailed northwards, and met Blake between the Orkneys and the Shetland Isles; a storm dispersed his fleet; he lost five ships, and, returning to Holland, was * Knight's Pop. Hist., IV., 151-153. + Clarendon, VII., 216. perses the fishermen in CHAP. X. censured by his government, and resigned his command. De Ruyter, a seaman as bold and almost as illustrious, succeeded him, and drove Ayscough into Plymouth. He was then joined by De Witt, and their united fleets, consisting of 64 sail, encountered Blake in the Downs (September 28th), were worsted, and driven back as far as the Goree, on their own coasts. Blake sur defeated by The English admiral now laid up his ships for the winter, in different ports, and rode in the Downs with only 37 sail, when he was surprised by Van Tromp, with 73 ships, and prised and driven up the Thames as far as Leigh (November 29th). Van Tromp. The Dutchman, proud of his easily-purchased triumph, insulted the English coasts, and sailed to and fro between the North Foreland and the Isle of Wight, with a broom at his masthead, to intimate that he would sweep the proud islanders from the seas. The States General followed him up by declaring the whole of England under a blockade. But all this bombast soon met with a disgraceful discomfiture. Vane rigorously laboured to equip a powerful fleet for his favourite admiral, and in February, 1653, Blake again put to sea with 80 sail, having Penn, Lawson, Monk, and Dean under his command. Van Tromp had gone to the Isle of Rhée, to take the homeward-bound fleet of 300 merchantmen under his charge. Blake stationed his ships right across the Channel, between Portland Bill and Cape La Hogue, to intercept his return. On the 18th of February, Van Tromp came up; an action immediately commenced, and lasted all day, without any decided success. The Dutch lost six vessels, the English one. Next day, the enemy were victory. opposite Weymouth, drawn up in the form of a crescent covering the merchantmen; the battle was as obstinate as on the previous day; it continued at intervals during the night; it was renewed with greater vigour in the morning, near Boulogne, till Van Tromp, availing himself of the shallowness of the coast, pursued his course homeward, unmolested by the pursuit of the enemy. The victory was not altogether decisive, although the English captured 11 men-of-war and 30 merchantmen; but the Dutch never again set up the broom at their mast-head.* Blake retaliates by another III. THE FALL OF THE RUMP PARLIAMENT. seen 13. Unpopularity of the Rump Parliament. While the Commonwealth was thus triumphing over its enemies abroad, after it had put down all opposition at home, a domestic revolution was preparing, which was to overthrow its seemingly vast power. A * Lingard, X., 378-387; Knight's Pop. Hist., IV., 153-155, 1651 mortal weakness lay at the very root of all its strength. The government was, avowedly, a provisional government, resting on no direct authority from the people, and the continuance of the great republican leaders in office seemed to be a confession on their part, that the people were against them. To support the army, which they did not dare to disband, they had recourse to heavy taxes, to large grants from the excise, and to Its exacextensive sales of the church and crown lands; and the tions, monthly assessment on the counties for the support of the troops had risen from £90,000 to £160,000. The Dutch war also drove the government to still more arbitrary and oppressive measures, and Delinquents were strictly hunted out, heavily fined, and in many cases deprived of all their property. Besides these, the promised reformation of the laws was still unaccomplished; with the exception that all law proceedings were ordered to be transacted in the English tongue. The long duration of the parliament was another crying evil, which at last found a remedy in and reluctthe passing of an act (September, 1651), which fixed an the date for the dissolution of the present parliament, and power. the assembling of a new one. But as that date was fixed three years hence, viz., November 3rd, 1654, the parliament only aggravated the evil, and offended its own adherents, most of whom deemed annual, or, at least, triennial parliaments, essential to liberty. Thus the Commonwealth forfeited the good will of the only party on whom it could have relied.* resign in London battle of Worcester. 14. Cromwell's intrigues to gain supreme power. All these discontents, more than any deep laid policy, advanced Cromwell still nearer to that sovereignty which was now within his reach. When he wrote to the parliament, after the battle of Cromwell's Worcester, that the victory was "a crowning mercy," it reception was to him "a crowning mercy" indeed. His advance after the from the battle-field to London was a continuous triumph. The parliament seemed at a loss how to express its gratitude to him for his splendid services; parliamentary commissioners, composed of some of the chief officers in the state, met him at Aylesbury; the speaker and the lord president, the parliament, and the lord mayor and corporation of London, met him at Acton, and presented to him an address of congratulation; he entered the capital in a state carriage, and was conducted, with grand ceremony, to the palace of Hampton Court, where apartments had been fitted up for him and his family at the public expense. * Hallam, I., 657-659; Carlyle, II., 307, 316, 317; Lingard, X., 344-345; Forster's Lives, VII., 2-3; Guizot's Cromwell, 178-179. |