Then came his sweeping tours de force in the Mediterranean; in six months he established himself, as Mr Dixon says, as a power in that great midland sea, from which his countrymen had been politically excluded since the age of the Crusadesteaching nations, to which England's very name was a strange sound, to respect its honours 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 seain Malta, Venice, Genoa, Leghorn, Algiers, Tunis, and Marseillesthere existed a rival and an enemy; nor were there more than three or four harbours in which he could obtain even
bread for love or money.
After this memorable cruise, he had to conduct the Spanish wara 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 battlesympathising 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 Cruzthat 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 towards the green hills of his native land. Cromwell's letter of thanks, the plaudits of parliament, and the jewelled 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 afterwards, 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 welcomehe, 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 onesaw 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 confoundedthough the Merry Monarch thought otherwisewith the Iretons and Bradshaws who were similarly exhumed. The admiral was a moderate in the closest, a patriot in the widest sense.