Blake ordered his light frigates to follow the
merchants; still continued to harass Van Trump; and, on the third day,
the 20th of February, the two fleets came to another battle, in which
Van Trump once more retired before the English, and, making use of the
peculiar form of his shipping, secured himself in the shoals. The
accounts of this fight, as of all the others, are various; but the
Dutch writers themselves confess, that they lost eight men of war, and
more than twenty merchant ships; and, it is probable, that they
suffered much more than they are willing to allow, for these repeated
defeats provoked the common people to riots and insurrections, and
obliged the states to ask, though ineffectually, for peace.
In April following, the form of government in England was changed, and
the supreme authority assumed by Cromwell; upon which occasion Blake,
with his associates, declared that, notwithstanding the change in the
administration, they should still be ready to discharge their trust,
and to defend the nation from insults, injuries, and encroachments.
"It is not," said Blake, "the business of a sea-man to mind state
affairs, but to hinder foreigners from fooling us." This was the
principle from which he never deviated, and which he always
endeavoured to inculcate in the fleet, as the surest foundation of
unanimity and steadiness.
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