capitulation; marched Colonel Reeves out, and
liimself and Sir Robert Pye in, amidst the
puuliug of bells, on the eighth of July, 1644,
six days after Cromwell had defeated Rupert
at Marston Moor.

This was an achievement done "cleanly,"
in proverbial phrase. Blake by this had got
snugly into the very heart of the king's best
country. Unfortunately, the Earl of Essex's
capitulation was to be put against it, but
Blake could make up for many failings. He
was quite determined to hold Taunton, come
what might. Colonel Wyndham came, with
his Royalist forces, and really appealed quite
pathetically to our hero to surrender. " I
neither fear your menaces nor accept your
proffers," answers Blake (no doubt "curling
his whiskers," which was his rather oriental
habit, when excited); and the storm began.

The defence of Taunton ranks among our
best English military achievements. It was
defended against superior forces, assaults,
starvations, cordons, concentrations, and military
expedients of all sorts, until relief came
from London. The succouring forces found
Taunton black, battered, and with inhabitants
starving among ruins; but still impregnable;
unconquerable by the world, the
flesh, and the devil, as a Puritan's will!
Next spring, Blake blew open Dunster
Castle, a "virgin fortress" of royalty, so
called.

The Revolution was by this time at its
critical period. As usual nothing is so remark-
able in Blake as his utter personal moderation.
Returned as a member to Parliament, he
preferred his quiet government at Taunton. The
"suspicions " we hear of, about his treatment
by this party or that party, never came from
himself. Others have supplied them for him,
gratuitously. But Blake, whatever were his
speculative " opinions " on government
(concerning which it is not easy to get definite
knowledge), had the sentiment of duty to the
cause predominant in his heart, and assumed
the " naval command," when he was
ordered, with his usual quiet loyalty. We
know that he was opposed to the execution
of Charles; we may suppose, if we please,
that he would have preferred a republic
to the rule of Cromwell. But Blake was
no system-monger; Blake did not come
into the strife with any little bundle of
theories which the facts of the movement were
to be made to suit. He was pre-eminently
loyal and open-hearted to the duty which the
day brought with it. For instance, when his
captains were for some opposition to Cromwell
and the army: "No," said Blake; " it is not
for us to mind affairs of state, but to keep
foreigners from fooling us." How like a
sen-tence of Nelson's or Collingwood's that reads!
The same pious loyalty distinguishes them all.
No matter who was running after pudding,
places, or republics. They were always at
their duty.

Blake went to sea at the middle age of life
as a "General of the Fleet." He cannot have
been a sailor in the sense in which Nelson was
one. But neither had Cromwell been bred a
soldier. Blake had, however, the talent and
practice of governing; the heart of a brave
man; and an eye for sweeping the horizon!
Then, may we not say that he was a born
sailor? Born with the murmur of the sea
humming in him, did he not revel on it, like
a wild sea-bird, that has reached it at last,
across long tracts of the dull-coloured hard
land? There is no violent improbability
in supposing him born with a turn for
being afloat, as the oak is; ready to strip his
leaves and bark, and swim, unconquerable,
anywhere.

The navy seems to have been almost neutral,
hitherto. But the time was come when the
navy was to be a very important arm, and
there needed important preliminary reforms.
For dockyards were infamously conducted,
and ships were scarcely seaworthy; as,
indeed, people say of some of them even in
our own enlightened days. Rupert and
Maurice were blooming into piracy, and as
lively afloat as water-rats. So Blake had to
begin, in his own quiet, determined way,
reforming the fleet; removing idle, vicious,
dissipated fellows, and seeking out able captains.
He hoisted his flag on the 18th April, 1649,
at the age of fifty. Fancy him passing down
the Channel with his division of ships that
summe; not a dandy squadron; but clumsy-
looking and seedy vessels, with a certain
semi-barbarous gorgeousness too; the plain
white flag with a red cross flying from the
mast-head.

First, Blake began by blockading Rupert
in Kinsale, and kept him there the whole
summer. Rupert was in a pretty position
by winter time, with Cromwell advancing
southward by land, and the immoveable Blake
waiting for him at sea. Heavy gales scattered
Blake's fleet, blowing them away in the
offing, and by the end of October, Rupert
got to sea with seven vessels, and made
for Portugal, picking up vessels,
corsair-fashion, of all nations as prizes, with a
swoop like an albatross's. Blake, after
co-operating with the land forces in Ireland
some time, was sent on a winter cruise after
the prince with five ships, with names
that sound eccentric now-a-days: Tiger,
John, Tenth Whelp, Signet, and Constant
Warwick. Blake was in the Tiger. More
vessels joined him in the beginning of the
year. Rupert went up the Tagus with his
squadron; the Portuguese court were inclined
to aid him; but here was the famous admiral,
representing that the said piratical squadron
of Rupert's belonged to the "Parliament of
England," and waiting in that beautiful river
(where we so lately had a fleet enjoying the
opera!) to lay rude hands upon it! The Court
temporised; at last Blake, now tired of talking,
seized the "Brazil fleet of nine sail," and
put trusty men into them, sans phrase. The