Chapter VI: The First Years of the Commonwealth (1)

The AUTHORITIES for this chapter are the same as for the last. By far the most valuable is the Life of Penn. This book is in reality a collection of authorities, with no other internal coherence than is supplied by the subject and chronological order, but the compiler has missed little indeed which is of interest. M. de Pontalis' _Jean de Witt_ gives a luminous account of the political and military condition of Holland at the time of the outbreak of the war with England.

The Civil War came to an end, and the interregnum began with the execution of Charles, on January 30, 1649. The resolute men who had now laid their hands on power made their grip felt at once. Before the month of February was over, they had completed the work of reorganising the navy. The change was typified by an outward symbol which told its own tale to every sailor's eye. Warwick had carried the Royal Standard at the main, and his ships had worn the man-of-war flag of King Charles's reign. This was the Union in the old form, which lasted until the end of the eighteenth century; that is to say, the Red Cross of St. George and the White Saltire of Scotland. English merchant ships had carried the English Ensign, the Red Cross of St. George on the white ground, while Scotch ships used the national White Cross of St. Andrew on a blue ground. By order of the Council of State, now the executive governing body, the English Navy was to carry the Red Cross. The Royal Standard disappeared, and so did the Crown, from the device carved on the stern of the ships. In future they were to carry only two shields--one with the arms of England, and another with those of Ireland. The removal of the old symbols was naturally followed by the dismissal of a commander who had of late been little more than a living symbol of the vacillations and political incompetence of his party. On the 22nd of February, Warwick was dismissed from his place of Lord High Admiral. On the following day three soldiers of the victorious party were appointed as joint commissioners for the command of the fleet, with the title of admirals and generals at sea. These were Colonel Edward Popham, Colonel Robert Blake, and Colonel Richard Deane. Popham and Blake were Somersetshire men of good birth. Blake, after serving in subordinate positions in the West, had held Taunton for the Parliament during the year between the battles of Marston Moor and Naseby, with signal advantage to his party, and great glory to himself. Colonel Richard Deane was of Gloucestershire by descent. His youth had been obscure, but he had risen rapidly to high command in the Civil War, and was known as one of the most able and trustworthy of the Independent officers. He had perhaps been at sea in some humble capacity in his youth. There is nothing to show that the other two had any experience in ships. All three were appointed because their loyalty was certain, and because they had shown themselves resolute fighting men.

At the same time, active measures were taken to secure both the devotion and efficiency of the fleet. According to the uniform practice of the Long Parliament, the administration was kept in the hand of an Admiralty Committee of members of Parliament. Under them there was a Navy Committee, consisting of officials who discharged the duties of the Treasurer, Surveyor, Comptroller, and Clerk. Both bodies were composed of able and zealous men, by whom the work of administration was excellently done. During the first years of the Commonwealth, the navy made great strides both in number and quality. Ships were so rapidly built that the effective strength was as good as doubled between 1649 and 1651. The work of building was largely done by the Petts, who were now so effectually established in the dockyards that it would have been impossible to replace them by an equally competent body of officials. Nor, although their grasping spirit made them unpopular, was there any reason for getting rid of them. The Pett family served its successive masters with the undeviating loyalty of the Vicar of Bray. For them the commanding interest of the nation was that they should retain their places. During these earlier years the Commonwealth was also comparatively rich. It had not yet to bear the strain of the great Dutch war, and it had not exhausted the resources afforded by the confiscated estates of the Church, the Crown, and the Royalists, nor had it yet used up the fines levied on the king's party for the sin of Delinquency. Therefore it was able not only to build ships rapidly and well, but also to pay the sailor with a regularity to which he had not hitherto been accustomed. The wealth of the Government, and the need it had for his services, were, for a time, of immense benefit to the sailor. His pay had been raised from 15s. to 19s. a month during the Civil War. Under the Commonwealth it was increased to 23s. for able seamen, and 19s. for ordinary seamen. As much as 25s. a month were given to the men engaged on particular service, such as the pursuit of Rupert. Measures were also taken to give the men a fairer share of prize-money, and to secure its rapid and honest distribution. Government had hitherto looked upon prizes taken from the enemy as a resource. Being in chronic want of money, it had treated its men with scant generosity. The evidence both of Sir William Monson and Sir Richard Hawkins shows that Elizabeth's sailors expected little justice at the hands of her officers. The Commonwealth was soon beset by the same necessities as the Crown, and yielded to the temptation of throwing as many charges as possible on the Commissioners for prizes. Yet it did try to be handsome in its behaviour towards its servants, who for a time, before and after the establishment of Cromwell as Protector, profited both in pay and prize-money to a hitherto unknown extent. At no time do they seem to have been so badly used as they had been under Charles I., and were again to be under Charles II. Pay and prize-money were not all. Care was taken to supply better food, and more of it. The observance of Lent, which had hitherto enabled the State to economise meat rations, was abolished; though this was probably mainly done by the Puritans from a religious motive. Better pay, more prize-money, and good feeding had the desired effect of securing the loyalty of the seamen. We may at any rate attribute to them at least as much effect in keeping the sailors steady to the Commonwealth as to their high conception of that duty of preventing foreigners from "fooling us," which is sometimes supposed to have supplied their main motive.

The work before the navy of the Commonwealth at the beginning of 1649 was sufficiently abundant and varied. The Royalists still held the Channel Islands, and Ireland was unsubdued. Besides this, the English settlements in America had not yet been brought to submission to the new Government. The Puritan colonies were indeed thoroughly in sympathy with the Commonwealth, but Virginia was Royalist, and Barbadoes, then our only footing in the West Indies, was held for the king. An even more pressing duty than the subjugation of Royalist strongholds in the Channel and the West Indies lay before the Commissioners who had succeeded Warwick in the command of the fleet.

When the Parliament's fleet retired from Helvoetsluys, carrying with it the revolted ships which had returned to their duty, it left a remnant of seven vessels in the service of the Prince of Wales. It was natural that he should endeavour to make use of these vessels for the cause. The manner of using them was imposed upon him by circumstances. They could not hope to meet the Commonwealth's naval forces in open conflict, but they could prey upon the commerce of the king's disloyal subjects. It might have been wiser not to yield to the temptation of using them in a species of warfare which could hardly help becoming piratical, but the need for money was great, the technical right of the king to fight for his crown on the sea was at least as good as his right to continue the struggle by land, and the prince did what it would have required exceptional wisdom and virtue to restrain him from doing. He appointed Prince Rupert as his admiral, with the proviso that he was to vacate the place to the Duke of York if called upon, and issued commissions authorising him and his captains to make prize of all the king's English enemies, and all such foreigners as should give them help. It was one thing to appoint an admiral and give him a commission, and quite another to fit the ships for sea. The exiled king had no money. He expected his squadron to provide him with funds. The ships must be got to sea somehow. A resource was found by selling the guns of the =Antelope=, and with the money thus provided another of the ships at Helvoetsluys was armed for sea. A lucky privateering cruise brought in funds, and with them the remainder were armed.

Rupert left Helvoetsluys in January 1649, with a squadron of seven warships and one armed prize. This was the whole naval force which now supported the Royal Standard of England. It ran down Channel and made for Kinsale. The blockade of this port had been raised by Parliament on the recommendation of Colonel Edward Popham. Prince Rupert entered it with the ships which had accompanied him from Helvoetsluys, and perhaps with some prizes he had picked up on the way. From this harbour he began cruising against English commerce with such success, that whereas the remnant of His Majesty's navy had lately been in extreme distress, it was now able to boast itself rich. A further service was rendered to the Royalist cause by the relief of the garrison still holding the Scilly Isles for the king. Prince Rupert was struck by the advantages this group of islands seemed capable of affording to an enterprising leader engaged in harrying commerce. He thought they might be turned into another Venice. Another Algiers would have been a more accurate expression. His schemes for making the Scilly Isles a basis of operations against the commerce of England were nipped in the bud by the naval forces of the Parliament. One of his ships was captured after a hot fight by two of the Commonwealth cruisers, and this misfortune seems to have been received as a sharp warning by its comrades. They returned to Kinsale, and, while engaged in getting ready for a summer cruise, were disagreeably surprised by the appearance of a strong blockading force under the command of Sir George Ayscue. Ayscue was soon called away to other service, but his place was taken by two of the new admirals and generals at sea, Blake and Deane. They held Rupert so closely blockaded until October, that not only were his raids against commerce entirely stopped, but great discontent arose among his men, who were reduced to idleness and threatened by want. Many deserted, and Rupert was compelled to disarm some of the prizes which he had been fitting for sea. After the first successes of Cromwell had made it clear that the king's cause was ruined in Ireland, the position of Rupert at Kinsale became one of extreme danger. If the blockade had continued until the Puritan army was upon the town, it is eminently probable that, unless Rupert had been slain in action, he would have followed Hamilton and Culpepper to the block. A heavy gale released him from this peril. It drove the forces of the Parliament off the coast, and gave Rupert an opportunity of escaping of which he did not fail to avail himself. With his original seven ships, but without his prizes, he sailed for Portugal. The overwhelming naval strength of the Parliament in the Channel had rendered his original scheme of holding the Scilly Isles impracticable.

On his way south he fell in with and captured some English merchant ships near the Berlings. Rejoiced by this booty, which he calculated would be worth forty thousand pounds to the king's service, he entered the Tagus. At Kinsale he had heard of the execution of King Charles, and had received a confirmation of his commission from the new king. He appealed to the Portuguese Government for a friendly reception. The King of Portugal owed his own throne to a successful revolt, but he was quite as much shocked by the iniquity of the English rebels as any of the longer established monarchs of the Continent. As the Commonwealth was not yet fully established, the Portuguese acted as if they thought it safe to treat it with indifference. Rupert was openly received by the king, and was allowed to make profit of his prizes. Complaints of his depredations, and outcries from the merchants trading to the Straits, whose ships were endangered by his cruisers, assailed the Council of State. In December it began to take measures to send a squadron in pursuit. Blake and Popham were ordered to consult on the measures to be taken. Almost immediately afterwards it was decided that Blake should sail alone for Lisbon, while Popham remained in the Channel. Deane had been called off for service with the army in Scotland. The squadron appointed to go with Blake was first fixed at five vessels--the =Tiger=, the =John=, the =Tenth Whelp=, the =Signet=, and the =Constant Warwick=. Before Blake was ready to sail, his force was increased to twelve vessels. There was, however, an interval of nearly three months between the decision to send him to the southward and the sailing of his squadron. In spite of the efforts of the New Admiralty Committee, the navy was not yet in a condition to provide large squadrons at very short notice. The calls upon its resources were many. In April of 1650 thirty-nine vessels were required in the Downs, or on the coasts of Ireland and Scotland, in addition to the twenty which were then cruising to the southward under the command of Popham and Blake. The establishment which the Council of State thought necessary was sixty-five vessels in all. Blake spent the two first months of 1650 at Plymouth, getting his squadron ready for sea. Early in March he made his appearance off the mouth of the Tagus, with a fleet strong enough to be too much, not only for Rupert, but for the feeble kingdom of Portugal. He had explicit instructions, which were confirmed and extended when Popham joined in April, to treat Rupert as a pirate, that is to say, as an enemy of the human race, who was not entitled to receive asylum. His orders were to point this out to all princes in whose ports he might meet the Royalist admiral. If they refused to take the same view, then Blake was authorised to attack Prince Rupert, even in the harbour of a State not at war with England--to act, in fact, on the principle that whoever treated Rupert as a friend was an enemy of England.

When Blake found Rupert at anchor in the Tagus, he made a demand for his surrender. A diplomatic agent was landed to represent the case of the British Parliament to the King of Portugal. King John was in a cruel position. He could not surrender Rupert without a certain amount of disgrace. Indeed he was so feeble that the Royalist adventurers would have been formidable enemies. Rupert had no scruple as to treating his host with scant politeness, and there was a party at the Portuguese Court in favour of helping the Royalists. On the other hand, the king had fair warning that if he did not treat Rupert as a pirate, the Parliament would ruin his commerce. While the king was vacillating, the two fleets remained at anchor not far from one another, and their sailors had frequent conflicts. An unsuccessful attempt was made by the Royalists to blow up Blake's flagship by a torpedo. When Blake found that the Portuguese Government was not yet ready to help him against the Royalists, he proceeded to prove to it the danger of the course it preferred. His station at the mouth of the Tagus enabled him to lay hands easily on all ships coming in or going out. When the outward-bound Brazil fleet put to sea, it was found to include several English vessels freighted by the Portuguese. These Blake pressed for the service of the Commonwealth, and sequestered their cargoes. The blow was a sharp one, and was not made more palatable by an intimation that it was only a warning, and that worse would follow if the Portuguese persisted in their ill-advised courses. The king was not unnaturally very angry, and appealed to Rupert to help him in driving off Blake's squadron. Nothing could have been more to the taste of the Royalist admiral, and if there had been any effective Portuguese fleet to help, he would have helped it. But there was not, and therefore when Rupert put to sea no battle took place. Rupert hoisted the Royal Standard and made a bold show. But in reality he could not venture to do more than skirmish with the overwhelming force opposed to him. Blake had been joined by Popham, and their combined force was not less than twenty vessels. The three capital ships and four small frigates of Rupert's own following were no match for such an antagonist. Therefore, although Rupert came near enough to have his topmast shot away, he could not venture to do much more than skirmish at a moderate distance from the forts, when the wind blew from a direction which gave him security that he could get safely back again.

Shortly after this ineffectual effort to drive off the blockading squadron, the home-coming Brazil fleet appeared, and, being quite ignorant of the state of affairs, sailed into the hands of Blake and Popham. This was a second and a worse blow to the Portuguese. Once more King John was stirred up to make an effort. Again he appealed to Rupert, and again nothing came of it. The Royalist promised help, but Blake and Popham left him no opportunity of keeping his word. Their ships by this time must have been very foul. They had good reason to be satisfied with the punishment they had inflicted on the King of Portugal, and they sailed with their prizes for the Spanish port of San Lucar de Barrameda. By this time the Portuguese Government had been taught that it was not wisdom to fight with the keepers of the liberties of England. It took advantage of the absence of Blake and Popham to get rid of Rupert, not by driving him out, a feat beyond its resources, but by bribing him to be gone. His ships were refitted, his prizes were taken off his hands, and he was bowed out. Rupert himself was not loth to be at sea again, where there were prizes to be taken. He ran through the Straits of Gibraltar and entered the Mediterranean, with the intention of preying on English commerce.

This third stage of his career began in September 1650. It was a step downwards. By this time the ruin of the Royalist cause had been put beyond doubt. The Governments of the Continent were beginning to grasp the fact that it would be wiser for them to make friends with the new power. A naval force, which no longer represented a Government in possession of even a part of its territory, was on the high road to fall into sheer piracy. It could live only by plunder, and was compelled to treat all who refused to allow it to sell its booty as enemies. In the Mediterranean, Rupert made haste to prove to all the world that he was not the man to stand upon trifles, or to consider those who were not strong enough to inspire him with respect. The extreme feebleness of the Spanish Government was a temptation to a man of his temperament. He took a bold and simple line with the Spanish authority in the southern ports. All English ships, he said, which obey the present revolutionary Government are the property of the rebels. No civilised State can be allowed to harbour such people. Therefore, when I find English ships in your harbours, I shall attack them, and, if you interfere with me, shall fire on you.

This declaration of policy was the answer of the exiled King's Lord High Admiral to the Parliament's declaration that he himself was a pirate. It was very natural, and as a matter of theory was perhaps equally accurate, but then it was not supported by the same effective force. When, therefore, Rupert insisted upon acting on the principle that his opponents were rebels, who were not entitled to enjoy asylum in the ports of foreign princes, he laid himself open to severe retaliation. As a matter of fact, he did just enough to inspire the Spaniards with a strong desire to see Blake's squadron make an end of him. At Malaga, at Velez Malaga, and again at Motril, he attacked English merchant ships, and made prize of all of them which did not run on shore, without paying the slightest respect to the neutrality of Spanish waters. Had there been any Spanish navy in existence, his career would have been short. But the Spaniards were too weak to defend themselves from insult. They were compelled to rely on the assistance of Blake, who was refitting his squadron at San Lucar, after the fatigues of the blockade at Lisbon.

Blake had not been able to prevent Rupert from running through the Straits, probably because his ships were all equally foul, and equally in need of scraping, and he was therefore unable to station vessels at sea to intercept the Royalists. So soon as he could get ready, he followed Rupert up the Mediterranean, and about the 7th of November came on the bulk of the Royalist cruisers at Carthagena. Rupert himself was absent. His ships had been scattered in a gale on the 5th of November, and he, with one other vessel, was cruising in the neighbourhood of Formentera, where he took a richly-laden merchant ship called the =Marmaduke=, after some fighting. With his prize, Rupert returned to the mainland of Spain, and, not finding his consorts, left a message informing them that he had sailed for Toulon. It was not till he reached the French port that he heard of the disaster which had overtaken the rest of his squadron. Blake had attacked at once. The Royalists complained that the Spaniards had suffered the law of nations to be outraged in their harbours. They had very little choice, but, from their point of view, the action of Blake cannot have appeared much worse than Rupert's. The Royalists made no resistance, many of the men were pressed out of the English prizes, and, even of those who were not, many were getting tired of an adventure which brought them little but danger and exile.

Rupert had been driven on to the coast of Sicily by bad weather, before he could make the coast of France. There he was well received, and allowed to sell his prizes--an act of compliance on the part of the French officers for which the commerce of France was severely punished. Blake, acting on his instructions, immediately retaliated by capturing French merchant vessels, and when he left the Mediterranean, as he did shortly afterwards, the same course was vigorously pursued by his successor, William Penn. Penn's cruise in the Mediterranean lasted till April of '52, and was fruitful in French prizes. He had been called from the coast of Ireland to command a squadron of eight frigates, designed to replace the heavier ships of Blake's command. The Parliament was now using the naval forces of England with a vigour of which there had been no previous example. The necessity of proving to the country that it was capable of protecting commerce against the utmost Rupert could do, acted as a stimulus, even if there had not been a strong wish to make the monarchies of the Continent understand that the new Government was far too powerful to be treated with neglect. The measures taken were not inadequate to the work on hand. In the November of 1650 William Penn sailed with a squadron of eight frigates, and with orders first to make a cruise against the Portuguese on their own coast, and in the Western Islands, with the object of capturing their merchant ships on the way home from Brazil, and then to enter the Mediterranean, where he was to relieve Blake in the work of hunting down Rupert. The Council of State was so resolute not to delay the work, that it did not wait until the whole squadron was ready. Penn sailed on the 30th of November, with five of his frigates, for the Azores. The other three joined him there under the command of John Lawson. The whole force contained an exceptional proportion of men who gained distinction in the sea service: it consisted of the--

Ships. Men. Guns. Captains.

=Fairfax= 250 52 William Penn, vice-admiral.
=Centurion= 150 36 John Lawson.
=Adventure= 150 36 Andrew Ball.
=Foresight= 150 36 Samuel Howett.
=Pelican= 150 36 Joseph Jordan.
=Assurance= 150 36 Benjamin Blake.
=Nonsuch= 150 36 John Mildmay.
=Star= 80 22 Robert Sanders.

This squadron was in the Azores by the 17th of January 1651, and, after cruising with fair success between them and the Rock of Lisbon, entered the Mediterranean in March. In addition to Penn's squadron, another was fitted out under command of Captain Edward Hall, for the purpose of convoying the trade to the Mediterranean. Hall's squadron consisted of--

Ships. Men. Guns. Captains.

=Triumph= 300 52 Edward Hall, vice-admiral.
=Tiger= 150 36 James Peacock.
=Angel= 150 30 William Rand.
=Ant. Bonadventure= 150 30 Walter Hopton.
=Trade's Increase= 160 44 William Jacob.
=Lion= 190 44 Jac. Birkdel.
=Hopeful Luke= 126 34 William Goodson.

There was thus a double protection. While Hall applied himself to the convoying of merchant ships, Penn was free to pursue Rupert. The Royalists gave no trouble, and the two squadrons of the Parliament had little to do beyond making reprisals on the nations which had incurred the hostility of England by showing favour to Rupert, and by endeavouring to put some check on the excesses of the Algerines. Yet the presence of two forces acting in the Mediterranean at once, so soon after the appearance of Blake, must have given the Southern nations a greatly enhanced opinion of the naval power of England. The officers in command were well aware that they were doing much more than merely chasing away a handful of Royalist cruisers. Their sense of the higher importance of their work is very well expressed in a letter written by Captain Hall from Cadiz, on the eve of entering the Mediterranean.

"Your fleets meeting here, so soon after the departure of the other fleet, is of no less admiration to other foreign kingdoms (into which reports fly of them daily) than to Spain; who much admire your quickness, in such strength and full supplies. So as I believe, in a short time, the Spaniards, between fear and love, will grow respectful to us. Though, hitherto, we have had little sign of it, more than compliments (only free access to the shore, where we are in nowise molested in our business), which we fail not to equalise them in."

Although Rupert vanished from the sight of Blake and his successors in the Mediterranean, and indeed did not again come in contact with the naval forces of the Parliament, we cannot ignore the actions of a gentleman who was Lord High Admiral, and who flew the Royal Standard by commission of the rightful king. After the defeat at Carthagena he was now reduced to three vessels, and a large part of his crews was discontented. Only the high courage of the man, and the determination of the exiled Royalists who had accompanied him, sufficed to prevent wholesale desertion, or open resistance to his authority. Partly by good management, but more by force, Rupert kept his command together. With the proceeds of his prizes he purchased a fourth vessel, and started on certainly the most extraordinary cruise ever undertaken by a Lord High Admiral of England. It lasted for two years, and at the end there remained only one of the four ships with which it began. He had entered the Mediterranean with "poverty and despair as his companions, and revenge as his guide." These comrades attended him, and he kept this aim in view to the end. From Toulon he sailed to the coast of Africa, and there began avenging the wrongs of his master and uncle, Charles I., by capturing a Genoese carrack, partly on the pretext that the Republic had given him offence, and partly through the "clamour of the seamen," who, having entered on a voyage which had much the look of piracy, were minded to enjoy the privileges of the position. Then he took a Spanish galleon, making use of the Parliament flag as a device to throw her off her guard. Having now done his very best to arouse the whole naval forces of the Mediterranean against him, Rupert wisely roamed out into the Atlantic. He had a scheme for making a cruise on the coast of Africa, and thence over to Barbadoes, which was known to be still held for the king by Lord Willoughby of Parham. It may be that this scheme was not very definite, and that he in reality drifted about very much at the mercy of accident, and the pressure exercised on him by the hope of booty, or the constant mutinous conduct of his men. He first went to Madeira, where he was civilly received by the Portuguese authorities, who were subject to hostilities both from Spain and the Parliament, and could therefore not put themselves in a worse position by favouring Rupert. From Madeira he went to the Canaries, and then to the Cape de Verd Islands, and then back to the Azores, always capturing what English and Spanish ships came in his way. On the coast of Africa he was actively helped by the Portuguese, and even by the Dutch, who were now themselves on the eve of war with England, and were not sorry to see the Lord High Admiral engaged in destroying the trade and settlements of the king's disloyal subjects. The Hollanders did not foresee that within a few years the knowledge gained in these cruises would be turned against themselves. Among the officers who followed Rupert was the Captain Robert Holmes who became an admiral after the Restoration and led a squadron to the coast of Africa for the purpose of sweeping out the Dutch.

In the September of 1651 Rupert's strength was sorely diminished. His flagship went down in a gale with three hundred and thirty men, although every effort was made to stop the leak, even to the thrusting of a hundred and twenty pieces of raw beef into it, and stancheoning them down. Rupert was saved by the devotion of his followers. Shortly afterwards another of his little squadron ran aground in the Azores and became a total wreck. He endeavoured to replace these losses by arming his prizes, but his resources diminished too fast. His men continued to desert, and he had no means of replacing them. After his disasters in the islands, he returned to the coast of Africa in May '52, and applied himself alternately to plundering the English at sea, and the Moors on shore in the neighbourhood of Cape Blanco. By this time his vessels had become strained, so that well-found merchant ships had less difficulty in escaping them. The Portuguese, too, had made peace with England. His refuges were being shut to him, and he could not sell his prizes. After failing to capture an English vessel, "very snug, with taut masts," which they took for a man-of-war (the fighting ship was already known by her greater smartness), Rupert deserted Africa and the Atlantic islands and betook himself to the Antilles. He had come too late to assist in the defence of Barbadoes against the Parliament, but the Dutch war had now begun. Rupert had not the smallest scruple in assisting the enemies of England against the enemies of the king. He was busy near Nevis and other parts of the Windward Islands. In the course of his cruising he gave his name to Prince Rupert's Bay on the western side of the island of Dominica, very close to the scene of one of the most famous of English naval victories. At last, among the Virgin Islands, he was overtaken by the most destructive of the many storms he had experienced. His brother Maurice went down with all hands, and Rupert himself, being now worn out and overmatched, returned home with his only remaining ship. He reached Nantes early in 1653 in safety. His one surviving vessel was burned by accident, so that nothing was left of the force with which he had originally sailed, except a few of the adventurers.

While the small remnant of the king's naval forces was pursuing a course of adventures which hovered between piracy and privateering, the Council of State was making vigorous use of its navy for the purpose of stamping out what resistance to its authority still lingered on in outlying territories. In 1651 it armed, in addition to the Home Guards and the squadrons of Penn and Hall, a further squadron under the command of Sir George Ayscue. His mission was to reduce the royal garrison at Barbadoes, and to receive the submission of the plantations of North America. Barbadoes had passed into our hands by occupation as far back as the reign of Elizabeth. It had never been held by the Spaniards, who probably neglected it because it lay well out in the Atlantic to the eastward of the Antilles. Although of little direct value to them, its position made it desirable to a Power which wished to be able to attack the Spanish Indies. Being to windward, it supplied an excellent starting-point for a squadron intending to assail the Antilles. It has a good harbour and fertile soil. The early history of our settlement in Barbadoes is peaceful and obscure. The settlers appear to have included an exceptional number of capitalists, and few among them belonged to that class of emigrants who left England for religious reasons during the reign of Charles I. By the middle of the century it is said to have contained fifty thousand inhabitants, over and above the black slaves and the remnant of the native Indian population. In the desperate state to which the king's fortunes were reduced, his desire to retain so valuable a fragment of his dominions was very natural. He could do little to defend it in the way of supplying men or money. It was, however, in his power to appoint a resolute governor; and this he did. The Lord Willoughby of Parham, who had been named Vice-Admiral by Charles at Helvoetsluys in 1648, had been displaced by the mutiny of his men when the squadron returned from its unsuccessful cruise into the Thames, was sent as governor to Barbadoes, and was well received by the planters. So long as they were not called upon to fight or suffer for the royal cause, these persons were perfectly prepared to recognise the king's authority. They had a militia apparently well armed, and forts in the principal settlement at Carlisle Bay, but the reality of strength was not in proportion to the show.

In spite of the ease with which Willoughby established his authority, the Barbadians were not undivided. There was a Parliamentary party among them. Some of the leaders of this section of the inhabitants thought it more prudent to desert the island on the arrival of Lord Willoughby. They had taken refuge in England, and had promised the Parliament support if it could send out a force for the conquest of the island. Several of them accompanied Ayscue. Sir George did not proceed at once to the West Indies, but began his campaign by a cruise on the coasts of Spain and Portugal. It was hoped that before crossing the Atlantic he might do something towards the final suppression of Prince Rupert. But Rupert had by this time given up even the appearance of struggling with the Parliament's navy, and had gone farther to the south. After searching in vain for an enemy who eluded him, Ayscue went on to discharge the second part of his mission. It is possible that he did not wish to reach the West Indies during the hurricane months of July, August, and September. In October that danger is considered to be over. On the 16th of October he appeared off Carlisle Bay, on the western side of Barbadoes. There were several Dutch and some English ships at anchor, and these Ayscue seized, on the ground that they were trading with the enemies of the Parliament. Then he summoned Lord Willoughby to surrender. The Royalist governor made a stout answer, and the planters appeared for a time to be ready to support him. But in truth, as the result showed, they were not prepared to risk much for the cause. Ayscue established a blockade of the island, and put an entire stop to its trade. This threatened the planters with ruin, and a large party among them were soon converted to a conviction of the necessity of bringing Lord Willoughby to reason. A very active leader of this section of the inhabitants was a certain Thomas Modyford, colonel of one of the regiments of colonial militia, a man who had a very strange and varied career to run in the West Indies before he died. He had fought for the king in England, and was a new-comer in Barbadoes, where he had landed only in 1647, but he had brought with him the means of buying a plantation, and now he was not inclined to risk his possessions in the apparently desperate cause of his master's son. He therefore made his peace with Ayscue, and gave the Parliamentary leader assurances of support. Ayscue had but few soldiers with him, and would probably not have risked the landing unless he had been sure of help. In December, two months after his arrival, he received what he had the art to represent as a reinforcement. The West Indian Islands were commonly supplied with food for themselves and their slaves from Virginia. The ships bringing these stores arrived in the month of December. Trading fleets at that time, when the New World swarmed with pirates, preferred to sail together, for the sake of mutual protection. When they reached him, Ayscue made believe that he had received a reinforcement of men, and at once landed at Carlisle Bay. The resistance was so trifling that it is hard to believe the defenders to have been in earnest. Ayscue obtained possession of the forts without the least difficulty. The occupation of the rest of the island would have been beyond his power if the planters had been unanimous in the support of Lord Willoughby. Colonel Modyford had done his work too well, and there were no doubt many other planters as little disposed as himself to lose all for loyalty's sake. They must have known very well that even if they beat off Ayscue, they would only bring a more formidable armament on themselves a little later, while their trade would be ruined in the interval. They soon made Lord Willoughby understand that he must not expect too much from their devotion, and the king's governor surrendered on terms which Ayscue had the generosity, or the good sense, to make liberal. From Barbadoes the fleet sailed to Virginia. There had been some fear that Prince Rupert might reach the Old Dominion, and give trouble; but the prince, as we have seen, was otherwise employed. Virginia, though partly Royalist in sympathies, had already submitted. The plantations farther to the north were thoroughly Puritan; and when Ayscue returned to England, he was able to report that the authority of the Parliament was peacefully acknowledged throughout the whole extent of the American colonies.

Whilst Sir George Ayscue was bringing the colonial settlements to obedience of the Parliament, the work of utterly extirpating the king's authority had been completed at home. Blake had returned from the Mediterranean in February, leaving Penn to take his place. He was well received by the Council of State, and rewarded not only by thanks, but by a grant of money. The Government had immediate need of his services again. Though completely beaten in England, the Royalists were still struggling in Scotland, and they held possession both of the Scilly and the Channel Isles. From these posts they carried on harassing privateering war against commerce. It was not only the damage they did to trade which made these garrisons highly inconvenient to the Government. They had not been very careful to distinguish between English and foreign property in their captures, and had at least done enough to justify the Dutch in threatening to take the law into their own hands. The fear that Tromp, who commanded the naval forces of the States in the Channel, would seize at least upon Scilly was avowed, and was possibly not wholly unfounded. The most effectual way to put a stop to any enterprise of the kind was manifestly to eject the Royalist garrisons from these posts. In April Blake convoyed a military force sent to take possession of the Scilly Isles. The service was rapidly and effectively performed, with the help of Ayscue, who was starting on his voyage to America, and of Colonel Clarke, a military officer despatched by Desborow. Sir John Grenville, the Royalist governor, held out until the 24th of May, and then brought a resistance, doomed to be unavailing, to an end by surrender. The operations against the Channel Isles were suspended for a short time by the march of the Scots army under Charles II. into England. But after the "crowning mercy" of Worcester in September they were resumed. On this occasion Blake had the sole naval command, and his military colleague was Colonel Hayne. Sir George Carteret was helped to prolong his defence by the bad weather, which made it impossible to land the troops for days. But the end was inevitable. With an overwhelming naval force at their command, and the now completely victorious New Model Army to draw on for reinforcements, it was at best a mere question of time when the Parliament would obtain possession of the islands. So soon as he had done enough for honour, Sir George Carteret saved his estate from confiscation by surrendering his forts. In these operations the share of the navy had in a sense been subordinate. It had comparatively little to do with the fighting, and its work had been almost wholly confined to carrying the troops over and landing them. But in another sense these last Royalist garrisons were in reality taken by the navy. If it had not acquired such a commanding superiority of strength at sea as destroyed every Royalist hope of help, Grenville and Carteret might have held out for long. In this, as in the earlier stages of the war with the king, it was the possession of the navy by his enemies which proved ruinous to him.

The revolutionary party had now done its work effectually in the domestic field of battle. Its enemies, as far as the navy was concerned, were in future to be foreigners. There was no doubt, even before the end of 1651, who the main enemy would be. At that time there was but one possible opponent at sea for England, the United States of the Netherlands. War had been preparing between them for some time, and very little was wanted to bring it on. The passing of the Navigation Act in 1651 was of itself an almost sufficient cause for hostilities. The policy which this law was designed to enforce was not in itself new. As far back as the reign of Henry VII., laws had been passed to support English shipping against foreign competition, but they had either been ill enforced, or ill calculated to secure their purpose. The Navigation Act of 1651 was directed against the carrying trade of Holland, with avowedly hostile intentions. It was drafted for the express purpose of ruining the Dutch shipping as far as we were concerned, by forbidding the importation of goods into England, except in ships belonging to the nation which produced them, or in English vessels. This of itself might not have led to open conflict between the two countries, but there were other causes of hostility. The rivalry of the English and Dutch at sea had not always been peaceful. In the early days of the century the East India Companies of the two countries had combined to assert their right of trading with the East in defiance of the Portuguese. When their feeble opponent had been overcome, a task very easily effected, they had fallen out with one another. The chief scene of their conflict had been in the islands of the Indian Ocean, and the victory had remained with the Dutch, who made these the seat of their Eastern Empire. The most notorious incident of the expulsion of the English from the region which the Dutch desired to reserve to themselves, was the massacre of Amboyna, an island near the Moluccas, in 1623. By the terms of a treaty made in 1619 between England and the United Provinces, it had been agreed that the two nations were to live in peace in these regions, and that their respective factories were to share the trade. According to the English account, which is certainly supported by probability, the Dutch vamped up an accusation of treason against the English factors (_i.e._ commercial agents) at Amboyna. Under the pretence that they had entered into a plot with the Japanese to massacre their Dutch allies, they were suddenly attacked, thrown into prison, and tortured with abominable cruelty. Then, taking advantage of this supposed discovery of a plot, the Dutch made it a pretext to expel the English factories from the whole of the Spice Islands. During thirty years the memory of the massacre of Amboyna had remained fresh with the English. The Governments of James I. and Charles I. had made several attempts to obtain satisfaction by diplomatic means, but the States had either been unwilling or unable to compel the powerful East India Company to replace the English factories.

There were other causes of dispute between the Governments, such as the not unnatural favour shown by the Prince of Orange to the cause of his father-in-law, King Charles. The prince had indeed recently died in the midst of a constitutional conflict with the Republican party. His opponents were now masters in Holland, but even this served rather to promote discord. The Commonwealth took up with a fantastic scheme for a union between the two republics, and when it was coldly received, as might have been expected, was, not very wisely, angry. The murder of an English envoy at the Hague by Royalist refugees served to exasperate existing ill-feeling. Perhaps not the weakest motive with the Council of State was its knowledge that war with Holland would be popular. Revolutionary Governments have at all times the strongest possible motive for directing the energies of a nation into foreign war. Under the influence of these different motives, England undoubtedly forced a war upon the Dutch Republic. Trade rivalry, the memory of old wrongs, the hope of displacing the Dutch from their commercial supremacy, and the natural instinct of all Governments to do what will tend to their own preservation, combined to make conflict inevitable.

The importance of the first Dutch war as an epoch in the history of the English Navy can hardly be exaggerated. Though short, for it lasted barely twenty-two months, it was singularly fierce and full of battles. Yet its interest is not derived mainly from the mere amount of the fighting, but from the character of it. This was the first of our naval wars conducted by steady, continuous, coherent campaigns. Hitherto our operations on the sea had been of the nature of adventures by single ships and small squadrons, with here and there a great expedition sent out to capture some particular port or island. When we now look back on the long and glorious story of England on the sea during the last three centuries, the grandeur of the later period is liable to mislead us in our estimate of the earlier. In 1652 England was far from enjoying that reputation for superiority in naval warfare she earned in later generations. In fact, the majority of operations undertaken by her fleets had been failures. The defeat of the Armada had always, and not unjustly (whatever our national vanity may say to the contrary), been accounted for by causes other than the strength of Elizabeth's navy. Since then, the Cadiz expedition of 1596, in which we had the co-operation of a Dutch squadron, had been our only signal triumph. The voyage to Portugal in 1589, the last voyage of Drake and Hawkins to the West Indies in 1594, the expedition against Algiers in 1620, the expedition to Cadiz in 1625, the attack on the Ile de Rhé in 1627, had all been either barren or disastrous. The valour and the seamanship of the English was not disputed, but there was nothing to lead the Dutch to believe that they would prove a specially formidable enemy on the sea. If the States hung back from war, it was not so much because they had reason to doubt the capacity of their fleets to contend on equal terms with ours, but because they were a commercial power having much to lose and little to gain by hostilities, because their long war with Spain had burdened them with a heavy national debt, and because the obligation to defend a vulnerable land frontier made it impossible for them to dispense with the burden of a large standing army. This war caused a great change in the estimate of our power at sea. It proved that we could show ourselves superior to what was beyond all question the greatest naval power on the Continent, and thereby raised the position of England in the world.

The novelty of the war no less than its importance makes it convenient to take a survey not only of the material condition of our fleet, but of its moral and intellectual capacity for warfare at sea, before beginning an account of the operations. There is nothing to be added to what has been said at the beginning of this chapter as to the organisation of the navy of the Commonwealth. Experience led to some changes during the progress of the war, but at the beginning the fleet was governed and organised as it had been during the Civil War. It has already been pointed out that between 1648 and 1651 the number of ships fit for service had been substantially doubled, and the quality of the recent additions to the list was excellent. With the help of hired or pressed merchant ships, the Council of State was able to meet the Dutch with equal forces. The size of the squadrons maintained during the Civil Wars, with the nature of their recent service in the Mediterranean and America, had given the fleet practice, and the State the command of a body of proved officers.