Chapter IV: Part 4

During the prorogation of parliament, Selden again devoted himself to literary pursuits. The Earl of Arundel, a great lover and promoter of the arts, had received from the east many ancient marbles, having on them Greek inscriptions. At the request of Sir Robert Cotton, these inscriptions were transcribed under the superintendence of Selden, and were published under the title of ‘Marmora Arundeliana.’ In January, 1629, parliament again assembled, and the debates upon public grievances were renewed. The goods of several merchants, in the interval of the meeting of parliament, had been seized by the Crown, to satisfy a claim to the duty of tonnage and poundage. Among the sufferers was Rolls, a member of the House. It was moved, that the seizure of his goods was a breach of privilege. When the question was to be put, the Speaker said “he durst not, for that the King had commanded to the contrary.” Selden immediately rose, and vehemently complained of this conduct: “Dare you not, Mr. Speaker, to put the question when we command you. If you will not put it, we must sit still: thus, we shall never be able to do any thing. They that come after you may say, that they have the King’s commands not to do it. We sit here by the command of the King under the great seal, and you are, by his Majesty, sitting in his royal chair before both houses, appointed for our Speaker, and now refuse to do your office.” The House then adjourned in a state of great excitement. When it re-assembled, the Speaker was called upon to put the question, and again refused. On this Holles and Valentine thrust the Speaker into the chair, and held him down, while Sir Miles Hobart locked the door of the house and took possession of the key. A declaration was then produced by Sir John Elliot, which Colonel Stroud moved should be read, and himself put the question. The motion was declared to be carried; and the Speaker, refusing to act upon it, was charged by Sir P. Heyman with cutting up the liberty of the subject by the roots. Selden moved that the declaration should be read by the clerk, which was agreed to. The House then adjourned to a day, previous to which the King came to the House of Lords and dissolved the parliament, on account of “the undutiful and seditious carriage of the Lower House,” without the attendance of the Commons. Selden, and the other members concerned in the violence offered to the Speaker, were committed to prison. This was his last and most rigorous confinement. For some time he was denied the use of pens, ink, paper, and books. When, after many weeks had elapsed, he was brought up with the other prisoners before the King’s Bench upon a writ of _habeas corpus_, their discharge was offered upon condition of their finding bail for their good behaviour. “We demand,” said Selden, “to be bailed in point of right; and if it be not grantable of right, we do not demand it. But finding sureties for good behaviour is a point of discretion merely, and we cannot assent to it without great offence to the parliament where these matters, which are surmised by the return, were acted.” They were remanded, and remained for a long time in prison, where Elliot, one of the ablest members of the popular party, fell a victim to his confinement. In 1634, Selden was suffered to go at large upon bail, which was discontinued upon his petition to the Crown. During his imprisonment he wrote a treatise, ‘De Successionibus in Bona Defuncti ad Leges Ebræorum,’ and another, ‘De Successione in Pontificatum Ebræorum.’ Both those works he dedicated to Archbishop Laud; probably upon account of his being indebted to the Archbishop for the loan of books. Not long after the recovery of his liberty, Selden obtained the favour of Charles I., and dedicated to him his celebrated essay on the ‘Mare Clausum,’ an argument in favour of the dominion of the English over the four seas, copies of which were, by order of the Privy Council, directed to be placed in the council chest, the Court of Exchequer, and the Court of Admiralty.

To the Long Parliament, which commenced its sittings in 1640, Selden was unanimously returned by the University of Oxford; but neither this new connexion with the clergy, nor the favour of Charles, appears to have affected his opinions. Upon the first day of the sitting of parliament he was nominated a member of the committee to inquire into the abuses of the Earl Marshal’s Court, and was appointed with others to draw up a remonstrance upon the state of the nation. He also sat upon the committees which conducted the measures preparatory to the impeachment of the Earl of Strafford, but he was not one of the managers before the House of Lords; and his name was posted in Old Palace Yard as one of “the enemies of justice,” a title given to those who were regarded as favourable to the Earl. It is not very clear what his opinions upon the impeachment were. That he should have been satisfied with all the steps taken by his party is not possible, for his opinions were undoubtedly moderate, and his studious habits must have checked any disposition to violence. He was also nominated to frame the articles of impeachment against Laud, and was a party to the resolutions against the legislative powers of the bishops. The court, however, appears to have considered him favourable to its interests, until he spoke against the commission of array. Upon this question, Clarendon represents the influence of his opinion upon the public to have been very prejudicial to Charles I. About this time the great seal was offered to him. He declined it, according to Clarendon, on account of his love of ease, and “that he would not have made a journey to York or have been out of his own bed for any preferment.” The reason which he himself assigned for refusing it, was the impossibility of his rendering any service to the Crown. He sat as member of the Assembly of Divines at Westminster, and took the covenant; yet he was not well affected to the Puritans, and declared that “he was neither mad enough nor fool enough to deserve the name of Puritan.” Upon the death of Dr. Eden, Master of Trinity Hall, Cambridge, in August, 1645, Selden was elected his successor, but declined to accept the office. About this time he appears to have gradually withdrawn from public business. His fondness of ease and his increasing age, and the silence he preserved upon many important events, all contribute to leave the inference of his approval or disapproval of much of the conduct of the parliamentary leaders open to adverse parties. He certainly never openly abandoned the popular side, nor does he appear to have forfeited its respect; and yet at the same time he continued to be esteemed by many of the leading Royalists.

The studies of Selden were continued to the latest period of his life, and he was near the age of seventy when his last work was published. The influence he possessed with the parliamentary leaders was frequently exerted in favour of letters. When Archbishop Laud’s endowment of the professorship of Arabic in the University of Oxford, was seized, on the attainder of that prelate, he procured its restitution. Archbishop Usher having preached against the divines of Westminster, and excited their anger, was punished by the confiscation of his library. Selden interfered, and saved it from sale and dispersion. When prelacy was abolished, the library attached to the see of Canterbury was by his efforts transferred to the University of Cambridge, where it remained until the Restoration. Through his entreaties, Whitelocke was induced to accept the charge of the medals and books at St. James’s, and thus secured their preservation. The services which he rendered to the University of Oxford were no less valuable, and were acknowledged in grateful terms by that learned body; and it was through his interference that the papers and instruments of Graves, the Professor of Mathematics, which had been seized by a party of soldiers, were restored.

Selden died November 30, 1654, and was buried in the Temple church. He left behind him no immediate relations, and he bequeathed nearly the whole of his fortune, amounting to nearly 40,000_l._, to his four executors, giving only one hundred pounds to each of the children of his sister, the wife of John Barnard, of Goring. His books and manuscripts he had originally given by his will to the University of Oxford; but that body having demanded of him a heavy bond for the restitution of a book which he desired to borrow from the public library, the bequest was struck out, and they were directed to be placed “in some convenient public library or college in one of the universities.” Sir M. Hale and his other executors, considering that they were the executors “of his will, and not of his passion,” transferred them to the Bodleian Library at Oxford.

To learned men Selden was liberal and generous; and there is a letter from Casaubon in Parr’s ‘Life of Archbishop Usher,’ in which that distinguished scholar with great feeling says, “I was with Mr. Selden after I had been with your Grace, whom, upon some intimation of my present condition and necessities, I found so noble, as that he did not only presently furnish me with a very considerable sum of money, but was so free and forward in his expressions, as that I could not find in my heart to tell him much (somewhat I did) of my intention of selling, lest it should sound as a farther pressing upon him of whom I had received so much.”

Milton terms Selden “the chief of learned men reputed in this land;” and Whitelocke states, “that his mind was as great as his learning, being very generous and hospitable.” Clarendon, who could not regard Selden with any political partiality, though he had in early life been on terms of intimacy with him, describes him to have been “a person whom no character can flatter or transmit in any expressions equal to his merit or virtue. He was of so stupendous learning in all kinds and in all languages (as may appear in his excellent and transcendent writings), that a man would have thought he had been entirely conversant among books, and had never spent an hour but in reading and writing; yet his humanity, courtesy, and affability were such, that he would have been thought to have been bred in the best courts, but that his good nature, charity, and delight in doing good, and in communicating all he knew, exceeded that breeding.”

The motto adopted by Selden was περὶ παντὸς τὴν ἐλευθερίαν (above all things, liberty), and it is to be found neatly written upon the first page of many of his MSS. Its spirit he extended to religious questions; and there are many bold and vigorous passages in his writings in which the necessity of freedom of inquiry upon all subjects is strongly insisted on. Noticing upon one occasion a certain class of ancient philosophers, he remarks, “He who takes to himself their liberty of inquiry, is in the only way that, in all kinds of studies, leads and lies open even to the sanctuary of truth; while others, that are servile to common opinion and vulgar suppositions, can rarely hope to be admitted nearer than into the base-court of her temple, which too speciously often counterfeits her innermost sanctuary.” His religious opinions have, with much impropriety, been the subject of dispute. They have been chiefly inferred from several passages of a work published after his death, entitled ‘Selden’s Table Talk.’ From the nature of his studies, his writings are far from being popular, and are, in consequence, now but little read. They obtained, however, for their author, during an age abounding with illustrious and learned men, an honourable reputation, among the most distinguished literary men of continental Europe, as well as among those of his own country. His works were edited by Dr. Wilkins, in 3 vols. folio, in 1726, to which a Latin ‘Life of the Author’ is prefixed.

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_Engraved by W. Holl._

A. PARÉ.

_From the original Picture, in “L’École de Médecine,” at Paris._

Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge.

_London, Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street._
]

PARÉ.

Ambroise Paré, the father of French surgery, and one of the most useful as well as the earliest of the innovators upon that art as practised by the ancients, was born at Laval, in the district of Maine, in the year 1509. After going through the rudiments of education, he was placed at an early age under the tuition of the chaplain Orsoy, in his native town, to be instructed in the classics; but the means of his family appear to have been very narrow, or the economy with which they were supplied must have been strict; for we find that the worthy chaplain was obliged to make use of the services of his pupil in grooming his mule and other menial capacities, in order to eke out the scanty remuneration he received for his instructions. In truth, these do not appear to have been great; for Paré never achieved a knowledge of Greek, and was but superficially acquainted with the Latin language; and it is probable that even this small amount of classical acquirement was made at a late period of his life, when, being an author, he wished to quote.

On leaving his tutor, he was placed with a barber-surgeon at Laval, named Vialot, who is recorded to have taught him how to bleed. Not long after this change in his pursuits, the lithotomist, Laurent Colot, came to Laval to undertake the treatment of one of the chaplain’s ecclesiastical brethren: on this occasion, Paré was present, and zealously assisted at the operation. This accidental circumstance appears to have suggested to him the ambitious project of following the higher departments of surgery; and he contrived to leave the shop of his master in phlebotomy, and repaired to Paris, where he availed himself with so much diligence of the advantages afforded by that city, as a school of anatomy and medicine, that he was soon entrusted with the subordinate charge of the patients of Goupil, who then held the surgical chair in the college of France. From this discerning tutor he learned not only all the knowledge which could at that time be obtained from secondary sources, but the art of expressing himself well, and acquitting himself of his duties with neatness and grace. The talents thus acquired were of the greatest service to him in his after-life, which was chiefly passed among the great; and gave him that ease of manner and power of gaining confidence, which stood him so frequently in stead as court-surgeon to four successive monarchs, and, aiding the natural frankness of his character, carried him safely through many an intrigue and cabal, dangerous not only to his reputation and fortunes, but even to his life. He was never a member of the community of barber-surgeons, but derived his legal qualification to practise from a degree in surgery taken at the college of St. Edme, of which he was afterwards Provost.

Having passed upwards of three years as a student, residing actually within the walls of the Hotel Dieu at Paris, he was appointed Staff-surgeon, in 1536, when twenty-seven years old, to the Mareschal René de Monte-jean, who commanded the infantry under the Constable Montmorenci in the campaign of Piedmont. In this capacity, Paré was present at the siege and capture of Turin.

From this time is to be dated the commencement of his acquaintance with military surgery, for which he afterwards did so much. “I was then,” he says, “very raw and inexperienced, having never seen the treatment of gunshot wounds. It is true that I had read in the Treatise of Jean de Vigo on wounds in general, that those inflicted by fire-arms partake of a poisonous nature on account of the powder, and that they should be treated with hot oil of elder mixed with a little theriacum. Seeing, therefore, that such an application must needs put the patient to extreme pain, to assure myself before I should make use of this boiling oil, I desired to see how it was employed by the other surgeons. I found their method was to apply it, at the first dressing, as hot as possible, within the wound with tents and setons: and this I made bold to do likewise. At length my oil failed me, and I was fain to substitute a digestive, made of the yolks of eggs, rose-oil, and turpentine. At night I could not rest in my bed in peace, fearing that I should find the wounded, in whose cases I had been compelled to abstain from using this cautery, dead of poison: this apprehension made me rise very early in the morning to visit them; but beyond all my hopes, I found those to whom I had applied the digestive suffering little pain, and their wounds free from inflammation; and they had been refreshed by sleep in the night. On the contrary, I found those to whom the aforesaid oil had been applied, feverish, in great pain, and with swelling and inflammation round their wounds. I resolved, therefore, that I would never burn unfortunate sufferers from gunshot in that cruel manner again.”

Such was the casual origin of one of Paré’s greatest improvements in surgery,—the substitution of a mild treatment for the cautery in gunshot wounds; a principle which he afterwards successfully extended to other injuries at that time deemed poisonous. The improvement seems as obvious as it was important: yet the adherents of the old practice gave him much trouble, and even made it necessary for him to defend his wholesome innovation long afterwards before Charles IX. in person.

Yet with all his sound sense, Ambroise Paré was not by any means free from the credulity of his age. For instance, he relates, in his account of this siege, an amusing story of the court he paid to an Italian quack doctor, who lived at Turin, to wheedle him out of the secret of a dressing for fresh gunshot wounds, for which he had great fame. This was found to consist of a mixture of bruised worms, the grease of puppies boiled down alive, and other absurd ingredients, constituting the celebrated _oleum catellorum_, the only merit of which consists in its harmlessness. He is erroneously praised by Dr. Ballingall for having banished this unguent from practice, whereas, on the contrary, he introduced it; and he shows, by his frequent reference to it in his works, that he had no small faith in its virtues, and was exceedingly proud of having been the means of its publication.

The death of his patron, the Mareschal, soon after the fall of Turin, induced him to return to Paris, though tempted by large offers to remain in the camp.

In 1543, he accompanied the Duc de Rohan into Britanny, where Francis I. commanded in person against the English; and the next year he followed that monarch in his expedition to throw supplies into Landrecy. In 1545, he was with the camp at Boulogne, where he cured the general of the royal army, Francis Duke of Guise, of a very dangerous wound, which gained him great reputation.

In 1552, he attended the Duc de Rohan in his campaign in Germany. During this expedition occurred one of those instances of combined humanity and skill, which made Paré the favourite of the French army. He thus tells the story: “A party had gone out to attack a church, where the peasants of the country had fortified themselves, hoping to get some provisions, but they came back very soundly beaten; and one especially, a captain-lieutenant of the company of the Duke, returned with seven gashes in his head, the least of which had penetrated to the inner table of the skull, besides four sabre wounds in the arm, and one across the shoulder, which divided the shoulder-blade in half. When he was brought to quarters, the Duke judged him to be so desperately wounded, that he absolutely proposed, as they were to march by daylight, to dig a trench for him, and throw him into it, saying, that it was as well that the peasants should finish him. But being moved with pity, I told him (says Paré), that the captain might yet be cured: many gentlemen of the company joined with me in begging that he might be allowed to go with the baggage, since I was willing to dress and cure him. This was accordingly granted: I dressed him, and put him into a small well-covered bed in a cart drawn by one horse. I was at once physician, surgeon, apothecary, and cook to him; and, thank God, I did cure him in the end, to the admiration of all the troops: and out of their first booty, the men-at-arms gave me a crown a-piece, and the archers half-a-crown each.”

His reputation was now so high, that no expedition of importance, especially if generalled by a prince of the blood, or one of the higher nobility, was considered complete without his presence. This was accordingly solicited by the old King of Navarre, more commonly called the Duc de Vendôme, on an occasion of that kind. But being tired of a military life, and disgusted with its cruelties and horrors, he endeavoured to evade the proposal, alleging the illness of his wife, and other excuses: but the Duke would take no denial; and at last he consented to accompany him to the siege of Chateau le Comte. There he acquitted himself so well, that upon the warm encomiums of the Duke he was received into the service of Henry the Second, in 1552, being then but thirty-three years old. From this time he lived at the court, where, with other advantages, obtained not less by his behaviour and wit than his skill, he enjoyed, though a Huguenot, the especial favour of the Queen, Catherine de’ Medici, who was fond of conversing with him in her own language, with which Paré had become well acquainted in his Italian campaign. She served him powerfully on several important occasions.

Paré, however, still continued to frequent the camp, when any emergency seemed to demand his services. Such an occasion occurred at the renowned siege of Metz, in the winter of 1552, conducted by Charles V. in person, with the Duke of Alva and 120,000 men, against a garrison of 6000, which ended, after two months, in the disastrous retreat of the besiegers. The defence was most gallantly carried on by the flower of the French army, headed by many of the higher noblesse, and several of the princes of the blood, under the Duke of Guise. It has been already mentioned that gunshot wounds were at that time thought to have something poisonous about them; and the severe cold, and other circumstances of that siege, being such as unusually to depress and harass the garrison, their wounds proved almost uniformly fatal; and the idea arose and gained ground, that Charles had ordered his bullets to be actually poisoned. Paré alone was thought able to meet the necessity of the case in such an extremity; and the demand for his assistance became so pressing in the dispirited garrison, that at the instance of the Duke of Guise the King was induced to send him. He was stealthily introduced by the treachery of one of Charles’s captains, for a bribe of 1500 crowns, and his appearance on the ramparts was hailed by the troops with the most extravagant expressions of joy. “Now that Paré is with us,” they cried, “we shall not perish of our wounds.” Their spirits revived, and the successful issue of their arduous struggle is generally ascribed to the presence of Paré.

Upon the raising of the siege, of which, as is usual in his writings, he gives a most lively and humorous account, Paré returned to court. In 1553 he was sent on a like errand to the siege of Hesdin, which, after a vigorous defence, and against the faith of a capitulation, was pillaged by the troops of the Duke of Savoy. Paré was himself one of the prisoners, but escaped in disguise after various adventures, and returned to Paris; notwithstanding the tempting offers of the Duke of Savoy, who had witnessed his skill, though kept in ignorance of his name.

He was sent upon many other missions of the same kind; as to the fields of St. Quentin and Moncontour; to Rouen, where he attended the Duc de Vendôme on occasion of the wound of which he died; and to St. Denys, where he performed the same unwelcome duty for the Constable. The long intervals of these services he always passed at court, in the enjoyment of his well-earned reputation and favour.

On the death of Henry II. in 1559, occasioned by an accident at a tournament, Francis II., his eldest son by Catherine de’ Medici, succeeded to the crown. He immediately confirmed Paré in his situation of surgeon in ordinary and counsellor. It will not be supposed that he could enjoy this constant favour and good fortune without the usual drawback in the excited jealousy of his professional rivals. Their rancour was at length carried to such a pitch, that they gravely accused him of causing the premature death of Francis in 1560, by injecting poison into his ear under the pretext of treating him for an inflammation seated there, of which he died. Catherine, however, shielded him from this attack, expressing her complete reliance on his integrity as well as his skill, in words which the historians of the period have preserved. A similar accusation was brought against him as unsuccessfully in the case of Henry III., who was afflicted with the same disorder: on which occasion the Queen-Mother again stood forward in his behalf, and his innocence was fully attested by the physicians whom she had placed about her son, and who had witnessed every application he made.

On the death of Francis II. in 1560, Paré maintained his place in the household of Charles IX., to whom it was thought he had rendered essential service after an injury inflicted on one of the nerves of the arm by an unlucky phlebotomist. This misfortune of his humbler brother was of great use to Paré, who, though a courtier during the predominance of the Guises, openly professed the Protestant faith; for it was probably the means of procuring him in Charles the only protector powerful enough to save him from being included in the general massacre of the Huguenots on St. Bartholomew’s Day. Brantôme and Sully each connect his name with that event. The words of the former are as follows: “Le Roi quand il fût jour, ayant mis la tête a la fenêtre de sa chambre, et qu’il voyait aucuns dans le fauxbourg St. Germain qui se remuoient, et se sauvoient, il prit une grande arquebuse de chasse qu’il avoit, et en tira tout plein de coups à eux; mais en vain, car l’arquebuse ne tiroit si loin; incessamment crioit, ‘Tuez, tuez,’ en n’en vouloit sauver aucun si non Maître Ambroise Paré, son premier chirurgien, et le premier de la Chrestienté, et l’envoya querir et venir le soir dans sa chambre et garde robbe, commandant de n’en bouger; et disoit qu’il n’etoit raisonnable qu’un qui pouvoit servir à tout un petit monde, fûst ainsi massacré.”

“De tous ceux,” says Sully, “qui approchoient ce prince (Charles IX.) il n’y avoit personne qui eut tant de part à sa confiance qu’ Ambroise Paré. Cet homme qui n’etoit que son chirurgien, avoit pris avec lui une si grande familiarité, quoiqu’il fût Huguenot, que ce prince lui ayant dit le jour du massacre que c’etoit à cette heure qu’il falloit que tout le monde se fît catholique, Paré lui répondit sans s’étonner, ‘Par la lumière de Dieu, Sire, je crois qu’il vous souvient m’avoir promis de ne me commander jamais quatre choses; sçavoir, de rentre dans le ventre de ma mère, de me trouver à un jour de bataille, de quitter votre service, et d’aller à la messe.’”

Paré still retained his situation after the accession of Henry III. in 1574; but he seems to have resigned the cares of active life about that time, and we hear little more of him. He died December 2, 1590, in the eighty-first year of his life, and was buried in the church of St. André des Arcs in Paris.

Paré appears to have been a man of quick and independent observation rather than of reflection or genius. His constitution was vigorous, and fitted no less for social enjoyments than active business: his person was manly and graceful, his spirits buoyant, and his disposition remarkably amiable and attractive; hence he was a universal favourite, particularly in a despotic court, of which the dullness was agreeably relieved by his frankness, and his powers of humour and repartee. The amusing and well-told anecdotes and lively descriptions that teem in all his writings, which, it may be observed, are equal in point of style to any of the time, sufficiently attest his possession of those qualities, even if the stories and bon-mots that are related of him be questioned. His ‘Apology,’ as he calls one of his later pieces, containing an account of his various campaigns and journeys, is full of humour, and well worth the perusal of the general reader. It was published by way of answer to an attack upon his treatment of contused wounds and hæmorrhages, made by an obscure Parisian lecturer, whose name he does not mention; and he diverts himself exceedingly at the expense of the critic, for his presumption in pretending to teach a surgeon whose experience had been gathered from twenty sieges and fields of battle, through an active professional life of forty years. The raillery he employs is often very keen and pointed, but never ill-natured, and indicates the infinite superiority he felt, and had a right to feel, over his merely book-learned adversary.

His conduct throughout life appears to have been remarkably upright and sincere, though tinctured by the adulation which, in that age of violence and despotism, was always exacted by the great from those who were more humbly born.

He was a bold and good operator, and his general skill and success in the practice of his profession is unquestionable; in that day it must have been wonderful. As a surgical writer, his fame principally rests upon his introduction of a soothing method of treating gunshot and other contused wounds, and his discovery or rather restoration of the method of arresting hæmorrhage, by the ligature of the bleeding vessel, instead of searing with hot iron, and other insufficient and painful means. But he made many other novel and useful remarks which only do not deserve the name of discoveries, because they relate to more trivial points, and do not involve important principles: and, upon the whole, much as surgery has been improved since his time, there have been few writers to whom it has owed so much as to him, especially in the military department. The whole body of his writings on that subject, though diffuse, merit the perusal of professional men. The same praise cannot be given without exception and reserve to those of his writings which were less the records of his personal experience, than compilations from other sources. His remarks upon the subjects of Physiology, Medical Diseases, the Composition of Remedies, Natural History, and Obstetrics, are not free from error, credulity, and even indelicacy. The latter charge was successfully urged against him by the contemporary Parisian physicians, who were jealous of his encroachments upon what they considered their own domain, and he was obliged to alter the original editions.

He was too much occupied by his practice to engage deeply in the study of anatomy: hence his knowledge of it was rather sufficient than accurate; and though he wrote upon it at some length, and even added new facts to that science, his success in advancing it can only be considered as a proof of the imperfect information of the time. He lived before the discovery of the circulation of the blood.

His first publication, on Gunshot Wounds, in 1545, was incorporated with his other writings, comprising altogether twenty-six treatises, and printed at Paris in one large folio volume in 1561. This, with some posthumous additions, has been often reprinted, and there are translations of it in Latin and other languages. The first English edition was by Thomas Johnson in 1634.

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_Engraved by J. Mollison._

ADMIRAL BLAKE.

_From the Picture in the Hall of Wadham College, Oxford._

Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge.

_London, Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street._
]

BLAKE.

Robert Blake is believed to have been born at Plansfield, in the parish of Spaxton, Somersetshire, near Bridgewater, in which town his father was a merchant; but the place is not so well ascertained as the date of his birth, which was August, 1598. He was educated in the Free School of Bridgewater, whence in due time he removed to Oxford, and became successively a member of St. Alban’s Hall and Wadham College. His character was studious, yet he was fond of field-sports and other violent exercises; and we may infer that he had at least a decent share of scholastic learning, from his having been a candidate, though unsuccessfully, for a studentship at Christchurch, and a fellowship at Merton College. He returned to Bridgewater when about twenty-five years old, and lived quietly on his paternal estate till 1640, with the character of a blunt, bold man, of ready humour and fearless expression of his sentiments, which, both in politics and religion, were adverse to the pretensions of the court. These qualities gained for him the confidence of the Presbyterian party in Bridgewater, by whom he was returned to the parliament of April, 1640. The speedy dissolution of that assembly gave him no opportunity of trying his powers as a debater; and in the next parliament he was not re-elected. But on the breaking out of the civil war, he displayed his principles by entering the Parliamentary army.

We have no certain information concerning the time or the capacity in which he began to serve; but in 1643 we find him intrusted with the command of a fort at Bristol, when the city was besieged by the Royalists. Here his impetuous temper had nearly brought him to an untimely death; for, having maintained his fort and killed some of the king’s soldiers after the garrison had surrendered, Prince Rupert was with difficulty induced to spare his life, which was held to have been forfeited by this violation of the laws of war. Blake served afterwards in the west of England with good repute, and in 1644 was appointed Governor of Taunton, a place of great consequence, being the only Parliamentary fortress in that quarter. In that capacity he distinguished himself by the skill, courage, and constancy with which, during two successive sieges, he maintained the town against the Royalists in 1645; an important service, for which the parliament voted £2000 to the garrison, and £500 to the governor. It is recorded that he disapproved of the extremity to which matters were pushed against Charles, and that he was frequently heard to say, that he would as freely venture his life to save the King’s, as he had ever done it in the service of the Parliament.

In February, 1649, Colonel Blake, in conjunction with two officers of the same rank, Deane and Popham, was appointed to command the fleet. It may be taken as a proof that, notwithstanding the fame of our early navigators, the King’s service at sea had never been treated with much attention, that, down to later times than those of which we now write, the chief command of a fleet seems never to have been given to a man of naval education and habits. It is probable that the sea service then held out no inducements strong enough to tempt men of high birth to submit to its inconveniences, and that the command of a fleet was esteemed too great a post to be conferred on a man of humble origin. For this new employment Blake soon showed signal capacity. When the embers of the war were stirred up after the King’s death, he was ordered to the Irish seas in pursuit of Prince Rupert, whom he blockaded in the harbour of Kinsale for several months. Despair of relief induced the Prince at last to make a daring effort to break through the Parliamentary squadron, in which he succeeded; but with the loss of three ships. Blake pursued him to the Tagus, where being denied liberty to attack his enemy by the King of Portugal, in revenge he captured and sent home a number of ships richly laden, on their way from Brazil. In January, 1651, he attacked and, with the exception of two ships, destroyed the Royalist fleet, in the neutral harbour of Malaga; a breach of national law, which can only be justified on the alleged ground that Rupert had destroyed British ships in the same harbour. These services were recompensed by the Parliament with the post of Warden of the Cinque Ports; and in March an act was passed constituting Blake, with his colleagues Deane and Popham, admirals and generals of the fleet for the year ensuing. In that capacity, he took Jersey, Guernsey, and the Scilly Islands from the Royalists; a service, for which he was again thanked by Parliament. In this year he was elected a member of the Council of State.

March 25, 1652, Blake was appointed sole admiral for nine months, in expectation of a war with the Dutch. The United States and England were at this time the two most powerful maritime countries in the world; and it is hard to find any better reason than national rivalry for the bloody war which broke out between them in the spring of this year; a war which seems to have been begun on a point of etiquette, at the discretion of the admirals, without orders for hostilities being known to be given by the governments on either side. On May 18, a fleet of forty-two Dutch ships, commanded by the celebrated Van Tromp, appeared off the Goodwin Sands. Being challenged by Major Bourne, who commanded a squadron in the Downs, they professed to have been driven from their anchorage off Dunkirk by stress of weather; but instead of drawing off the coast as they were required to do, they sailed to Dover and cast anchor, in a manner which showed the deliberate design of insulting the British flag. Blake lay some distance to the westward in Rye Bay. Intelligence was immediately sent to him, and on his approach the Dutch weighed anchor, and seemed about to retreat, but, changing their course, they sailed direct for the English fleet. When within musket shot, Blake ordered a single gun to be fired at the Dutch admiral’s flag, which was done thrice. Van Tromp returned a broadside, and a hot and well-contested action ensued, and was maintained till nightfall. Under cover of the darkness the Dutch retreated, losing two ships (one sunk, the other taken), and leaving the possession of the field and the honour of the victory in the hands of the English. The States appear neither to have authorised nor approved of the conduct of their admiral; for they left no means untried to satisfy the English government; and when they found the demands of the latter so high as to preclude accommodation, they dismissed Van Tromp, and intrusted the command of their fleet to De Ruyter and De Witt. Meanwhile, Blake’s activity was unremitting. He gained a rich harvest of prizes among the Dutch homeward-bound merchantmen, which were pursuing their way without suspicion of danger; and when he had sent home forty good prizes and effectually cleared the Channel, he sailed to the northward, dispersed the fleet engaged in the herring fishery, and captured a hundred of the vessels composing it, together with a squadron of twelve ships of war sent out to protect them. The hostile fleets again came to an engagement, September 28, in which the advantage was decidedly in favour of the English, the rear-admiral of the Dutch being taken, and three or four of their ships disabled. Night put an end to the action; and, though for two days the English maintained the pursuit, the lightness and uncertainty of the wind prevented them from closing with the enemy, who escaped into Goree. After this battle the drafting off of detachments on various services reduced the English fleet to forty sail, and those, it is said, in consequence of the negligence or jealousy of the executive government, were ill provided with men and ammunition, and other requisite supplies. Thus weakly furnished, Blake lay in the Downs, when Van Tromp again stood over to the English coast with eighty men-of-war. Of that undaunted spirit which usually prompts the British seaman to refuse no odds Blake had an ample share; indeed, he did much to infuse that spirit into the service. But there are odds for which no spirit can make up, and as he had a brave and skilful enemy, the result of his rashness was that he was well beaten. Not more than half the ships on either side were engaged; but out of this small number of English vessels two were taken, and four destroyed; the rest were so shattered that they were glad to run for shelter into the river Thames. The Dutch remained masters of the narrow seas; and Van Tromp, in an idle bravado, sailed through the Channel with a broom at his mast-head, as if he had swept it clear of English ships. However, neither the admiral nor the nation were of a temper to submit to this indignity; and great diligence having been used in refitting and recruiting the fleet, Blake put to sea again in February, 1653, with eighty ships. On the 18th he fell in with Van Tromp, with nearly equal force, conducting a large convoy of merchantmen up the Channel. A running battle ensued, which was continued during three consecutive days, until, on the 20th, the Dutch ships, which, to suit the nature of their coast, were built with a smaller draught of water than the English, obtained shelter in the shallow waters of Calais. In this long and obstinate fight, the Dutch lost only eleven men-of-war and thirty merchant vessels; but the number killed is said to have amounted to 1500 on either side; a loss of life of most unusual amount in naval engagements.

Another great battle took place on the 3rd and 4th of June, between Van Tromp and Generals Deane and Monk. On the first day the Dutch seem to have had somewhat the advantage: on the second Blake arrived with a reinforcement of eighteen sail, which turned the scale in favour of the English. Bad health obliged him then to quit the sea, so that he was not present at the last great victory of July 29, in which Van Tromp was killed. But out of respect for his services the Parliament presented him with a gold chain, as well as the admirals who had actually commanded in the battle. When Cromwell dissolved the Long Parliament, and assumed the office of Protector, Blake, though in his principles a republican, did not refuse to acknowledge the new administration. In conjunction with Deane and Monk he published a declaration of their resolution, “notwithstanding the late change, to proceed in the performance of their duties, and the trust reposed in them against the enemies of the Commonwealth.” He is reported to have said to his officers, “It is not our business to mind state-affairs, but to keep foreigners from fooling us.” He sat in the two first Parliaments summoned by the Protector, who always treated him with great respect. Nor was Cromwell’s acknowledged sagacity in the choice of men at fault, when he chose Blake to command a strong fleet, sent into the Mediterranean in November, 1654, to uphold the honour of the English flag, and to demand reparation for the slights and injuries done to the nation during that stormy period of civil war, when our own discord had made others daring against us. In better hands such a mission could not have been placed. Dutch, French, and Spaniards alike concurred in rendering unusual honours to his flag. The Duke of Tuscany and the Order of Malta made compensation for injuries done to the English commerce. The piratical states of Algiers and Tripoli were terrified into submission, and promised to abstain from further violence. The Dey of Tunis held out, confident in the strength of his fortifications. “Here,” he said, “are our castles of Goletta and Porto Ferino: do your worst; do you think we fear your fleet?” Blake took the same course as, in our own time, Lord Exmouth did against Algiers: he bore right into the bay of Porto Ferino; engaged the fortress within musket shot, and in less than two hours silenced or dismounted its guns; and sending a detachment of boats into the harbour, burnt the shipping which lay there. After this example he found no more difficulty in dealing with the African states.

War having been declared between Spain and England, in 1656, Blake took his station to blockade the bay of Cadiz. At this period his constitution was much broken, insomuch that, in the expectation of a speedy death, he sent home a request that some person proper to be his successor might be joined in commission with him. General Montague was accordingly sent out with a strong squadron. Being obliged to quit the coast of Spain in September to obtain water for his fleet, Blake left Captain Stayner with seven ships to watch the enemy. In this interval the Spanish Plate fleet appeared. Stayner captured four ships richly laden with bullion; the rest escaped. Montague conducted the prizes home, so that Blake was again left alone in the Mediterranean. In the ensuing spring, having learnt that another Plate fleet had put into the island of Teneriffe, he sailed thither, and arrived in the road of Santa Cruz, April 20. The bay was strongly fortified, with a formidable castle at the entrance, and a connected chain of minor forts all round it. The naval force collected there was also considerable, and strongly posted, the smaller vessels being placed under the guns of the forts, the galleons strongly moored with their broadsides to the sea; insomuch that the Spanish Governor, a man of courage and ability, felt perfectly at ease as to the security of his charge. The master of a Dutch ship, which was lying in the harbour, was less satisfied, and went to the Governor to request leave to quit the harbour; “For I am sure,” he said, “that Blake will presently be among you.” The Governor made a confident reply. “Begone if you will, and let Blake come if he dares.” Daring was the last thing wanting; nor did the Admiral hesitate, as a wise man might well have done, about the real difficulties of the enterprise in which he was about to engage. The wind blowing into the bay, he sent in Captain Stayner with a squadron to attack the shipping, placed others in such a manner as to take off, and, as far as possible, to silence the fire of the castle and the forts, and himself following, assisted Stayner in capturing the galleons, which, though inferior in number, were superior in size and force to the English ships. This was completed by two o’clock in the afternoon, the engagement having commenced at eight in the morning. Hopeless of being able to carry the prizes out of the bay against an adverse wind, and a still active enemy, Blake gave orders to burn them: and it is probable that he himself might have found some difficulty in beating out of the bay under the fire of the castle, which was still lively, when on a sudden, the wind which had blown strong into the bay, suddenly veered round to the south-west, and favoured his retreat, as it had favoured his daring approach. Of this, the most remarkable, as it was the last exploit of Blake’s life, Clarendon says, “The whole action was so incredible, that all men who knew the place wondered that any sober man, with what courage soever endowed, would ever have undertaken it; and they could hardly persuade themselves to believe what they had done: while the Spaniards comforted themselves with the belief, that they were devils and not men who had destroyed them in such a manner. So much a strong resolution of bold and courageous men can bring to pass, that no resistance or advantage of ground can disappoint them; and it can hardly be imagined how small a loss the English sustained in this unparalleled action, not one ship being left behind, and the killed and wounded not exceeding two hundred men; when the slaughter on board the Spanish ships and on shore was incredible.”

It will be recollected with interest that, on the same spot, Nelson lost his arm, in an unsuccessful night-attempt to capture Santa Cruz with an armed force in boats.

For this service the thanks of Parliament were voted to the officers and seamen engaged, with a diamond ring to the Admiral worth 500_l._ Blake returned to his old station off Cadiz; but the increase of his disorders, which were dropsy and scurvy, raised a desire in him to return to England, which, however, he did not live to fulfil. He died as he was entering Plymouth Sound, August 17, 1657. His body was transported to London, and buried with great pomp in Westminster Abbey, at the public expense. After the Revolution it was thought unworthy to remain in that treasure-house of England’s departed greatness; and with the bones of others who had found a resting-place there during the short period of the Commonwealth, it was transferred to St. Margaret’s churchyard. It has been disputed whether this was done with more or less of indecency; but the matter is little worth inquiry. The real indecency and folly lay in thinking that any ground, however sanctified by the reverent associations of centuries, could be polluted by the tomb of a man whose leading passion was the glory of his country, and who made the name and flag of that country respected wheresoever he carried it: a man of whom not one mean or interested action is recorded, and whose great qualities extorted praise even from the Royalists. Bate, in his ‘Elenchus Motuum,’ speaks of him as a man “blameable in this only, that he joined with the _parricides_;” and it may be remarked that Dr. Bate’s horror of a parricide did not prevent his being physician to Cromwell, as well as to Charles I. and II.

We conclude with Clarendon’s character of this great man. “He was of private extraction, yet had enough left him by his father to give him a good education, which his own inclination disposed him to receive in the University of Oxford, where he took the degree of a Master of Arts, and was enough versed in books for a man who intended not to be of any profession, having sufficient of his own to maintain him in the plenty he affected, and having then no appearance of ambition to be a greater man than he was. He was of a melancholic and sullen nature, and spent his time most with good fellows, who liked his moroseness, and a freedom he used in inveighing against the licence of the time and the power of the court. They who knew him inwardly, discovered that he had an anti-monarchical spirit, when few men thought the government in any danger.” After a short sketch of Blake’s actions in the civil war, the noble author continues, “He then betook himself wholly to the sea, and quickly made himself signal there. He was the first man that declined the old track, and made it manifest that the science might be attained in less time than was imagined, and despised those rules which had long been in practice, to keep his ship and his men out of danger; which had been held in former times a point of great ability and circumspection, as if the principal art requisite in the captain of a ship had been to be sure to come safe home again. He was the first man who brought the ships to contemn castles on shore, which had been thought ever very formidable, and were discovered by him to make a noise only, and to fright those who could be rarely hurt by them. He was the first who infused that proportion of courage into the seamen, by making them see by experience what mighty things they could do, if they were resolved, and taught them to fight in fire as well as upon water, and though he has been very well imitated and followed, he was the first that gave the example of that kind of naval courage, and bold and resolute achievements.”