ed the
coast as he passed; and continued to cruise backwards and forwards from the
North Foreland to the Isle of Wight.[1]

The parliament made every exertion to wipe away this disgrace. The ships
were speedily refitted; two regiments of infantry embarked to serve as
marines; a bounty was offered for volunteers; the wages of the seamen were
raised; provision was made for their families during their absence on
service; a new rate for the division of prize-money was established; and,
in aid of Blake, two officers, whose abilities had been already tried,
Deane and Monk, received the joint command of the fleet. On the other hand,
the Dutch were intoxicated with their success; they announced it to the
world, in prints, poems, and publications; and Van Tromp affixed a broom to
the head of his mast as an emblem of his triumph. He had gone to the Isle
of Rhee to take the homeward-bound trade under his charge, with orders to
resume his station at the mouth of the Thames, and to prevent the egress of

[Footnote 1: Heath, 329. Ludlow, ii. 3. Neuville, iii. 68.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1652. Nov. 29.]
[Sidenote b: A.D. 1652. Nov. 30.]

the English. But Blake had already stationed himself with more than seventy
sail across the Channel, opposite the Isle of Portland, to intercept the
return of the enemy. On the 18th of February the Dutch fleet, equal in
number, with three hundred merchantmen under convoy, was discovered[a]
near Cape La Hogue, steering along the coast of France. The action was
maintained with the most desperate obstinacy. The Dutch lost six sail,
either sunk or taken, the English one, but several were disabled, and Blake
himself was severely wounded.

The following morning[b] the enemy were seen opposite Weymouth, drawn up in
the form of a crescent covering the merchantmen. Many attempts were made to
break through the line; and so imminent did the danger appear to the Dutch
admiral, that he made signal for the convoy to shift for themselves. The
battle lasted at intervals through the night; it was renewed with greater
vigour near Boulogne in the morning;[c] till Van Tromp, availing himself of
the shallowness of the coast, pursued his course homeward unmolested by the
pursuit of the enemy. The victory was decidedly with the English; the loss
in men might be equal on both sides; but the Dutch themselves acknowledged
that nine of their men-of-war and twenty-four of the merchant vessels had
been either sunk or captured.[1]