tion Act, but Holland pledged
itself to shut out the House of Orange from power, and thus relieved
England from the risk of seeing a Stuart restoration supported by Dutch
forces.

[Sidenote: War with Spain.]

The peace which was concluded with the Dutch in 1654 was followed by the
conclusion of like treaties with Sweden and with Denmark; and on the
arrival of a Swedish envoy with offers of a league of friendship
Cromwell endeavoured to bring the Dutch, the Brandenburgers, and the
Danes into a confederation of the Protestant powers. His efforts in this
direction however, though they never wholly ceased, remained fruitless;
but the Protector was resolute to carry out his plans single-handed. The
defeat of the Dutch had left England the chief sea-power of the world;
and in the first days of 1655, before the dissolution of the Parliament,
two fleets put to sea with secret instructions. The first, under Blake,
appeared in the Mediterranean, exacted reparation from Tuscany for
wrongs done to English commerce, bombarded Algiers, and destroyed the
fleet with which its pirates had ventured through the reign of Charles
to insult the English coast. The thunder of Blake's guns, every Puritan
believed, would be heard in the castle of St. Angelo, and Rome itself
would have to bow to the greatness of Cromwell. But though no
declaration of war had been issued against Spain, the true aim of both
expeditions was an attack on that power; and the attack proved
singularly unsuccessful. Though Blake sailed to the Spanish coast, he
failed to intercept the treasure fleet from America; and the second
expedition, which made its way to the West Indies, was foiled in a
descent on St. Domingo. It conquered Jamaica in May; but the conquest of
this lesser island, important as it really was in breaking through the
monopoly of the New World in the South which Spain had till now enjoyed,
seemed at the time but a poor result for the vast expenditure of money
and blood. The leaders of the expedition, Blake and Venables, were
committed to the Tower on their return in September; but Cromwell found
himself at war with Spain, and thrown whether he would or no into the
hands of Mazarin.

[Sidenote: Parliament of 1655.]

In October 1655 he was forced to sign a treaty of alliance with France;
while the cost of his abortive expeditions drove him again to face a
Parliament. But Cromwell no longer trusted, as in his earlier
Parliament, to freedom of election.