e Channel. The Dutch
force, according to Clarendon, numbered 100 ships of war, but according
to the official reports of the Dutch, only seventy. The battle was
severe, and continued through three days, the Dutch, however,
retreating, and taking refuge in the shallow waters off the French
coast. In this action Blake was severely wounded. The three English
admirals put to sea again in May; and on the 3rd and 4th of June another
battle was fought near the North Foreland. On the first day Dean and
Monk were repulsed by Tromp; but on the second day the scales were
turned by the arrival of Blake, and the Dutch retreated to the Texel.

Ill-health now compelled Blake to retire from the service for a time,
and he did not appear again on the seas for about eighteen months;
meanwhile he sat as a member of the Little Parliament (Barebones's). In
November 1654 he was selected by Cromwell to conduct a fleet to the
Mediterranean to exact compensation from the duke of Tuscany, the
knights of Malta, and the piratical states of North Africa, for wrongs
done to English merchants. This mission he executed with his accustomed
spirit and with complete success. Tunis alone dared to resist his
demands, and Tunis paid the penalty of the destruction of its two
fortresses by English guns. In the winter of 1655-1656, war being
declared against Spain, Blake was sent to cruise off Cadiz and the
neighbouring coasts, to intercept the Spanish shipping. One of his
captains captured a part of the Plate fleet in September 1656. In April
1657 Blake, then in very ill health, suffering from dropsy and scurvy,
and anxious to have assistance in his arduous duties, heard that the
Plate fleet lay at anchor in the bay of Santa Cruz, in the island of
Teneriffe. The position was a very strong one, defended by a castle and
several forts with guns. Under the shelter of these lay a fleet of
sixteen ships drawn up in crescent order. Captain Stayner was ordered to
enter the bay and fall on the fleet. This he did. Blake followed him.
Broadsides were poured into the castle and the forts at the same time;
and soon nothing was left but ruined walls and charred fragments of
burnt ships. The wind was blowing hard into the bay; but suddenly, and
fortunately for the heroic Blake, it shifted, and carried him safely out
to sea. "The whole action," says Clarendon, "was so incredible that all
men who knew the place wondered that any sober man, with what courage
soever endowed, woul