It was not long, before he had an opportunity of revenging his loss, and restraining the insolence of the Dutch.  On the 18th of February, 1652-3, Blake, being at the head of eighty sail, and assisted, at his own request, by colonels Monk and Dean, espied Van Trump, with a fleet of above one hundred men of war, as Clarendon relates, of seventy by their own publick accounts, and three hundred merchant ships under his convoy.  The English, with their usual intrepidity, advanced towards them; and Blake, in the Triumph, in which he always led his fleet, with twelve ships more, came to an engagement with the main body of the Dutch fleet, and by the disparity of their force was reduced to the last extremity, having received in his hull no fewer than seven hundred shots, when Lawson, in the Fairfax, came to his assistance.  The rest of the English fleet now came in, and the fight was continued with the utmost degree of vigour and resolution, till the night gave the Dutch an opportunity of retiring, with the loss of one flagship, and six other men of war.  The English had many vessels damaged, but none lost.  On board Lawson’s ship were killed one hundred men, and as many on board Blake’s, who lost his captain and secretary, and himself received a wound in the thigh.

Blake, having set ashore his wounded men, sailed in pursuit of Van Trump, who sent his convoy before, and himself retired fighting towards Bulloign.  Blake ordered his light frigates to follow the merchants; still continued to harass Van Trump; and, on the third day, the 20th of February, the two fleets came to another battle, in which Van Trump once more retired before the English, and, making use of the peculiar form of his shipping, secured himself in the shoals.  The accounts of this fight, as of all the others, are various; but the Dutch writers themselves confess, that they lost eight men of war, and more than twenty merchant ships; and, it is probable, that they suffered much more than they are willing to allow, for these repeated defeats provoked the common people to riots and insurrections, and obliged the states to ask, though ineffectually, for peace.

In April following, the form of government in England was changed, and the supreme authority assumed by Cromwell; upon which occasion Blake, with his associates, declared that, notwithstanding the change in the administration, they should still be ready to discharge their trust, and to defend the nation from insults, injuries, and encroachments.  “It is not,” said Blake, “the business of a sea-man to mind state affairs, but to hinder foreigners from fooling us.”  This was the principle from which he never deviated, and which he always endeavoured to inculcate in the fleet, as the surest foundation of unanimity and steadiness.  “Disturb not one another with domestick disputes, but remember that we are English, and our enemies are foreigners.  Enemies! which, let what party soever prevail, it is equally the interest of our country to humble and restrain.”