In March, 1656, having forced Algiers to submission, he entered the harbour of Tunis, and demanded reparation for the robberies practised upon the English by the pirates of that place, and insisted that the captives of his nation should be set at liberty.  The governour, having planted batteries along the shore, and drawn up his ships under the castles, sent Blake an haughty and insolent answer:  “there are our castles of Goletta and Porto Ferino,” said he, “upon which you may do your worst;” adding other menaces and insults, and mentioning, in terms of ridicule, the inequality of a fight between ships and castles.  Blake had, likewise, demanded leave to take in water, which was refused him.  Fired with this inhuman and insolent treatment, he curled his whiskers, as was his custom when he was angry, and, entering Porto Ferino with his great ships, discharged his shot so fast upon the batteries and castles, that in two hours the guns were dismounted, and the works forsaken, though he was, at first, exposed to the fire of sixty cannon.  He then ordered his officers to send out their long boats, well manned, to seize nine of the piratical ships lying in the road, himself continuing to fire upon the castle.  This was so bravely executed, that, with the loss of only twenty-five men killed, and forty-eight wounded, all the ships were fired in the sight of Tunis.  Thence sailing to Tripoli, he concluded a peace with that nation; then returning to Tunis, he found nothing but submission.  And such, indeed, was his reputation, that he met with no further opposition, but collected a kind of tribute from the princes of those countries, his business being to demand reparation for all the injuries offered to the English during the civil wars.  He exacted from the duke of Tuscany 60,000_l_. and, as it is said, sent home sixteen ships laden with the effects which he had received from several states.

The respect with which he obliged all foreigners to treat his countrymen, appears from a story related by bishop Burnet.  When he lay before Malaga, in a time of peace with Spain, some of his sailors went ashore, and meeting a procession of the host, not only refused to pay any respect to it, but laughed at those that did.  The people, being put, by one of the priests, upon resenting this indignity, fell upon them and beat them severely.  When they returned to their ship, they complained of their ill treatment; upon which Blake sent to demand the priest who had procured it.  The viceroy answered that, having no authority over the priests, he could not send him:  to which Blake replied, “that he did not inquire into the extent of the viceroy’s authority, but that, if the priest were not sent within three hours, he would burn the town.”  The viceroy then sent the priest to him, who pleaded the provocation given by the seamen.  Blake bravely and rationally answered, that if he had complained to him, he would have punished them severely, for he would not have his men affront the established