sailed[c] from Cadiz under the command of Don Pablos de Contreras, and continued for some days in sight of the English fleet; but Pablos was careful to give no offence; and Blake, on the reperusal of his instructions, did not conceive himself authorized to begin the attack.  After a long and tedious cruise, he received intelligence that the galleons, his destined prey, were detained in the harbour of Carthagena, and returned to England with a discontented mind and shattered constitution.  In regard to the principal object, the expedition had failed; but this had never been avowed; and the people were taught to rejoice at the laurels won in the destruction

[Sidenote a:  A.D. 1654.  March 10.] [Sidenote b:  A.D. 1654.  April 18.] [Sidenote c:  A.D. 1654.  August 15.]

of the Tunisian fleet, and the lesson given to the piratical tribes on the northern coast of Africa.[1]

The other expedition consisted[a] of thirty sail and a military force of three thousand men, under the joint command of Penn, as admiral, and of Venables, as general.  They spent several weeks among the English settlements in the West Indies, and by the promise of plunder allured to their standard many of the planters, and multitudes of the English, Scottish, and Irish royalists, who had been transported thither as prisoners of war.  When they reached Hispaniola, Venables numbered ten thousand men under his command; and, had the fleet boldly entered the harbour of St. Domingo, it was believed that the town, unprepared for resistance, must have immediately submitted.  But the greater part of the army was landed[b] at a point about forty miles distant, the expectations of the men were disappointed by a proclamation, declaring that the plunder was to be considered the public property of the commonwealth; the length of the march, the heat of the climate, and the scarcity of water added to the general discontent, and almost a fortnight elapsed before the invaders were able to approach[c] the defences of the place.  Their march lay through a thick and lofty wood; and the advance suddenly found itself in front of a battery which enfiladed the road to a considerable distance.  On the first discharge, the men rushed back on a regiment of foot; that, partaking in the panic, on a squadron of

[Footnote 1:  See in particular Blake’s letters in Thurloe, iii. 232, 392, 541, 611, 620, 718; iv. 19.  He complains bitterly of the bad state of the ships, and of the privations suffered by the men, from the neglect of the commissioners of the navy.  The protector’s instructions to him are in Thurloe, i. 724.]

[Sidenote a:  A.D. 1654.  Jan. 29.] [Sidenote b:  A.D. 1654.  April.] [Sidenote c:  A.D. 1654.  April 25.]

horse; and, while the infantry and cavalry were thus wedged together in inextricable confusion, the Spanish marksmen kept up a most destructive fire from behind the trees lining the road.  After a long effort, the wood was cleared by a body of seamen who served among the infantry, and darkness put an end to the action, in which not fewer than a thousand men had fallen.  In the morning the English retired to their last encampment, about ten miles from the town.