Blake had served with distinction in the army during the civil war; and the knowledge of his talents and integrity induced the parliamentary leaders to entrust him with the command of the fleet.  For maritime tactics he relied on the experience of others; his plans and his daring were exclusively his own.  He may claim the peculiar praise of having dispelled an illusion which had hitherto cramped the operations of the British navy—­a persuasion that it was little short of madness to expose a ship at sea to the fire from a battery on shore.  The victories of Blake at Tunis and Santa Cruz served to establish the contrary doctrine; and the seamen learned from his example to despise the danger which had hitherto been deemed so formidable.  Though Cromwell prized his services, he doubted his attachment; and a suspicion existed that the protector did not regret the death of one who professed to fight for his country, not for the government.  But he rendered that justice to the dead, which he might perhaps have refused to the living, hero.  He publicly acknowledged his merit, honouring his bones with a funeral at the national expense, and ordering them to be interred at Westminster, in Henry the Seventh’s chapel.  In the next reign the coffin was taken from the vault, and deposited in the church yard.

4.  The reader is aware of Cromwell’s anxiety to form a more intimate alliance with Louis XIV.  For this purpose Lockhart, one of the Scottish judges, who

[Footnote 1:  Vaughan, ii. 176.  Heath, 391, 402.  Echard, 725.  Journals, May 28, 29.]

had married his niece, and received knighthood at his hand, proceeded to France.  After some discussion, a treaty, to last twelve months, was concluded;[1][a] and Sir John Reynolds landed at Calais[b] with an auxiliary force of six thousand men, one half in the pay of the king, the other half in that of the protector.  But as an associate in the war, Cromwell demanded a share in the spoil, and that share was nothing less than the possession of Mardyke and Dunkirk, as soon as they could be reduced by the allies.  To this proposal the strongest opposition had been made in the French cabinet.  Louis was reminded of the injuries which the English, the natural enemies of France, had inflicted on the country in the reigns of his predecessors.  Dunkirk would prove a second Calais; it would open to a foreign foe the way into the heart of his dominions.  But he yielded to the superior wisdom or ascendancy of Mazarin, who replied that, if France refused the offers it would be accepted with a similar sacrifice by Spain; that, supposing the English to be established on that coast at all, it was better that they should be there as friends than as enemies; and that their present co-operation would enable him either to drive the Spaniards out of the Netherlands, or to dictate to them the terms of peace.[2] The combined force