XIV., who went purposely, with Lockhart, to review them.  The promised fleet of cooperation was to be under the command of young Admiral Montague, who was still, however, detained in England.[2]—­Meanwhile Blake, in his wider command off the coasts of Spain itself, or wherever in the Atlantic there could be a dash at the Spaniard, had added one more to the series of his naval exploits.  To intercept a rich Spanish fleet from Mexico, he had gone to the Canary Isles; he had found the fleet there, sixteen ships in all, impregnably ensconced, as it was thought, in the fortified bay of Santa Cruz in Teneriffe; and, after a council of war, in which it was agreed that, though the ships could not be taken, they might be destroyed, he had ventured that tremendous feat April 20, with the most extraordinary success.  He had emerged from Santa Cruz Bay, after eleven hours of connonading and fighting, all but undamaged himself, but leaving not a ship of the Spanish fleet extant, and every fort in ruins.  Not till May 28 did the news reach London; but on that day Thurloe presented a narrative of the glorious action to the House, who forthwith ordered a special thanksgiving, and a jewel worth L500 to Blake.  On the 10th of June the jewel was sent, with a letter of honour from the Protector, and instructions to leave fourteen of his ships off Cadiz, and return home himself with the rest of his fleet.[3]

[Footnote 1:  Godwin, IV. 540-542.  But see Guizot’s Cromwell and the English Commonwealth, II. 377 (Engl.  Transl. 1854), with Latin Text of the Treaty itself in Appendix to same volume.]

[Footnote 2:  Godwin, IV. 542-543; Commons Journals of May 5, 1657 (leave to Reynolds to go on the service).]

[Footnote 3:  Commons Journals, May 28 and 29, 1657; Godwin, IV. 418-420; Carlyle, III. 264 and 304-305.]

“Killing no Murder:  briefly discoursed, in Three Questions, by William Allen:” such was the title of a pamphlet in secret circulation in London in June, 1657, and still of some celebrity.  It began with a letter “To His Highness, Oliver Cromwell,” in this strain:  “To your Highness justly belongs the honour of dying for the people; and it cannot choose but be an unspeakable consolation to you in the last moments of your life to consider with how much benefit to the world you are likely to leave it ...  To hasten this great good is the chief end of my writing this paper.”  There follows, accordingly, a letter to those officers and soldiers of the army who remember their engagements, urging them to assassinate Cromwell.  “We wish we had rather endured thee, O Charles,” it says, “than have been condemned to this mean tyrant, not that we desire any kind of slavery, but that the quality of the master sometimes graces the condition of the slave.”  Sindercombe is spoken of as “a brave man,” of as “great a mind” as any of the old Romans.  At the end there is this postscript:  “Courteous reader, expect another sheet or two of paper on this