demonstration they had of his strength brought the Spanish authorities to reason. The friar was sent on board, presumably expecting and, if he was a fanatic, hoping for martyrdom. Blake, however, confined himself to rebuking the over-zealous friar, and declaring that he would make the English name as much respected as ever was that of a Roman citizen. There is nothing improbable in the story, which, however, rests solely on the authority of Bishop Burnet. Whatever may be the accuracy of this anecdote, it is beyond question that Blake's mission was to make the name of Englishmen respected in the Mediterranean, and that it was fulfilled. The Italian princes found that delay would no longer be tolerated. Their disputes with the English Government were wound up. A naval power is not limited in its influence, as the strongest of merely military powers must needs be. The States around the Mediterranean might have despised the menace of the New Model Army, which was no doubt capable of marching all through Italy, if only it could have got so far; but a fleet can make the power of the State felt wherever ships can go. Cromwell's menaces were formidable to the very extremities of the Mediterranean. In that sea there was one duty to be discharged which the English Navy had been forced to neglect for too long. The pirates of the Barbary States had long been a pest and a menace to the commerce of Europe, and even to the coasts of Christian States. Within the Mediterranean nobody had yet seriously undertaken to break their power. It is true that they no longer operated in great fleets, as they had done in the days of Barbarossa. The age of the pirate admirals had been succeeded by that of the Raises, or pirate captains, but they were still formidable to commerce, if they attempted no longer to capture towns and conquer territory. The growing English trade in the Mediterranean suffered from them severely. When the Church of England included a prayer for prisoners and captives in her Litany, the words had a significance they no longer bear. In 1620 the ridiculously feeble effort already recorded, to check this disgraceful infliction, had been made with no better result than to convince these Mohammedan sea rovers that England was not formidable. It was necessary to bring them to a sounder view of the facts, and this was one part of the task entrusted to Blake.