veterans as Tromp, De Witt, De Ruyter, &c. On one occasion only did Blake suffer ever a defeat; and this one is easily explained by--first, Tromp's overwhelming superiority of force; secondly, the extreme deficiency of men in the English fleet; and, thirdly, the cowardice or disaffection of several of Blake's captains at a critical moment in the battle. Notwithstanding this disaster, not a whisper was heard against the admiral either in the Council of State or in the city; his offer to resign was flatteringly rejected; and he soon found, that the "misfortune which might have ruined another man, had given him strength and influence in the country." This disaster, in fact, gave him power to effect reforms in the service, and to root out abuses which had defied all his efforts in the day of his success. He followed it up by the great battle of Portland, and other triumphant engagements. Then came his sweeping _tours de force_ in the Mediterranean; in six months he established himself as a power in that great midland sea, from which his countrymen had been politically excluded since the age of the Crusades--teaching nations, to which England's very name was a strange sound, to respect its honors and its rights; chastising the pirates of Barbary with unprecedented severity; making Italy's petty princes feel the power of the northern Protestants; causing the pope himself to tremble on his seven hills; and startling the council-chambers of Venice and Constantinople with the distant echoes of our guns. And be it remembered, that England had then no Malta, Corfu, and Gibraltar as the bases of naval operations in the Mediterranean: on the contrary, Blake found that in almost every gulf and island of that sea--in Malta, Venice, Genoa, Leghorn, Algiers, Tunis, and Marseilles--there existed a rival and an enemy; nor were there more than three or four harbors in which he could obtain even bread for love or money.