During the Commonwealth and the Protectorate the English navy became the most powerful in Europe, and yet the naval victories of those ten years left hardly any trace in ballad literature. One reason for this was the rigid censorship of the press which existed during that period. In 1647 and 1648 a flood of abusive ballads and newspapers had appeared in print, directed against the Long Parliament and the army, and designed to further the cause of the King. The Parliament passed on September 20, 1649, an Act for the suppression of unlicensed books and pamphlets, and for the punishment of their authors and vendors. Hawkers of pamphlets, newspapers and ballads, and ballad-singers, were to be apprehended, conveyed to the House of Correction, and whipped as rogues. By this Act, and by an Act against vagrants passed in 1657, declaring that henceforth, ‘persons commonly called fidlers and minstrels’ should be proceeded against as ‘rogues, vagabonds and sturdy beggars,’ the production and circulation of ballads was effectually checked. Consequently neither the naval commanders of that time nor their victories were commemorated in the usual way. There is indeed a ballad called _Admiral Deane’s Funeral_ describing his interment in Westminster Abbey in 1653 (_Rump Songs_, 1660, p. 308); but it is merely a Royalist satire, concluding with the statement that though the admiral’s body is solemnly interred ‘In the famous chapel of Henry the Seven,’ yet ‘His soul is scarce gone the right way to heaven.’ But the only ballad directly relating an incident in the wars of this period is one which describes the bombardment of Malaga by five of Blake’s frigates in July 1656, which is reprinted on p. 47. A long narrative poem on _The Life and Actions of that valiant Hero Robert Blake, Esq., General of the Fleets of the Commonwealth of England, from the year 1649 to 1657_, written during the Protectorate, has survived, but it is too worthless to reprint (_Poems on Affairs of State_, vol. i. part 2, pp. 274-290, ed.). Of more interest is the _Elegy on the Death of the Right Honourable Robert Blake_, written immediately after his death by one George Harrison, who appears to have been serving in some capacity in the fleet, since he dates it ‘on board the Dunbar, in the Downs.’ This is given on p. 48. Poets of greater repute did not neglect the theme which the naval annals of the time afforded. Andrew Marvell, in a satirical poem against the Dutch, entitled _The Character of Holland_--obviously written about the beginning of 1653, though it was not published till 1665--concludes with some verses on the English navy and its three admirals, Deane, Monck, and Blake. He also wrote a poem on Blake’s victory at Santa Cruz. The address to his captains which he puts in Blake’s mouth breathes at all events Blake’s spirit, although it is fiction: