The History of England Volume VI. David Hume
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to die with them than drag out a life, embittered with the remembrance of such dismal scenes.q When the treasures, gained by this enterprize, arrived at Portsmouth, the protector, from a spirit of ostentation, ordered them to be transported by land to London.
The next action against the Spaniards was more honourable, though less profitable, to the nation. Blake, having heard that a Spanish fleet of sixteen ships, much richer than the former, had taken shelter in the Canaries, immediately made sail towards them. He found them in the bay of Santa Cruz, disposed in a formidable posture. The bay was secured with a strong castle, well provided with cannon, besides seven forts in several parts of it, all united by a line of communication, manned with musqueteers. Don Diego Diagues, the Spanish admiral, ordered all his smaller vessels to moor close to the shore, and posted the larger galleons farther off, at anchor, with their broadsides to the sea.
Blake was rather animated than daunted with this appearance. The wind seconded his courage, and blowing full into the bay, in a moment brought him among the thickest of his enemies. After a resistance of four hours, the Spaniards yielded to English valour, and abandoned their ships, which were set on fire, and consumed with all their treasure. The greatest danger still remained to the English. They lay under the fire of the castles and all the forts, which must, in a little time, have torn them in pieces. But the wind, suddenly shifting, carried them out of the bay; where they left the Spaniards in astonishment at the happy temerity of their audacious victors.
And death of admiral Blake.
This was the last and greatest action of the gallant Blake. He was consumed with a dropsy and scurvy, and hastened home, that he might yield up his breath in his native country, which he had so much adorned by his valour. As he came within sight of land, he expired.r Never man, so zealous for a faction, was so much respected and esteemed even by the opposite factions. He was by principle an inflexible republican; and the late usurpations, amidst all the trust and caresses, which he received from the ruling powers, were thought to be very little grateful to him. It is still our duty, he said to the seamen, to fight for our country, into what hands so ever the government may fall. Disinterested, generous, liberal; ambitious only of true glory, dreadful only to his avowed enemies; he forms one of the most perfect characters of the age, and the least stained with those errors and violences, which were then so predominant. The protector ordered him a pompous funeral at the public charge: But the tears of his countrymen were the most honourable panegyric on his memory.
The conduct of the protector in foreign affairs, though imprudent and impolitic, was full of vigour and enterprize, and drew a consideration to his country, which, since the reign of Elizabeth, it seemed to have totally lost. The great mind of this successful usurper was intent on spreading the renown of the English nation; and while he struck mankind with astonishment at his extraordinary fortune, he seemed to ennoble, instead of debasing, that people, whom he had reduced to subjection. It was his boast, that he would render the name of an Englishman as much feared and revered as ever was that of a Roman; and as his countrymen found some reality in these pretensions, their national vanity, being gratified, made them bear with more patience all the indignities and calamities, under which they laboured.
Domestic administration of Cromwel.
It must also be acknowledged, that the protector, in his civil and domestic administration, displayed as great regard both to justice and clemency, as his usurped authority, derived from no law, and founded only on the sword, could possibly permit. All the chief offices in the courts of judicature were filled with men of integrity: Amidst the virulence of faction, the decrees of the judges were upright and impartial: And to every man but himself, and to himself, except where necessity required the contrary, the law was the great rule of conduct and behaviour. Vane and Lilburn, whose credit with the republicans and levellers he dreaded, were indeed for some time confined to prison: Cony, who refused to pay illegal taxes, was obliged by menaces to depart from his obstinacy: High courts of justice were erected to try those who had engaged in conspiracies and insurrections against the protector’s authority, and whom he could not safely commit to the verdict of juries. But these irregularities were deemed inevitable consequences of his illegal authority. And though often urged by his officers, as is pretended;s to attempt a general massacre of the royalists, he always with horror rejected such sanguinary counsels.
In the army was laid the sole basis of the protector’s power; and in managing it consisted the chief art and delicacy of his government. The soldiers were held in exact discipline; a policy, which both accustomed them to obedience, and made them less hateful and burthensome to the people. He augmented their pay; though the public necessities some times obliged him to run in arrears to them. Their interests, they were sensible, were closely connected with those of their general and protector. And he entirely commanded their affectionate regard, by his abilities and success in almost every enterprize, which he had hitherto undertaken. But all military government is precarious; much more where it stands in opposition to civil establishments; and still more, where it encounters religious prejudices. By the wild fanaticism, which he had nourished in the soldiers, he had seduced them into measures, for which, if openly proposed to them, they would have entertained the utmost aversion. But this same spirit rendered them more difficult to be governed, and made their caprices terrible even to that hand, which directed their movements. So often taught, that the office of king was an usurpation upon Christ, they were apt to suspect a protector not to be altogether compatible with that divine authority. Harrison, though raised to the highest dignity, and possessed of Cromwel’s confidence, became his most inveterate enemy as soon as the authority of a single person was established, against which that usurper had always made such violent protestations. Overton, Rich, Okey, officers of rank in the army, were actuated with like principles, and Cromwel was obliged to deprive them of their commissions. Their influence, which was before thought unbounded among the troops, seemed from that moment to be totally annihilated.
The more effectually to curb the enthusiastic and seditious spirit of the troops, Cromwel established a kind of militia in the several counties. Companies of infantry and cavalry were enlisted under proper officers, regular pay distributed among them, and a resource by that means provided both against the insurrections of the royalists, and mutiny of the army.
Religion can never be deemed a point of small consequence in civil government: But during this period, it may be regarded as the great spring of men’s actions and determinations. Though transported, himself, with the most frantic whimsies, Cromwel had adopted a scheme for regulating this principle in others, which was sagacious and political. Being resolved to maintain a national church, yet determined neither to admit episcopacy nor presbytery, he established a number of commissioners, under the name of tryers, partly laymen, partly ecclesiastics, some presbyterians, some independents. These presented to all livings, which were formerly in the gift of the crown; they examined and admitted such persons as received holy orders; and they inspected the lives, doctrine, and behaviour of the clergy. Instead of supporting that union between learning and theology, which has so long been attempted in Europe, these tryers embraced the latter principle in its full purity, and made it the sole object of their examination. The candidates were no more perplexed with questions concerning their progress in Greek and Roman erudition; concerning their talent for profane arts and sciences: The chief object of scrutiny regarded their advances in grace, and fixing the critical moment of their conversion.
With the pretended saints of all denominations Cromwel was familiar and easy. Laying aside the state of protector, which, on other occasions, he well knew how to maintain, he insinuated to them, that nothing but necessity could ever oblige him to invest himself with it. He talked spiritually to them; he sighed, he weeped, he canted, he prayed. He even entered with them into an emulation of ghostly gifts; and these men, instead of grieving to be out done in their own way, were proud, that his highness, by his princely example, had dignified those practices, in which they themselves were daily occupied.t
If Cromwel might be said to adhere to any particular form of religion, they were the independents who could chiefly boast of his favour; and it may be affirmed, that such pastors of that sect, as were not passionately addicted to civil liberty, were all of them devoted to him. The presbyterian clergy also, saved from the ravages of the anabaptists and millenarians, and enjoying their establishments and tythes, were not averse