our, all his own. Many are the illustrations we might adduce
of this high-minded and generous temperament. For instance: meeting a
French frigate of forty guns in the Straits, and signaling for the
captain to come on board his flag-ship, the latter, considering the
visit one of friendship and ceremony, there being no _declared_ war
between the two nations--though the French conduct at Toulon had
determined England on measures of retaliation--readily complied with
Blake's summons; but was astounded, on entering the admiral's cabin,
at being told he was a prisoner, and requested to give up his sword.
No! was the surprised but resolute Frenchman's reply. Blake felt that
an advantage had been gained by a misconception, and scorning to make
a brave officer its victim, he told his guest he might go back to his
ship, if he wished, and fight it out as long as he was able. The
captain, we are told, thanked him for his handsome offer, and retired.
After two hours' hard fighting, he struck his flag; like a true French
knight, he made a low bow, kissed his sword affectionately, and
delivered it to his conqueror. Again: when Blake captured the Dutch
herring-fleet off Bochness, consisting of 600 boats, instead of
destroying or appropriating them, he merely took a tithe of the whole
freight, in merciful consideration towards the poor families whose
entire capital and means of life it constituted. This 'characteristic
act of clemency' was censured by many as Quixotic, and worse. But, as
Mr Dixon happily says: 'Blake took no trouble to justify his noble
instincts against such critics. His was indeed a happy fate: the only
fault ever advanced by friend or foe against his public life, was an
excess of generosity towards his vanquished enemies!' His sense of the
comic is amusingly evidenced by the story of his _ruse_ during a
dearth in the same siege. Tradition reports, that only one animal, a
hog, was left alive in the town, and that more than half starved. In
the afternoon, Blake, feeling that in their depression a laugh would
do the defenders as much good as a dinner, had the hog carried to all
the posts and whipped, so that its screams, heard in many places,
might make the enemy suppose that fresh supplies had somehow been
obtained. According to his biographer, never man had finer sense of
sarcasm, or used that weapon with greater effect--loving to find
expression for its scorn and merriment in the satires of Horace and
Juvenal; and thu