and care was taken to
fit out such a fleet as might secure the trade from interruption, and
the coasts from insults; of this Blake was constituted admiral for
nine months. In this situation the two nations remained, keeping a
watchful eye upon each other, without acting hostilities on either
side, till the 18th of May, 1652, when Van Trump appeared in the
Downs, with a fleet of forty-five men of war. Blake, who had then but
twenty ships, upon the approach of the Dutch admiral, saluted him with
three single shots, to require that he should, by striking his flag,
show that respect to the English, which is due to every nation in
their own dominions; to which the Dutchman answered with a broadside;
and Blake, perceiving that he intended to dispute the point of honour,
advanced with his own ship before the rest of his fleet, that, if it
were possible, a general battle might be prevented. But the Dutch,
instead of admitting him to treat, fired upon him from their whole
fleet, without any regard to the customs of war, or the law of
nations. Blake, for some time, stood alone against their whole force,
till the rest of his squadron coming up, the fight was continued from
between four and five in the afternoon, till nine at night, when the
Dutch retired with the loss of two ships, having not destroyed a
single vessel, nor more than fifteen men, most of which were on board
the admiral, who, as he wrote to the parliament, was himself engaged
for four hours with the main body of the Dutch fleet, being the mark
at which they aimed; and, as Whitlock relates, received above a
thousand shot. Blake, in his letter, acknowledges the particular
blessing and preservation of God, and ascribes his success to the
justice of his cause, the Dutch having first attacked him upon the
English coast. It is, indeed, little less than miraculous, that a
thousand great shot should not do more execution; and those who will
not admit the interposition of providence, may draw, at least, this
inference from it, that the bravest man is not always in the greatest
danger.

In July, he met the Dutch fishery fleet, with a convoy of twelve men
of war, all which he took, with one hundred of their herring-busses.
And, in September, being stationed in the Downs, with about sixty
sail, he discovered the Dutch admirals, De Witt and De Ruyter, with
near the same number, and advanced towards them; but the Dutch being
obliged, by the nature of their coast, and shallowness