ion
at once.

This was the greatest of Blake's feats as it also was his last.
All who heard of it--friend or enemy--pronounced it as without
parallel in the history of ships. A few months later Blake was
given leave to return home. He had long been a sick man, but his
name alone was worth a fleet and Cromwell had not been able to spare
him. As it happened, he did not live long enough to see England
again. Cromwell, who knew the worth of his faithful admiral, gave
him a funeral of royal dignity and interment in Westminster Abbey.

Blake never showed, perhaps, great strategic insight--Tromp and
de Ruyter were his superiors there, as was also Nelson--but he,
more than any other, won for England her mastery of the sea, and
no other can boast his record of great victories. These he won
partly by skill and forethought but chiefly by intrepidity. We
can do no better than leave his fame in the words of the Royalist
historian, Clarendon--a political enemy--who says: "He quickly made
himself signal there (on the sea) and was the first man who declined
the old track ... and disproved those rules that had long been in
practice, to keep his ships and men out of danger, which had been
held in former times a point of great ability and circumspection,
as if the principal requisite in the captain of a ship had been
to come home safe again. He was the first man who brought ships
to contemn castles on shore, which had been thought ever very
formidable.... He was the first that infused that proportion of
courage into the seamen by making them see what mighty things they
could do if they were resolved, and taught them to fight in fire
as well as on water. And though he hath been very well imitated
and followed, he was the first that drew the copy of naval courage
and bold resolute achievement."

The chaos that followed the death of the Protector resulted in
Monk's bringing over the exiled Stuart king--Charles II. Thereafter
Round Head and Royalist served together in the British navy. An
important effect of the Restoration was organization of a means of
training the future officers of the fleet. The Navy as a profession
may be said to date from this time, in contrast with the practice of
using merchant skippers and army officers, which had prevailed to
so great a degree hitherto. Under the new system "young gentlemen"
were sent to sea as "King's Letter Boys"--midshipmen--to learn
the ways of the navy and to grow up in it as a preparatio