HISTORY OF ENGLAND

66 GROWTH OF THE YO WER OF THE XI: 4.A.D. 1651.on the coast of Europe. We find them subsequently off theAzores, in the African, and finally in the West Indian waters ;where Maurice perished in a shipwreck.Blake, after having driven his most important enemy outof Europe, returned to Great Britain, where his presence wasabsolutely necessary; for the piratical war carried on thereunder royalist colours had grown to large dimensions. It wascarried on at once from Galway and the Isle of Man, beforethey were conquered, and from Scilly and Jersey. It wasestimated that there were twenty-eight ships of war belongingto various stations. Carteret's frigates made themselvesespecially dreaded. Within sight of Plymouth, under the veryguns of Dartmouth, they carried off richly laden merchantmen.The Scots who were as yet unconquered followedthis example: they sent out vessels of war which inflictedserious damage on the fisheries and trade of the English1.And as can well be imagined, it was not the English onlywho were aggrieved by these disorders. The Dutch entertainedthe idea of taking vengeance for the loss which theysuffered from the ScilIy Islands by occupying them.It was against this group of rocks that Robert Blake nowfirst turned his arms. He is famous as having been the firstpractically to refute the idea, till then generally accepted, thatit was impracticable for vesseIs of war to undertake an attackupon strong forts on the coast. It was against St. Mary's, inScilly, that he first put his maxims into practice2. At the veryoutset, with the guns of the light frigates which he brought upin front of the fortress, through the windings of the channel,he effected a breach in the walls, upon which the gallantCavaliers and their commander John Grenville surrendered,on conditions which proved to be sufficiently endurable. TheEnglish seemed now to become aware for the first time howimportant these islands were for their trade.. Blake garrisonedthem with trustworthy troops, and stationed a squadron offthe Land's End.George Carteret still maintained himself at Elizabeth' Whitelocke, March 15, 1654 Letters that divers Scotsmen of war are set outto the great damage of trade.Dixon : Robert Blake, preface and chap. v.xr.4. COMMONWEALTHBY LAND AND SEA. 6.1A.D. 1651.Castle, in Jersey, with a gallant force picked from manydifferent nationalities, and hoped to hold out till a brighterfortune should shine upon his Prince. The castle was consideredto be the strongest fortress 011 British soil. On theside of the sea it was inaccessible. Carteret however was notstrong enough to prevent the Republicans from landing.Mortars of the heaviest calibre were then brought from Plymouth,guns very different from those which this fort wasoriginally built to resist. They destroyed the houses, thechurch, the magazines. Even Carteret found himself forcedto surrender; yet he did not do so till he had first consultedhis King. The Commonwealth sent a commission to settlethe Channel islands after its own model.In the British world, just as recently in the French, theaction of artillery was decisive. All those castles in whichan independent power could offer resistance to the authorityof the state, whether on the coast or inland, succumbed to theirresistible cannon. The only difference is that the stateauthoritywhich availed itself of them was in France thatof the King, in England that of the Commonwealth. Thecrown and its adherents were condemned in England to sucha mode of resistance as was elsewhere confined to rebels.In this resistance they failed, as was inevitable.Thanks however to these victories, the Republican powernow finally assumed that position of superiority which wehave indicated. The union for which the Stuart kings hadprepared the way by their hereditary right, and which theyhad endeavoured to establish by means of ecclesiastical andfeudal institutions, was completed by arms, and in directopposition to them. Henceforward throughout the wholeterritory all differences of descent, of religion, and of establishedcustom, disappear : for the first time Great Britain wasgoverned by one single mind over the whole extent of herancient boundaries. But at the same moment she awokemore clearly than ever before to a consciousness of the advantageof her geographical position, of the fact that amaritime vocation was that to which she was called by natureherself. In a spirit of self-assertion and conscious power shenow faced the whole world.F 2