Robert Blake was a celebrated British admiral. He was born in 1599 at Bridgewater and died in 1657 at the entrance to Plymouth Sound. On finishing his education at Oxford he lived for some time in a private manner on the fortune left him by his father. He was elected member of parliament for Bridgewater in 1640, and after the dissolution of the parliament later he lost his seat and pursued a military career. In 1649 he was sent to command the fleet with Colonels Deane and Popham. He attempted to block up Prince Rupert in Kinsale, but the prince, contriving to get his fleet out, escaped to Lisbon, where Robert Blake followed him. Being refused permission to attack him in the Tagus by the King of Portugal, he took several rich prizes from the Portuguese, and followed Rupert to Malaga, where, without asking permission of Spain, he attacked him and nearly destroyed the whole of his fleet.
His greatest achievements were, however, in the Dutch War which broke out in 1652. On the 19th of May he was attacked in the Downs by Van Tromp with a fleet of forty-five sail, the force of Robert Blake amounting only to twenty-three, but Van Tromp was obliged to retreat.
On May the 29th he was again attacked by Van Tromp, whose fleet was now increased to eighty sail. Robert Blake had a very inferior force, and after every possible exertion was obliged to retreat into the Thames. In the following February he put to sea with sixty sail, and soon after met the Dutch admiral, who had seventy sail and 300 merchantmen under convoy. During three days a running fight up the Channel was maintained with obstinate valour on both sides, the result of which was the loss of eleven men-of-war and thirty merchant ships by the Dutch, while that of the English was only one man-of-war. In this action Blake was severely wounded.
On June the 3rd he again engaged Van Tromp and forced the Dutch to retire with considerable loss into their own harbours. In November 1654 he was sent with a strong fleet to enforce a due respect to the British flag in the Mediterranean. He sailed first to Algiers, which submitted, and then demolished the castles of Goletta and Porto Ferine, at Tunis, because the dey refused to deliver up the British captives. A squadron of his ships also blocked up Cadiz, and intercepted a Spanish Plate fleet.
In April, 1657, he sailed with twenty-four ships to Santa Cruz, in Teneriffe; and notwithstanding the strength of the place, burned the ships of another Spanish Plate fleet which had taken shelter there, and by a fortunate change of wind came out without loss. He died before landing on English soil, and was buried in Westminster Abbey, whence his body was removed at the Restoration and buried in St Margaret's Churchyard. Research Robert Blake
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