who was much younger than himself; but his rise from this period was exceedingly rapid. He gained the confidence of Cromwell to a very high degree, and is said to have had more influence over him than any other of his friends. Whitlock says, "he was very active and industrious, and of good abilities. He made much use of his pen, wherein his having been bred a lawyer was a help to him." At the battle of Naseby, Ireton took the command of the left wing by the special desire of Cromwell. The attack upon this wing, conducted by Prince Rupert, was so furious, that it was for a time driven back, and Ireton himself, having received two wounds, was made prisoner; but in the sequel of the battle made his escape. From this period Ireton took an active part in all the affairs of the parliament, and is said to have drawn up the famous Remonstrance in behalf of the army. Most of the papers emanating from the army, as well as Lord Fairfax's letters to the parliament, are attributed to his pen. He was also employed in drawing up the instrument for the king's trial, and sat as one of his judges.

In 1649 the rump parliament made Ireton major-general to Cromwell in his Irish expedition. After Cromwell returned to England he committed the conduct of affairs to Ireton, who completely reduced that kingdom to the authority of the parliament. But Ireton fell a sacrifice to his zeal in the public cause. He suffered great fatigue in conducting the siege of Limerick, and after having taken the place, was seized by the plague, and died Nov. 1651. His body was brought to Westminster, and buried in Henry VII.'s chapel with great pomp. But after the restoration the body was disinterred, drawn to Tyburn on a sledge, then hung upon a gallows, and afterwards buried under it in a pit with others.

Mrs Hutchinson, in the memoirs of her husband, speaks of the high esteem which the colonel bore to Ireton, and of his entire confidence in his judgment. Ludlow, also—who viewed him in a post of great power and great temptation, that of deputy of Ireland, being next in commandgives the following account of his conduct in one instance which will speak much for the generous and patriotic feelings which animated all his conduct: "The parliament ordered an act to be brought in for settling £2,000 per annum on the lord-deputy Ireton, the news of which being brought over was so unacceptable to him, that he said they had many just debts, which he desired they would pay before they made any such presents; that he had no need of their land, and would not have it; and that he should be more contented to see them doing the service of the nation, than so liberal in disposing of the public treasure." The character of Ireton has been traduced by Clarendon and such like party-writers, in the most shameful manner, but their charges are all vague and general, and many of them utterly without foundation. The firm, sober, and resolved character of Ireton made him many enemies. The royalists considered him as their most formidable adversary; and the advocates of license hated as much as they feared him.-His character is thus delineated by Cooke, chief-justice of Munster, his special and particular friend: "Never had commonwealth a greater loss, because undoubtedly there never was a more able, painful, provident, and industrious servant. He discharged his duty to all people, and acted every part so well, as if he had been born only for that particular. He was a patron, father, and husband to the fatherless and widow. For

uprightness, single-heartedness, and sincerity, he exercised them to his enemies; and, though he was very sparing of his promises to the rebels, yet was he more liberal in his performances. He was a most exact justiciary in all matters of moral righteousness, and with strength of solid reason had a most piercing judgment and a large understanding. He was willing to hear truth from the meanest soldier. For so great a stock of knowledge, such extraordinary abilities in matters of learning, military, judicial, political, mathematical, moral, rational, and divine,— I say, for every thing requisite and desirable, both as a man and a Christian, I think it will be hard with many candles to find his equal. I believe few men knew more of the art of policy and self-interested prudentials, but never man so little practised them. If he erred in any thing, (as error and humanity are inseparable,) it was in too much neglecting himself, seldom thinking it time to eat till he had done the work of the day, at nine or ten at night; and then would sit up as long as any man had business with him. Indeed, he was every thing from a foot-soldier to a general. He is and shall be most dear to my remembrance; and, of all the saints I ever knew, I desire to make him my precedent."

Digby, Earl of Bristol.

BORN A. D. 1580.-died A. D. 1653.

JOHN DIGBY, by no means an inconsiderable man in his day, was the fourth son of Sir George Digby of Coleshill, in Warwickshire. He entered Magdalen college, Oxford, in 1595. After completing his education at Oxford, he pased two or three years in France and Italy. After his return to England, happening to be in Warwickshire when Catesby's band made their mad attempt to carry off the princess Elizabeth, he was sent to court by Lord Harrington with the intelligence of that enterprise, and its defeat,-a mission in which he acquitted himself so well that James, taking a fancy to him, appointed him gentleman of the privy-chamber, and in the following February conferred on him the honour of knighthood,

In 1611, he was sent ambassador to Spain, and again in 1614. In the course of these missions, he discovered that the earl of Somerset was in the pay of the Spanish ministry, and reported the fact to his sʊvereign. But James was both too partial and too timid to punish the favourite for an offence in which so many of his courtiers and ministers notoriously participated, and the matter was hushed. The ambassador's fidelity, however, was rewarded by a new embassy to Spain for the purpose of treating for the hand of the infanta, and he acquitted himself so much to James's satisfaction on this occasion also, that he conferred on him the dignity of a baron, by the title of Lord Digby of Sherborne. After an intervening embassy to the German States, he was despatched a fourth time to Spain, in company with Sir Walter Aston, in 1622. Various obstacles had sprung up to impede James's favourite project for an alliance between his son Charles and the infanta,

Godwin's Commonwealth.-Collier.-Whitlock.

Maria. The same year he was created earl of Bristol. During his ab sence, the favourite Buckingham sought in vain to shake the king' confidence in him; and, on finding the task a more difficult one tha he had at first anticipated, he employed various arts and threats to pre vent his return to England. But the earl was not to be intimidated and, in spite of Buckingham's threats, hastened home to obtain an au dience with the king. Immediately on landing at Dover, he was com mitted to the Tower by the favourite's order; but a committee of lords having pronounced him free of all matter of impeachment, he was soon after restored to liberty.

On the accession of Charles, the earl fell into disgrace at court, and in May, 1626, was impeached for high treason. But he boldly recriminated, by preparing articles of impeachment against Buckingham; and the king, to protect his favourite, was obliged to dissolve the parliament. For a time the earl sided with the leaders of opposition in the long parliament; but he at last withdrew into voluntary exile, and became a zealous adherent to the royal cause. He died at Paris on the 21st of January, 1653. He published some tracts, speeches, and verses, and, in the earlier part of his life, a translation of Peter du Moulin's Defence of the catholic faith.'

Admiral Blake.

BORN A. D. 1599.-DIED A. D. 1657.

THIS distinguished English admiral was the son of a respectable merchant at Bridgewater, in the county of Somerset. He was born in August, 1599, and received the rudiments of education at the grammar school of Bridgewater. At the age of sixteen he was entered of Alban's hall, Oxford. Wood informs us that the young collegian occasionally amused himself with hunting and stealing swans,- -an offence probably of no great culpability in those times. In 1619, he stood for a fellowship in Merton college, but was rejected by the warden, Sir Henry Saville, on the extraordinary ground of not being of sufficient stature for holding such an academical distinction ! Probably the religious principles of his family, which were known to lean to Presbyterianism, was the real ground of the warden's opposition to young Blake; but whatever occasioned his failure, he ultimately had no reason to regret the circumstance by which Providence seems to have given his professional views a totally new direction. He left the university in his 25th year, and took up his residence at Bridgewater, where he conducted himself with much prudence and discretion, so as to win general respect, while he openly professed his attachment to the nonconformist party and puritan principles. In the parliament which sat in April, 1640, he took his place as burgess for Bridgewater, an honour which he owed to the universal estimation in which he was held for integrity and independence of character. In the long parliament which succeeded he lost his election.

On the breaking out of the civil war, Blake unhesitatingly declared for the parliament, and raised a troop of dragoons, which he personally commanded. He was now in his fortieth year, and this was his first

essay in arms, yet he soon discovered remarkable military talents, and the most indomitable courage in the field. At the siege of Bristol he was intrusted with the defence of a small fort on the lines, from which he continued to fire upon the royalists even after the surrender of the city by the officer in command, who had neglected to give him notice of the capitulation.' He subsequently served in Somersetshire, and made a most successful defence of Lyme against Prince Maurice. In 1644, he was appointed governor of Taunton, the only place held by the parliament on that side of the island. Here he was besieged by Goring; and though the town was but poorly fortified, and few supplies could be thrown in, yet he made a most spirited and successful defence, and refused to surrender the castle even after the royalists had made a breach on the defences, and were actually in possession of a part of the town. The assailants repeatedly pressed him to surrender, but he scouted the idea, and declared that he would eat his boots first. At last, the royalists were compelled to raise the siege, after they had lost 1000 men before and in the town. Another attempt, however, was soon afterwards made upon Taunton by the united forces of Lord Goring, Sir Richard Greenville, and Colonel Berkeley. The besieged were sorely straitened this time, but their heroic governor resolutely held out till relieved by the approach of Fairfax and Massey. Blake's successful defence of Taunton materially contributed to the final defeat of the royal cause; for the king, knowing well the importance of the place, was induced to employ a considerable portion of his forces in the attempt to reduce it, and consequently took the field at Naseby with a force considerably inferior to what he might otherwise have brought into that decisive action. It appears that when the trial of the king was finally determined on, amongst other precautionary measures, a part of the troops under Blake was disbanded. He was well known to disapprove of the more violent measures of the army, and to have leaned strongly to the side of mercy. This humane disposition, added to the high and generous feelings of his nature which raised him to an immeasurable height above mere partisanship, obtained for him the respect both of the republicans and royalists, while it kept him from taking any very active part in the perplexed and conflicting politics of the day. But Cromwell, while he reckoned him unfit or rather unsuitable for the council-board, was too quick-eyed and good a soldier himself not to know the worth and value of his man; and, accordingly, he soon found a sphere in which so highly gifted a patriot might render his talents most available to his country.

On the 12th of February, 1649, Colonels Blake, Deane, and Popham, were appointed commissioners of the navy, and nominated to the command of squadrons. With our ideas of naval service, it seems a violent and unnatural transition to pass without any professional preparation, from the command of a regiment of soldiers to that of a line-ofbattle ship; but strange as it may appear, it was nevertheless a common practice until towards the close of the second Charles' reign, and it succeeded so well, especially in the instance before us, as almost to justify and recommend such appointments. The truth seems to be that the naval tactics of that age were, compared at least with those of our own

1 Howell's State Trials, p. 224.

day, exceedingly rude and simple; and the qualities of courage, decision, and promptitude, constituted nearly all the qualifications requisite for a naval command. These, we have seen, Blake possessed in an eminent degree; and to them he likewise added a quickness of apprehension and fertility of genius which enabled him to adapt himself with great readiness to new and extraordinary situations. His first service was to blockade the royal squadron, having the Princes Rupert and Maurice on board, in Kinsale harbour. He kept them in close durance from the end of February, 1649, until the following October, when, despairing of relief, the princes resolved to force their way through the blockading squadron, which they effected with the loss of three of their ships, and steered for Lisbon, whither Blake followed them. On his arrival in the Tagus, he demanded the ships of Prince Rupert as belonging to the commonwealth of England. The requisition greatly embarrassed the Portuguese cabinet, but it was ultimately resolved to decline complying with it, and on Blake's attempting to force his way up the river to Rupert's anchorage, he was driven back by the fire from the batteries on shore. Blake, in junction with Popham, now made severe reprisals on the Portuguese merchant-men, until alarmed by the losses of his subjects, Don John compelled Rupert to quit the Tagus, and hastened to patch up a treaty with the commonwealth. From the Tagus, Rupert proceeded to Carthagena, and thence to Malaga, where he was inconsiderate enough to capture some English merchantmen. Informed of this transaction, Blake sailed immediately for Malaga, and having attacked the royal squadron, burnt or destroyed all but four or five ships, with which the two princes escaped to the West Indies. Prince Maurice, some time afterwards was cast away. Rupert got back to France, and sold his vessels and prizes, on behalf of Charles II., to the French government. Such was the fate of a fleet of twenty-five ships, which, on the execution of Charles I., had declared for his son. 2

Returning home, Blake encountered a French ship of forty guns, the commander of which, not having been apprised of the commencement of hostilities between France and England, cheerfully accepted an invitation to come on board Admiral Blake's ship. On being informed of the war, and asked if he would willingly resign his sword, the spirited Frenchman returned an instant answer in the negative; whereupon Blake, with equal gallantry, allowed him to return to his vessel and defend himself as he best could, which he bravely did for two hours, and then surrendered. His next service was the reduction of the Scilly islands, and of Jersey and Guernsey. The maritime rivalry of the English and Dutch nations was now assuming a warlike attitude. The navigation act, by which it was ordered that no goods, the produce of Africa, Asia, or America, should be imported into Britain but in English bottoms, had been passed and carried into execution. By this act, the Dutch, who had hitherto been the common carriers of Europe, beheld themselves suddenly stripped of one of their most lucrative branches of commerce. In addition to this source of irritation, letters of marque had been granted to several individuals, on the representation of certain merchants who conceived themselves to have been injured by the

Life of Prince Rupert.-Heath, 275.