Note 722 — Chapter X · THE PARLIAMENT, THE COMMONWEALTH, AND THE PROTECTORATE. THE FIRST DUTCH WAR.

See his memorandum, p. 398. Tromp wrote to Blake from Calais four days afterwards ((23 May)/(2 June)), saying he had intended to salute him, and asking for the restoration of a ship taken. In reply Blake accused him of having sought out the English fleet, and “instead of performing those usual respects which of right belong unto them, and which yourself have often done,” had attacked him. In The Answer of the Parliament, p. 11, it is said that one of the Dutch captains who had been taken prisoner stated that when he struck to some English men-of-war at Calais a few weeks before, Tromp asked him “why he did strike sail to them,” saying, “Were you not as strong as they? And being so, why were you afraid?” As the above-mentioned letter from Tromp to Blake is given by Gardiner (Letters and Papers, i. 216) only as “translated from a Dutch translation of the French original,” an authenticated copy of the French original is given in Appendix M, from Tideman (De Zee Betwist, App. C, p. 202). It is from the archives at The Hague (Lias Engeland, 1652 (Copie), and is endorsed by Job. Corñ. Rhees, and again by N. Ruysch, as identical with the authentic copy. The original of Blake’s reply is also given. It is printed by Gardiner as “retranslated from the Dutch translation” (ibid., i. 257), and differs in some points from the original.