191.
v Bates.
Actuated equally by these bigoted, these ambitious, and these interested motives, the protector equipped two considerable squadrons; and while he was making those preparations, the neighboring states, ignorant of his intentions, remained in suspense, and looked with anxious expectation on what side the storm should discharge itself.

One of these squadrons, consisting of thirty capital ships, was sent into the Mediterranean under Blake, whose fame was now spread over Europe.

No English fleet, except during the crusades, had ever before sailed in those seas; and from one extremity to the other there was no naval force, Christian or Mahometan, able to resist them.

The Roman pontiff, whose weakness and whose pride equally provoked attacks, dreaded invasion from a power which professed the most inveterate enmity against him, and which so little regulated its movements by the usual motives of interest and prudence.

Blake, casting anchor before Leghorn, demanded and obtained from the duke of Tuscany reparation for some losses which the English commerce had formerly sustained from him.