CHAP. VI - THE MEDITERRANEAN

Summary

It is difficult to estimate how far the Mediterranean policy of Cromwell and his successors in the government in England was the deliberate Piece of diplomatic strategy that it appears to the latter day observer. To the Mediterranean Powers whom it influenced so vitally it could not but seem deliberate: it was so effective. But on the English side, on the other hand, there appears but the most doubtful appreciation of the true inwardness of the policy which later developments have made so distinct. Blake, in 1654, by reason of a three weeks' wait at Gibraltar—against which he and his men fumed—had prevented the junction of the two parts of the French fleet, frustrated Mazarin, and thus offered to modern eyes the first practical example of the true significance of the “Gibraltar defile.” His actions within the Mediterranean also had had wide effects and had been the cause of much discomfort and many fears to the Italian powers and France. The convenience of the position of Gibraltar had not escaped Cromwell's notice, and, if we are to believe Pepys (on the authority of Sir Robert Haddocks), “had not y^e ship which was sent by Oliver with spades and wheelbarrows been taken, he had certainly taken Gibraltar.” The dominant idea in Cromwell's foreign policy, however, was the war against Spain as a part of his religious policy of Protestantism: and the opportunity of making Dunkirk the base of operations against the Spanish power soon put the idea of Gibraltar in the background, and Mountagu with the largest ships was recalled.