Chapter II: Part 2

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When British Seas and Honour were assail’d
By Belgian Rivals; when the Plague prevail’d
At home; by which when most Men’s Courage fail’d
He snatched some men from Death’s Commands, and Man’d
The Royal Charles, by Royal Charles Command;

* * * * *

Next year was Sixty-six, (that fatal Time
When Londons old Foundations burnt to Lime)
Rear Admiral of the White he then appear’d
And by his foes he made his Henry fear’d.
Three Etnas did at once beset Her round
Some of her men were Burnt, and some were Drown’d:
Yet then (as if he did both Elements scoff)
He fought his way, and brought her bravely off.
His Leg (but not his Courage) broke; and then
He sympathized with his maimed men.
Knighted, and Admiral made in sixty-seven,
With Fire Ships Two, and Fighting Ships Eleven,
T’America he steers, and did such Feats
Dull Europeans will believe us Cheats
If we but tell the Truth. As how he storm’d
Strong Martinico, wonders there perform’d;
Into their Harbour how he forced his way
When Thirty warlike French and Dutch there lay;
Burnt Nine, sunk More; the rest (to escape his hands)
Did sink themselves, to hide amongst the Sands.
Three Forts he there Attaqu’d and Fir’d. And then
To Syrenham and Chien wafts his Men:
Courage and Conduct, there no less he shew’d.
Whereby he those Two Countreys soon subdu’d.
In Seventy-two Vice Admiral of the Blew,
He like a Tyger ’mongst the Dutchmen flew,
Nine Dutch begirt his Charles. There (sad to tell)
Three or four hundred of his Brave Men fell.
He paid them off; and when no boot to stay
He nobly brought his tattred Hull away.
Lastly in Sev’nty-three, this present Year,
His long-try’d Courage lasting did appear
Vice Admiral of the Red. Though sick and weak,
When scarcely could he go, or stand, or speak,
Yet could he fight, direct, encourage, see
All well perform’d. Meanwhile poor Gallant he
Sate like a Mark for ev’ry shot, in Fight.
We’l not reflect on any Man; nor tell
Who did amiss; only that He did well.
And having done his All, he then gave o’re
He made to Port, dropt Anchor, came ashore,
Never to plough the briny Ocean more.
From midst of Storms, Blood, Noise, Confusion, Fires,
He coolly, calmly, peaceably Expires,
Whose Death Religious: Living Actions were
Valiant, Just, Humble, Patient and Sincere.’

Next in importance to the Dutch war was the struggle with the piratical states in the Mediterranean, which still continued. Though it was marked by many brave exploits it left surprisingly little trace in the naval literature of Charles the Second’s time. There were many engagements worthy of record. On December 19-29, 1669, for instance, Captain John Kempthorne in the Mary Rose, a forty-eight-gun ship, beat seven Algerines, and preserved the merchantmen under his charge. Kempthorne was knighted for this service on April 30, 1670. A picture of the fight was engraved by Hollar, which will be found in Ogilby’s _Africa_, and the incident apparently inspired a ballad too. The picture of the action at Greenwich bears the following inscription:

‘Two we burnt and two we sank and two did run away,
And one we carried to Leghorn Roads to show we’d won the day.’

These lines are almost identical with two lines in _Captain Mansfield’s Fight with the Turks at Sea_ (printed on p. 86). The ballad on Mansfield’s fight is perhaps an eighteenth century version, or imitation, of one on Kempthorne.

Often merchantmen successfully defended themselves. About October 1671, Captain John Baddison, of the Swallow, a merchantman of 180 tons and twenty-six men, fought an Algiers ship of thirty-eight guns and 220 men, and not only repulsed two desperate attacks, but captured four of the Turks who boarded him. A poem entitled _An Encomium on that Worthy Exploit of Captain John Baddison_ was published in 1671. The only copy known is in the possession of Lord Crawford, who has kindly permitted me to extract the following narrative of the engagement:

From Port a Port our Hero took his flight,
With Canvas Wings, to entertain the Night
On th’ Oceans deep, where Billows lofty rise,
Mounting their Surges to th’ unconstant Skyes;
And after two dayes spent, he lost the sight
Of great Bajona, and prepared to fight
With a proud Turk, who from Argier was sent,
And swiftly gave them chase, to the intent
That they might take, and ransack, and enthral
The Bodies, Minds, and Christian Souls of all.
But those base Pagans never can prevail,
If once our English Banners them assail.
Our worthy Captain first did cause to fly
Two little Ships that by him close did lye;
Who from the Fury of the Foes did glide,
Being befriended by Night, Wind, and Tyde.
Then being ready, and his Guns run out,
He then prepared for a bloody Bout,
Like Thunder, Lightning, and a Tempest great;
Like Raging Waves, which on the Rocks do beat;
Ev’n so our Captain, at his drawing nigh,
Vollies discharged at his proud Enemy;
The Waves did tremble, and the Heavens blush,
When these two Champions did together rush.
The Turks they board us knowing not the strength
Of Valiant English, which they felt at length:
Presumption prompt(s) them on to graple strong,
Which was too hot to be endured long;
For being on Deck, some in the Air did fly,
Others our warlike Engines forced to die;
Yet six remained, which almost laid us waste
By cutting Sails and Rigging from our Mast;
For which bold fact, two made the Sea their grave,
The rest cried Quarter, which we freely gave.
There might you see their Bodies go to wreck,
Heads, Arms, and Legs bestrewed upon the Deck.
This was their fate, which then they could not shun,
Their blood did off the Deck, like water, run.
Our Men between Decks with the great Guns tore
And rent the Hull of the Turks Ship so sore,
Made them leave off, and from our sides to shrink
Lest they should all of the Salt-water drink;
Their Ship lying by to stop her Leaks, and then
Resolves to prove our Valour once agen.
Our Seamen bold, that never daunted were,
To their proud Foes, like Lions did appear,
Threatening destruction, whilst a lucky Gun
Made their Ship tremble, and our sides to shun;
Not once more daring to approach us nigh
But from us at a distance far to lie.
The Night came on, a pleasant gale appears,
They left each other; and directly steers
To her desired Port: safely arrived
Our English Captain, and all that survived.
Sixteen were wounded, and three killed outright;
The Ship sore shattered, and Sails burnt in fight;
Only the Sprit and Mainsail left untore,
Which brought them safely to the English Shore:
Where being arrived, were by his Majesty
And Royal Duke welcomed most graciously.
For which brave Act the King an Order gave
The Captain should a Chain and Medal have.
The Merchants did with honour him commend
Because their goods he bravely did defend.

Prose narratives of this engagement are to be found in the _Calendar of Domestic State Papers_ for 1671 (pp. 536, 554). ‘King Charles in consideration of that stout and memorable action of Captain Baddison ... was pleased to order a gold chain and medal for him’ (_The Historian’s Guide_, 1688, p. 82). Another merchant captain, Robert Robertson, Charles knighted for fighting an Algerine man-of-war (Le Neve’s _Knights_, p. 2). More often weakly armed merchantmen were captured in defiance of treaties, as the narratives of captives such as Adam Elliot, taken in 1670, Joseph Pitts in 1678, and Thomas Phelps in 1684, all illustrate. A petition dated between 1671 and 1681 affirmed that since the last peace the Algerines had taken not less than 140 British ships, and had more than 1,500 English slaves, ‘who suffer and undergo most miserable slavery, put to daily extreme and difficult labour, but a poor supply of bread and water for their food, stripped of their clothes and covering, and their lodging on the cold stones and bricks; but what is more, their extreme hard and savage lading them sometimes with great burthens of chains, and shut up in noisome places, commonly adding some hundreds of blows on their bare feet, forcing out the very blood, and sometimes on the back, sometimes on the belly, and sometimes on them all, insomuch that many are long decrepit, some for ever, and some dying under their hands.’

The fate of these captive sailors is illustrated by a ballad published about 1684, called _The Algiers Slave’s Releasement, or the Unchangeable Boatswain_ (p. 88). Such captives were usually redeemed by the contributions of the charitable, under the authority of warrants known as ‘briefs’ licensing collections in churches for the purpose. (W. A. Bewes, _Church Briefs_, pp. 193-206). Some were ransomed by the king himself, others recovered by treaty or recaptured. Squadrons under Allin, Spragge, Narbrough and other commanders were successively sent to the Mediterranean to coerce the pirate states. The _Diary_ of Henry Teonge, who served as chaplain on various ships engaged in that service from 1675 to 1679, contains some account of Narbrough’s proceedings against Tripoli, and throws a flood of light on the conditions of life in the navy during the reign of Charles II. It was published in 1825. Teonge’s _Diary_ contains a ballad on the destruction of a vessel belonging to Tripoli by the English frigate Assistance in 1675 (p. 63), besides other specimens of his muse, mainly of an amatory nature (pp. 73, 79, 168, 241, 259). Still more curious than Teonge’s _Diary_ is along narrative poem describing a cruise in the Mediterranean, from May 1669 to April 1671, under Sir John Harman. It is called _The Straights Voyage or St. David’s Poem_, was published in 1671, and was written by John Balthorpe, a clerk on board the St. David, Harman’s flagship. It appears to have escaped altogether the notice of naval historians.

One of the heroes of this war was Captain Thomas Harman, sometimes said to be the son of Sir John, and certainly a kinsman. There is a ballad on his capture of the Dutch frigate Schaherlaes in February 1675 (p. 53), but his career began in the Mediterranean. On May 8, 1671, Sir Edward Spragge’s squadron destroyed seven Algiers men-of-war and their prizes in the harbour of Bugia. The boom which defended the Algerines was cut by three of Spragge’s boats, thus making way for a fireship to enter. Harman seems to have been in command of one of the boats. ‘The Admiral,’ says a contemporary letter, ‘had every man killed and wounded in his boat, save Mr. Harman, who is deservedly commended and is said to have cut the boom in half pistol shot under their biggest castel (where the chains reached not) and heads of their men-of-war’ (_Cal. State Papers_, Dom. 1671, p. 249). Dryden, in some lines addressed in 1677 to Nat Lee on his play of _Alexander the Great_, refers to these two exploits of Harman’s to prove the proposition that some men’s merits are too pre-eminent for rivalry: for instance, Lee’s as a dramatist or Harman’s as a sailor:

‘’Tis here as ’tis at sea; who farthest goes,
Or dares the most, makes all the rest his foes.
Yet when some virtue much outgrows the rest,
It shoots too fast and high to be opprest,
As his heroic worth struck envy dumb,
Who took the Dutchman and who cut the boom.’

When this was written Harman’s brief but glorious career had just ended. In September 1677, while in command of the Sapphire, 34, he engaged an Algerine ship called the Golden Horse, 46, failed to take her, and was mortally wounded in the fight. _Elegiac Verses on the death of Captain Thomas Harman, late commander of his Majesties Frigot the Sapphire_, addressed and presented to the Duke of York, are amongst the Luttrell collection in the British Museum. Like a sturdy oak, stricken by thunder, says the poet, Harman’s body fell on the deck, but his soul flew upwards to heaven, and the other dead British heroes helped him in to the mansions of the blest,

‘Lawson, Minnes, Spragge and many more beside,
As soon as they the labouring soul espied,
Let down their beams, and pointed out the way
To the bright mansions of Eternal Day.’

Our last ballad of the reign of Charles II. is _The Benjamin’s Lamentation_. Though no ship of that name can be found in the lists of the navy, it will serve as an example of the class of ballads relating to shipwrecks, and its metrical form is of some interest. Possibly it is an early chanty.

The short reign of James II. affords us only two ballads of interest, both of which come from the collections of Samuel Pepys. One relates the prosperous hunt of William Phipps for the treasure of a Spanish galleon wrecked in the Bahamas (p. 96). He sailed in September 1686 in a King’s ship called the James and Mary, returning in June 1687 with cargo valued at 300,000_l._ (Luttrell’s _Diary_, i. 407-8; Hutchison, _Massachusetts Bay_, i. 397; Ellis, _Correspondence_, i. 295, 325). James knighted him on June 28, 1687. The second is still more interesting, for it shows that even in time of peace the hostility of the Spaniards to the English in the West Indies was so great that a man of war was treacherously attacked as it lay in a Spanish harbour. The Dartmouth, the vessel in question, was a fifth-rate, carrying twenty-eight guns, and according to a note by Pepys the ballad was composed by Hovenden Walker (subsequently Rear-Admiral of the White) who was then serving on board her (p. 92).

With the reign of William III. there was a great increase in the number of naval ballads published, due to the increased interest which the nation took in maritime affairs.

The war with France was popular both with the navy itself and with the people. ‘Lewis, that Christian Turk,’ was generally hated as a sovereign who designed to ruin all Protestant princes, and sought to ‘lay a heavy yoke’ on the free English nation. This is the argument set forth in _The Boatswain’s Call_ to induce sailors to enter the navy. Impressment was necessary. ‘Some,’ continues the ballad, ‘dread and fear the press as much as dying,

‘And skulk like frighted slaves here in distraction
To hide in dens and caves from warlike action.’

But for the moment popular feeling was in favour of impressment. So at all events the ballad called _The Maiden’s Frolic_ seems to prove, which relates how ‘six lusty lasses pressed fourteen tailors.’ Another ballad, _The Undaunted Seaman_, describes a sailor resolving to venture his life ‘to subdue the pride of France’ in spite of ‘his love’s sorrowful lamentation.’ A fourth relates a maid’s attempt to buy her lover’s discharge for ten pounds.

‘Not ten pounds or twenty will buy his discharge,
Fair maid, you must patiently bear;
He shall go to sea for his King to engage,
And he must bid adieu to his dear.’

Thus the captain answers, and the maid is convinced, and resigns herself to the parting (pp. 97-106).

The first task the navy took part in was the reconquest of Ireland. Unfortunately there seem to be no ballads extant either on the relief of Londonderry or the fight in Bantry Bay. Crofton Croker’s _Historical Songs of Ireland_, published by the Percy Society in 1841, contains half a dozen ballads on military operations in Ireland under William III., but none on naval. But the Pepysian collection supplies a ballad on the capture of the Pelican frigate in Dublin Bay, under the eyes of ‘Old James and his Teagues,’ by Sir Clowdisley Shovell (see p. 107). This took place in April 1690, and the account of the exploit given is so detailed that it looks as if it were written by some one who served under Shovell (see Luttrell’s _Diary_, ii. 35). Next month came a rumour that Admiral Henry Killigrew with a squadron in the Mediterranean had beaten the French fleet under Chateau Renault, sinking two ships and taking three (Luttrell’s _Diary_, ii. 47, 57, 61). The rumour was untrue, for his attempt to bring them to an engagement was unsuccessful (Burchett, _Transactions at Sea_, pp. 37-43). Nevertheless the fictitious triumph was embodied in a ballad called _The Seaman’s Victory_ (see p. 108). On June 30, 1690, Torrington was worsted by de Tourville at Beachy Head. ‘Both the admirals,’ says Burnet, ‘were equally blamed--ours for not fighting and the French for not pursuing.’ Torrington was sent to the Tower, and accused by the popular voice of want of courage as well as of want of conduct. Of this feeling the ballad called _Torringtonia, or a New Copy of Verses on the late Sea Engagement_, is the expression (p. 110).

Another incident which occurred in the same month is related in an elegy, _In the memory of the truly Loyal and Valiant Captain John George, late Commander of their Majesties Frigate the Rose, being a full and true Relation of a bloody Fight between the said Frigate and a French man-of-war to the eastward of Cape Sables on Saturday the 24th of May, 1690_. John George was in charge of a convoy when he sighted the French ship, which was superior in force to his own. The enemy

‘Twenty odd guns on either side hauled out,
Seamen and soldiers full four hundred [stout].
The _Rose_ a fifth-rate, not full thirty guns,
Six score brave lads, burthen three hundred tuns.’

George was killed by a ball from the Frenchman’s maintop, but David Condon, his lieutenant, carried on the fight (assisted by that ‘gallant spark,’ Captain Ben Clark of Wapping, ‘in the European of London, a mast ship,’ which carried ten guns), and beat off the assailant. When New England rose against the government of Sir Edmund Andros in April 1689, George had been made a prisoner, but was released by order of the King, though much distrusted by the supporters of the revolution. One reason for publishing the relation was that the base Bostonians, ‘cursed sons of Cham,’ said that the captain had betrayed his convoy (see _Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1690-1_, p. 376; _ib. America and West Indies, 1689-92_, pp. 66, 121, 269; Charnock, _Biographia Navalis_, ii. 98, 308).

In 1691 Admiral Russell was in command of the fleet in the Channel, but though he cruised from May to September, achieved nothing (Burchett, pp. 63-91). A satirical ballad, ironically entitled _England’s Triumph at Sea_, probably by the same author as _Torringtonia_, hints that ‘the cherry-cheeked Russell’ was very careful not to meet with his foes (p. 112). Two regiments of marines had been raised in April 1690, and served in the fleet, and the first allusion ballads make to this branch of service is contained in the following lines:

‘We had sea colonels o’ th’ nature of otter,
Which either might serve by land or by water,
Though of what they have done we hear no great matter.’

In September 1691 Russell’s fleet put into Plymouth in a violent storm, losing two ships, the Coronation, a second-rate, and the Harwich, a third-rate. This disaster is commemorated in _England’s Great Loss by a Storm of Wind_, which exaggerates, as ballads generally do, and makes him lose nine ships (p. 113).

The failures of 1690 and 1691 enhanced the glory of the victory of La Hogue in 1692. On that battle there are no less than four ballads. One of them, _Admiral Russell scowering the French Fleet_, long kept its popularity with sailors, and is to be found in most eighteenth-century collections of songs. A pamphleteer, writing in 1757 about the action off Toulon on February 11, 1744, says, ‘I myself heard the song about the battle of La Hogue sung by almost every man on board one ship the day of the battle of Toulon with very good effect, till the infamous behaviour of some in the fleet put an end to their song, and changed their praises of the dead into curses of the living, and, upon inquiry, I had reason to believe it was sung in every ship in the fleet with the same effect’ (_Three Letters relating to the Navy, Gibraltar and Port-Mahon_, 1757, p. 18). Rear-Admiral Richard Carter, who was killed at La Hogue, is the subject of an elegy preserved in the British Museum. It shows that he was popular with those who served under him:

‘His virtue was not rugged, like the waves,
Nor did he treat his sailors as his slaves:
But courteous, easy of access, and free,
His looks not tempered with severity.’

There was also published in 1692 a _Congratulatory Ode to Admiral Russell and the other Sea-Commanders for their late Glorious Victory_. It refers in the last verse to the rumours spread against the loyalty of the admirals:

‘Go on, true sons of Honour, still advance
The English glory by depressing France:
Go on to prove, how much a royal trust
Works upon spirits that are brave and just:
This our great mistress knew, whose piercing eyes,
Unprejudiced by lying calumnies,
Could look through every faithful breast,
And saw the loyal zeal they afterwards exprest.’

The year after La Hogue was marked by the capture of a large part of the Turkey fleet which Sir George Rooke was convoying. On this event the naval muse is silent. On May 10, 1694, Captain Pickard, in command of two third-rates, the Monmouth and the Resolution, and of the Roebuck fireship, fell in off the French coast with a fleet of fifty-two merchantmen bound for Dunkirk, and destroyed thirty-five (Luttrell, _Diary_, iii. 312; Burchett, p. 214). This is the subject of a ballad entitled _The Valiant Seaman’s Courage_ (p. 125) More interesting is _England’s Glory in the behaviour of brave Killeygrove_, which relates the capture of two French ships, the Content, of sixty guns, and the Trident, of fifty-two, off Pantelaria, by a squadron of six ships, under the command of Captain James Killigrew (p. 126). The action took place about January 27, 1695, and Killigrew lost his life early in the engagement (Burchett, p. 266; Charnock, _Biographia Navalis_, ii. 327).

From July 1694 to the autumn of 1695, Admiral Russell, in command of a combined Dutch and English fleet, dominated the Mediterranean and checked the progress of the French arms in Spain. The significance of his operations is brought out in Mr. Julian Corbett’s _England in the Mediterranean_ (ii. 149-184), and the ballad called _The Frighted French, or Russell scouring the Seas_, represents the feeling which Tourville’s disinclination to come out of Toulon and risk an engagement produced in England (p. 128, _post_). ‘The honour of commanding the sea and of shutting the French within their ports,’ says Burnet, ‘gave a great reputation to our affairs.’ The ballad, written early in 1695, refers also to the intended operations on the coast of France. It threatens the French:

‘Now the spring’s a-coming, our English will be burning
Your towns that be builded near the sea.’

‘We had another fleet in our own Channel,’ continues Burnet, ‘that was ordered to bombard the French coast; they did some execution upon St. Malos, and destroyed Grandville that lay not far from it; they also attempted Dunkirk, but failed in the execution; some bombs were thrown into Calais, but without any great effect; so that the French did not suffer so much by the bombardment as was expected: the country indeed was much alarmed by it; they had many troops dispersed all along their coast; so that it put their affairs in great disorder and we were everywhere masters at sea’ (_Own Times_, iv. 277, ed. 1836).

On the other hand, while the French fleet was confined to its ports, English commerce was poorly protected, and it suffered greatly during this period both from privateers and pirates. The pirate now begins to make a figure in ballad literature. The first quarter of the seventeenth century had been marked by the development of the Barbary corsairs, and its last decade was characterised by the growth of a new form of piracy. It is true the buccaneers whose exploits reached their height when Morgan captured Panama in 1668, were little better than pirates (though some of them had commissions of a sort from the Governor of Jamaica), but they confined their activity to the Spanish Main and the South Sea. The new pirates, however, frequented the eastern even more than the western seas, and avowedly preyed on the commerce of all powers. One of the most famous of these was Captain Avery, upon whom in 1720 Defoe published a pamphlet entitled _The King of Pirates; being an account of the famous enterprises of Captain Avery, the mock king of Madagascar_. In 1713, under the name of Arviragus, he was made the hero of a play called _The Successful Pirate_. Earlier still there was published the _Life and Adventures of Captain John Avery now in Madagascar_, 1709. The ballad gives the pirate’s name as Henry Every, but Avery is the commoner form. In May 1694 an English merchant ship, the Charles the Second, commanded by Captain Gibson, was lying near Corunna. She was a stout vessel and carried forty guns. Avery persuaded the crew to mutiny, set the captain on shore, baptised the ship the Fancy, and sailed for the East Indies. Amongst other prizes he captured on September 28, 1695, a ship called the Gunsway, belonging to the Great Mogul. This led to reprisals, and the seizure of the factories of the English in India. On the application of the East India Company a proclamation was issued on July 18, 1696, declaring Avery and his crew pirates, and offering a reward for their apprehension. Five of the crew were seized on their return to England, tried at the Old Bailey, October 29-November 6, 1696, and duly hanged. Others were arrested later. The commencement of Avery’s career is commemorated in _A copy of verses composed by Captain Henry Avery, lately gone to Sea to seek his fortune_, and the fate of his followers in _Villany Rewarded; or the Pirates’ last Farewell_ (pp. 131, 133).

Avery’s success fired others to imitate him. Captain William Kidd sailed from Plymouth in May 1696 in command of a privateer called the Adventure galley, equipped by private subscription, but with a commission under the Great Seal to seize pirates. Kidd, however, turned pirate himself, was arrested at Boston in July 1699, transmitted to England for trial, and hanged at Execution Dock on May 23, 1701. _Captain Kidd’s Farewell to the Seas_ was a popular song and set to a popular tune. The whole ballad is only to be found in Lord Crawford’s collection, and to him the Society is indebted for permission to reprint it in this volume (p. 134).

During the last ten years of the seventeenth century pirates made the eastern seas and the coast of Africa as unsafe as the buccaneers had made the western. The ballad entitled _The Caesar’s Victory_ tells how an Indiaman successfully beat off five such adversaries (p. 129). The attack took place near Cape Verd Islands on October 31, 1686. A full account is given in Mayo’s _Medals and Decorations of the British Army and Navy_, i. 61-6.

In the West Indies European pirates continued to be a danger much longer than in the East, and after the peace of Utrecht there followed a great recrudescence of piracy, which lasted for ten years or more. The exploits of these pirates are recorded, with a large mixture of fiction, in Charles Johnson’s _General History of the Pirates_, published in 1724. On September 5, 1717, George I. issued a general proclamation for the suppressing of pirates, offering a pardon to all who surrendered before September 5, 1718 (Johnson, p. 33). One of the most notorious, Edward Teach, alias Blackbeard, was killed by Lieutenant Robert Maynard of the Pearl, in an action in James River in Virginia on November 22, 1718. A ballad called _The Downfall of Piracy_ celebrated Maynard’s exploit, and forms a fitting close to the series illustrating this portion of our naval annals (p. 166).

To return to the reign of William III. During the later years of the war with France the development of privateering was more dangerous to English trade than the growth of piracy. From the very beginning of the war English commerce had suffered greatly. Nearly every year there were loud complaints against the management of the navy, and parliamentary debates ‘on the miscarriages at sea.’ ‘By an odd reverse of things,’ writes Burnet, speaking of the year 1692, ‘as we made no considerable losses when the French were masters of our seas two years before, so now when we triumphed in that element, our merchants suffered the most.’ The same thing happened in 1695 (Burnet, _Own Times_, iv. 169, 268). Much was attributed to the mismanagement of the admiralty, and as much to the incapacity of some of the commanders. The old controversy as to the relative merits of ‘tarpaulins’ and gentlemen captains revived once more. That question is the main subject discussed in the tract called _A Rough Draught of a New Model at Sea_, written by Lord Halifax, probably about 1694 (Foxcroft, _Life of Halifax_, ii. 454). It is also the subject of _A Satire on the Sea Officers_, apparently written about the end of 1690, from its references to the battle of Beachy Head (p. 137). The author’s conclusion is that tarpaulins should rule at sea. He refers also to the desire of captains to line their pockets by carrying plate for merchants instead of fighting, and he might also have mentioned the habit of exacting money from merchants for convoys, an act for which in 1689 the House of Commons committed Captain Churchill to the Tower.

As the war went on there were loud complaints of corruption in the victualling and shipbuilding departments, and the grievances of the seamen were set forth in pamphlets by Robert Crosfield, William Hodges, George St. Lo and other writers. Hodges published in 1695 _Great Britain’s Groans: or an account of the oppression, ruin, and destruction of the loyal Seamen of England, in the fatal loss of their pay, health, and lives, and dreadful ruin of their families_. One grievance was impressment, a greater that men, once pressed, were kept at sea continuously, and not allowed any interval of liberty between their cruises. But their greatest grievances related to their pay: their wages were too long delayed; they were transferred from ship to ship without being paid; they were obliged to sell the certificates for their wages at half-price to ticket-buyers, and so on. Besides this, they were badly fed and harshly treated. In the good old days, said a pamphleteer, ‘they were not poisoned by bad provisions, pease bread, and stinking beef and pork.’ Moreover, ‘such men as General Blake, the Earl of Sandwich, Dean, Lawson, Bourne, Minns, etc. were familiar with their sailors, and instead of calling them damned dogs or sons of whores, called them brethren’ (_Remarks upon the Navy. In a Letter from a Sailor to a Member of the House of Commons_, 1700, part ii. p. 14). These grievances found expression in a ballad called _The Sea Martyrs, or the Seamen’s Sad Lamentation of their faithful service, bad pay, and cruel usage_, which the vigilant Pepys preserved, but forgot to date (see p. 140). The sailors punished were evidently regarded as popular heroes, and the ballad is a parallel to those written later on the mutiny of 1797.

A grievance still more often mentioned was that the food was defective both in quality and quantity. Balthorpe’s verse narrative of his cruise in the Mediterranean in 1669-1671 is full of complaints. Within a month after leaving England the crew of the St. David were put upon short allowance.

‘What meat before the King for four
Allowed, now six men it devour;
A dollar to each man is due,
Each twenty-eight days ’tis true:
When we can get it we drink wine.’

The wine which the sailors could cheaply procure in the Mediterranean ports compensated for the scantiness of the food:

‘A seaman when he gets ashore
In one day’s time he spendeth more
Than three months short allowance money.
... Their beef and pork is very scant,
I’me sure of weight one half it want;
A kind of horse beans they do get for pease,
No nourishment at all there is in these;
Instead of English cheese or butter
A little oyl we get, God wot, far worser.
A little rice we get instead of fish
Which unto you is known, but a poor dish:
Except good sauce to put it in you had,
For with good sauce a deal-board is not bad.’

On the coast of Portugal and in the Mediterranean a mixture of wine and water was served out instead of beer. It was commonly spoken of as ‘beverage.’

‘Our drink it is but vinegar and water,
Four shilling beer in England’s ten times better--
So that when saylors gets good wine
They think themselves in heaven for the time:
It hunger, cold, all maladies expels,
With cares of the world we trouble not ourselves.’

Balthorpe drew up a verse petition to Sir John Harman on September 4, 1670, denouncing the malpractices of the purser and the victuallers, which is dated ‘written on Ban Yan Saturday, being Kettle Holyday.’ As usual, the complaint made was not against the regulations, but against the officials:

‘Purser, steward, mate, all three
I wish them hanged upon a tree:
Except that we have scoffe for dinner,
It were no harm as I’m a sinner.
They say they give us what the king allows,
They think they speak to fools that nothing knows;
But they’re mistaken in the matter quite,
Were we their judge, they’d hang outright.’

No petition or promise of redress produced more than a temporary amendment. Resignation and an occasional drinking bout was the only course.

‘I know the King far better doth allow,
But how to compass it we do not know,
For mutineers we will be never
If that we keep but life and soul together.’

The same complaint recurs in the eighteenth century, and is set forth at length in the _True Character of the Purser of a Ship_ (p. 233).

Yet the sailor of the seventeenth century, badly fed, badly paid and badly treated, was a cheerful person and pleased with small things. Whitelocke, in his relation of his embassy to Sweden in 1653, describes his life on board ship. The ambassador was affable, and gained the love of all the ship’s company. He ‘got into the favour of the officers and mariners by his kindness and familiarity, by being much on the decks and drolling with them and discoursing, especially by affording them now and then a douse in the neck or a kick in jest, seeing them play, and then giving them some of his own tobacco, wine, and strong waters, as there was occasion, which demeanours please those kind of people’ (_Journal_, i. 135). As he amused them, so they in return amused him. On his return, when he was wind-bound off the mouth of the Elbe, ‘the mariners, in their usual way of sporting, endeavoured to make him some pastime to divert the tediousness of his stay and of the bad weather’ (_Journal_, ii. 389).

Of what nature the pastime was we can infer from a few notices. Pepys mentions in the journal of his voyage to Tangiers, under August 27, 1683; ‘Till midnight on the quarter deck, seeing the seamen dance to the harp and sing’ (_Correspondence_, i. 343). And again on September 3: ‘This evening much mirth among the seamen dancing, the sea running high’ (_ib._ i. 346). There was music of some kind on board most men-of-war. In the Bristol, during Teonge’s voyage to the Mediterranean in 1675, the only instruments mentioned are trumpets. When the ship left the Downs ‘our trumpets sound “Maids, where are your hearts?”’ and again as a compliment to the English consul at Scanderoon the trumpets played the same tune. In describing the celebration of Christmas Day music is mentioned again. ‘At four in the morning our trumpeters all doe flatt their trumpetts, and begin at our Captain’s cabin, and thence to all the officers’ and gentlemen’s cabins; playing a levite at each cabine doore, and bidding good morrow wishing a Merry Christmas. After they goe to their station, viz. on the poope, and sound three levitts in honour of the morning’ (_Diary of Henry Teonge_, 1825, pp. 12, 91, 117). Balthorpe’s ship, the St. David, only had a fiddler. On Christmas Day,

‘Our Fidler then did play and sing
At cabin door, made steerage ring,
With cheerful voice bid them good morrow.
I think that he did verses borrow
From some famed poet, for he’d sing
Brave merry songs made all to ring.’

Before the voyage began, as the ship lay in Portsmouth Road,

‘Our Fidler did in triumph fetch
His fiddle from aboard a ketch
Called the _Portsmouth_, and did play
Oft times to pass the time away.
Sometimes to pass sad cares away
On Forecastle we dance the Hay;
Sometimes dance nothing, only hop about--
It for good dancing passes ’mongst the rout;
Yet, on my word, I have seen sailors
More nimble dance than any taylors.’
(_The Straights Voyage._)

Dr. John Covel gives a still more detailed account of the diversions of the sailors. ‘If the weather be fair and permit it we seldome fail of some merry fellows in every ship’s crew who will entertain us with several diversions, as divers sorts of odde sports and gambols; sometimes with their homely drolls and farses, which in their corrupt language they name interlutes, sometimes they dance about the mainmast instead of a maypole, and they have variety of forecastle songs, ridiculous enough’ (September 1670. _Diary of Dr. John Covel_, p. 104, Hakluyt Society, 1893).

A play written in 1681 represents a captain on shore who makes a companion sing one of these songs. Captain Porpuss is described as ‘a blunt tarpaulin captain.’ When a song is proposed in the drawing-room where he happens to be, he demands a song with some sense in it--not a whining thing about Phillis or Chloris--such a song as he used to hear in the happy days when he was Captain of the Success.

‘Well, she was riding at Sole Bay; ’twas just before the fight
(wherein I did such notable service); I had then a lieutenant
aboard--a little dapper fellow, but as stout as Hercules; and when
we met a-nights in the great cabin, over a jolly bowl of punch, the
rogue would sing us the best sea-songs, and so roar ’em out! I think
I’ve a fellow can remember one of them. Sing, Sirrah!

_Song._

Blow, Boreas, blow, and let thy surly winds
Make the billows foam and roar!
Thou canst no terror breed in valiant minds;
But, spite of thee, we’ll live and find the shore.
Then cheer, my hearts, and be not awed,
But keep the gun-room clear;
Tho’ hell’s broke loose, and the devils roar abroad
Whilst we have sea-room here, boys, never fear.

There now, there’s life, there’s soul, there’s sense. As I’m a
living man, gentlemen, the rogue has foxed me three times, one after
another, only by singing this song.’

(D’Urfey, _Sir Barnaby Whigg_, 1681, Act i. scene i. See also _Pills to Purge Melancholy_, vol. i. ed. 1719, p. 96.)

This song, which was written by D’Urfey himself, was set to music by Purcell, and may be found in his _Orpheus Britannicus_. The same collection also contains Purcell’s song of _Britons, strike home_, from the opera of _Bonduca_, 1695, which is founded on Fletcher’s play of the same name. It was an adjuration to the ancient Britons to avenge the wrongs which their country and Queen had suffered from the Romans, but seems to have been adopted in the navy as a suitable battle-song. An eighteenth-century pamphlet, describing an action between an English privateer and a French ship, relates the following incident:--‘The master-at-arms had one of his arms and part of his body torn away: in this bloody condition he was carried down to the surgeon, who saying it was impossible to save his life, and the poor man finding himself dying, bravely in his last moments sung the song of “Britons, strike home,” and expired with the words in his mouth’ (_A faithful Narrative of the cruel Sufferings of Captain Death and his crew_, by Samuel Stoakes, 1757 [?], p. 6).

Songs imported from plays or operas were not likely to become popular on board ship until after they had obtained general popularity on shore. One of the characteristics of the ballad literature of the last quarter of the seventeenth century is the great increase in the number of ballads describing the lives, adventures, loves, marriages, meetings and partings of sailors. Most of them were written for consumption on shore, but some doubtless became popular at sea. The printed collection of ballads contain many specimens. In the _Bagford Ballads_ there are reprints of _The Mariner’s Misfortune_, a tale of a shipwrecked sailor and a maiden who for his sake went to sea in disguise; _The Seaman’s Adieu to his pretty Betty_, and _The Fair Maid’s Choice_, which is ‘Of all sorts of tradesmen a seaman for me’ (_Bagford Ballads_, i. 247, 274, 289). In the _Roxburghe Ballads_ there are several groups of ballads of the same nature. The sixth volume contains, _The Gallant Seaman’s Return from the Indies_; _The West Country Nymph_; _The Fair and Loyal Maid of Bristow_; and _The Seaman’s Sorrowful Bride_ (pp. 415, 441, 443, 444). The seventh includes a still larger number: _The Mariner’s Delight, or the Seaman’s seven Wives_; _Faithful Jemmy and constant Susan_; _The Gallant Seaman’s Resolution (whose full intent was to try his fortune at sea, and at his return marry his landlady)_; _Love and Loyalty_; _The two Loyal Lovers_; _A Farewell to Gravesend_; _The Valiant Seaman’s happy Return to his Love_; _The Seaman’s Advice to his pretty Betty, living near Wapping_; _The Sailor’s Departure from his dearest Love_; _The Constant Maiden’s Resolution_; _Loyal Constancy, or the Seaman’s Love-Letter_; _Virtue the Reward of Constancy_; _The Faithful Lover’s Farewell_; _The Valiant Virgin, or Philip and Mary_; _The Seaman’s Dolefull Farewell_; _The Seaman’s Folly, in marrying one so quickly for what he has cause to repent at leisure_; _The Seaman’s Renown in Winning his Fair Lady_ (pp. 490-559). The eighth volume gives us: _The Seaman’s Frolic, or a Cooler for the Captain_; _The Seaman’s Complaint for his unkind Mistress of Wapping_; _The Love-sick Maid of Wapping_; _I father a Child that’s None of my own, being the Seaman’s Complaint_, &c.; _A Mad Marriage, or the Female Fancy of Deptford_ (xciii. 433-443). There are also three verses of _A Kiss of a Seaman is worth two of Another_ (_ib._ pp. 678, 861).

It was obviously impossible to select more than a few specimens of this class of ballads, and it seemed best to choose three or four which for various reasons were of more historical interest than the rest (see pp. 99, 101, 146), and to add two from the Pepys and Druce collections not previously reprinted (pp. 143, 145). The existence of so many ballads of this kind--and there are many more of them in the Pepysian collection, besides others in Lord Crawford’s possession--proves beyond a doubt the growth of popular interest in the navy. Another proof is furnished by the fact that contemporary dramatists represented sailors in their plays with increasing frequency. Shakespeare was one of the first to do this. Everyone will remember the shipwreck scene with which _The Tempest_ opens, and the song of Stephano:

‘The master, the swabber, the boatswain and I,
the gunner and his mate,
Loved Moll, Meg, Marian, and Marjory,
but none of us cared for Kate,’

with its philosophical conclusion, ‘To sea, boys, and let her go hang.’ In Davenant’s _Siege of Rhodes_, performed in 1656, sailors are introduced whose sentiments would do credit to Dibdin’s heroes. ‘What,’ says one of them,

will not the valiant English do
When Beauty is distressed and virtue too?’

In Charles the Second’s time Wycherley in 1677 brought upon the stage, in _The Plain Dealer_, Manley, a gentleman ‘of an honest, surly, nice humour, supposed first in the time of the Dutch war to have procured the command of a ship, out of honour, not of interest, and choosing a sea life only to avoid the world.’ There is also Freeman, Manley’s lieutenant, ‘a gentleman well educated, but of a broken fortune.’ The first scene introduces some of Manley’s crew, who speak of him affectionately as ‘our bully tar,’ and tell how he sank his ship that the Dutch might not have her nor the courtiers beg the hulk. Manley’s crew love him in spite of his surliness. ‘He’s always as dogged,’ says one, ‘as an old tarpaulin when hindered of a voyage by a young pantaloon captain.’ ‘’Tis true,’ answers another, ‘I never saw him pleased but in the fight, and then he looked like one of us coming from the pay table, with a new lining to our hats under our arm.’ D’Urfey’s Captain Porpuss, already mentioned, belongs to the year 1681. These instances refute Mr. Gosse’s statement that Ben, in Congreve’s _Love for Love_ (1695), is the ‘first of a long line of stage sailors.’ On the other hand, Ben represents the type in its most perfect shape. He is a younger son, ‘half home bred and half sea bred,’ designed to marry Miss Prue, whom he woos in technical language. ‘I don’t stand much towards matrimony. I love to roam from port to port and from land to land: I would never abide to be port bound.’ Nevertheless he confesses Prue has charms. ‘You’re a tight vessel and well rigged, an you were but as well manned.’ This promising beginning ends in a quarrel. She calls him a ‘stinking tarbarrel,’ he terms her a ‘dirty dowdy’ (Act iii. sc. vi. vii.). But if Ben has not the gallantry of a stage sailor, he has the aggressive honesty. ‘Don’t think I’m false-hearted like a landsman,’ he tells another lady. ‘A sailor will be honest, tho’ perhaps he has never a penny of money in his pocket. Mayhap I have not so fair a face as a citizen or a courtier, but for all that I’ve as good blood in my veins and a heart as sound as a biscuit’ (Act iii. sc. xv.).

The reign of Queen Anne, compared to that of William III., is rather barren in naval ballads. Pepys died in May 1703, and later collectors who took less interest in maritime affairs allowed the songs written about them to perish. Yet the history of the reign, if marked by no victory equal in magnitude to La Hogue, was distinguished by the victories of Rooke and Leake and many minor successes. The finest ballad of the time is that which records Benbow’s disastrous battle with Ducasse, of which it has been possible to discover a longer and better version than that given in Halliwell’s collection (p. 149).

Fortune was less kind to the fame of Rooke than to that of Benbow. There is, it is true, a poem addressed _To the right honourable Sir George Rooke at his Return from his glorious Enterprise near Vigo_. It celebrates his success in forcing the Danes to make peace with Sweden in 1700:

‘To jarring Crowns repose Thy Navy brings,
And Quiet broods beneath Her Halcyon wings.
Those Gathering Clouds, which not long since broke forth
In Storms, and threaten’d to lay waste the North,
Thou at Thy first approach didst drive away,
And on their Wintry Climes let in the Southern day.’

It goes on to refer to the unsuccessful attempt on Cadiz in 1702, and to say that ‘auspicious Heaven’ pointed out to England a nobler quarry than the town first aimed at, and one more worthy of Rooke’s arms:

‘Shows Her, on wing retiring from the Main,
The Wealth of India and the Pride of Spain.
This Prize was worthy Thee; and less had been
Too mean a Present for an English Queen.’

The attack on the allied fleet on Oct. 12, 1702, is related at length in a ballad called _The Sailor’s Account of the Action at Vigo_ (p. 151). But contemporary poetasters in general attribute the victory to Ormonde and the army rather than Rooke and the navy (_Poems on State Affairs_, ii. 409, 415; _Pills to Purge Melancholy_, v. 115). Added to this, Rooke’s battle with Toulouse off Malaga on August 13, 1704, gained him neither credit nor popularity, and afforded an opportunity to the satirists, of which they made the most (_ib._ iv. 112, 113). Specimens of their satires are given on pp. 153, 154.

Nothing has survived on Leake’s exploits excepting a rather poor ballad on the capture of a Spanish provision fleet in 1708 (p. 156). There is also a spirited ballad called _The Sea-fight, or the French Prize Taken_, published in 1707, which professes to describe an action between two single ships (p. 158).

A contemporary poetaster, describing his voyage to Flanders, inserts some verses ‘in the praise of those heroes commanding the fleet,’ whom he thus commemorates:

‘Russell and Benbow I own to be braves,
And Shovell, like Neptune bred up on the waves;
Be it spoke to the praise of the bold Captain Jumper,
When he met a French ship he bravely would thump her;
Nor ever durst Lewis, or Duke of Burgundy
E’er look in the face of brave Sir John Mundy;
Denbigh and Dursley are lords of great merit,
And Jennings possesseth an heroic spirit.’

On reciting these verses to the captain of a man-of-war, with an appropriate compliment to the captain himself, the poet received an effusive welcome on board. The captain admitted that he was a hero too.

‘I am of the blood of the bold Boanerges,
And fear not the French when I meet them on surges;
... And if you are pleased for to leave your own nation
Most proud I shall be of your sweet conversation.’

Incidentally the poet describes the ship setting sail:

‘Up came the Boatswain, with Countenance stern,
With a great Pair of Whiskers, and Mouth like a Churn,
He lug’d out his Whistle, and up came the Sailers,
And all Hands aloft as nimble as Taylors:
There was _Toe-le-ho_, and, _Boys, heave away_,
Whilst another was tearing his Throat with, _Belay_;
Then _Haul Cat, Haul_: A damnable Yawling;
The Boatswain a Swearing, the Master a Bawling,
_Helm-a-lee, ye Landlubbard Loobies;
Let go the Fore-Bowlings, ye Fresh-Water Boobies;
Haul Aft the Main-Sheet, ye Lump of a Dog_,
Whilst another was Singing a Tune to the Log.
Such Language was us’d by the Tarpauling Rabble,
Sure never was such a Confusion at Bable:
The Master cry’d out, _Thus, thus, Stedy, Stedy_:
A Pox take his Thus, it made my Head Giddy.’
(Rands, _Pax in Crumena; or, the Trooper turn’d Poet_,
1714, pp. 6-7, _The Poet’s Voyage to Amsterdam_.)

The reign of Queen Anne was marked by great disasters from fire and storm. In the great storm of November 26, 1703, twelve vessels belonging to the navy were totally lost, according to the list given by Clowes (ii. 389). A ballad on the event entitled _The Stormy Judgments or the Tempestuous Wind_ is printed in the _Bagford Ballads_ (i. 83), but it gives no details. Another entitled _The dreadful Tempest or a Divine Poem on the Amazing Hurricane which appeared with Wonderful Violence both by Sea and Land on the 27th of November 1703_ describes the loss of four men-of-war:

‘The _Mary_ on the Goodwin-Sands was blown,
And all her Sailors perished but one,
Who on a piece of wreck was wash’d aboard
The _Sterling-Castle_, and to life restor’d.

‘Thus while a Sinking in the Sand she lay,
Admiral Beaumont to his men did say,
You that can Swim may try your lives to save,
For no reliefe we now can hope to have.

‘Then presently the Ship in pieces Split,
And he himself upon a plank did sit,
Floating a while with Waves encompass’d round,
But was wash’d off and in the Tempest drown’d.

‘The warlike _Sterling-Castle_ perish’d then,
And all her crew Excepting Eight Men,
Who by God’s providence got safe ashore,
Amongst whom was the Man preserv’d before.

‘Twice cast away, and twice deliver’d too,
Here may we see what the Good God can do,
Nay a third time to shew his Mercies more,
The Boat was lost that carried him to shore.

‘The _Restoration_ and _Northumberland_,
Ere morning light did sink into the sand,
And of eight Hundred Souls of both their Crews,
Not one escap’d to tell the dreadful news.

‘But what was yet more Mournful you shall hear
On board the former as it doth appear,
The Captain had his Wife and Children got,
Which were seen after on the Seas to Float.

‘Nay, and in several other Ships besides,
There many Women with their Husbands died,
Many poor Children are left Fatherless,
And many Widdows mourning in distress.

‘Of men of war Eleven Sail was lost,
Of Merchant men two hundred on our Coast,
Beside the Damage done to many more,
And seven Thousand Sailors lost therefore.’