Chapter III: Part 3

Over 6,000_l._ was collected for the widows and orphans who perished in the storm. The order authorising a collection for this purpose is printed by Mr. W. A. Bewes in his _Church Briefs_, and he also reprints the ballad quoted above (p. 239).

A disaster very little less in its magnitude was the casting away of Sir Clowdisley Shovell on the rocks of the Scilly Islands upon the night of October 22, 1707. The Association, 96, which was Shovell’s flagship; the Eagle, 70; the Romney, 50; and the Firebrand fireship, were totally lost; two others, the Phoenix and the St. George, struck also, but came off without breaking up (Clowes, ii. 411). The best account of the incident is to be found in a pamphlet by Mr. J. H. Cooke, entitled _The Shipwreck of Sir Cloudesley Shovell_, read at a meeting of the Society of Antiquaries, February 1, 1885, and printed at Gloucester in the same year. No contemporary ballad on Shovell’s fate has survived, but the British Museum contains _A New Elegy on the Lamented Death of Sir Cloudesley Shovell_, from which the following lines are derived:

‘The bulging Ship upon the Shore stuck fast,
And scarce two Minutes but she struck her last:
Was quite o’rewhelm’d with the next rolling Wave.
Aid and Endeavours were in vain to save
Whom Fate had destin’d to a Watery Grave.

* * * * *

There Shovel unamaz’d, by nature Brave,
Spreading his Arms embrac’d a briny Wave,
And where he had reign’d with Honour, made his grave.

* * * * *

A Man, till now, that e’er was fortunate
Precisely Good and regularly Great:

* * * * *

The Nations Trust, and Sailor’s joy he prov’d
And still where e’re [he] came he was belov’d;
None ever fought her Cause with more success,
None e’re did more--or ever boasted less;
His early valour did proclaim his Worth
And help’d to set the growing Hero forth;
At Bantree, Beachy and at Malaga
The French too well his dauntless Conduct saw;
There you might see the Brittish glory shine,
And Shovel break th’ Impenetrable Line.’

A third disaster, the loss of the Edgar, seventy-gun ship, which blew up at Spithead on October 15, 1711 (Clowes iii. 529) is the subject of a dialogue in verse of which a copy is preserved amongst Douce’s collections in the Bodleian Library. It is reprinted at p. 160.

Another incident of an entirely different character requires mention--that is, the execution of the traitor Captain Thomas Smith in 1708. Smith had been dismissed from his command and fined six months’ pay in September 1703 for corruption, drunkenness and other crimes. In 1707 he entered the French service, and apparently acted as pilot to the squadron of French galleys which captured the Nightingale frigate off Harwich on August 24, 1707, after the very gallant fight which is described in the _Memoirs of Jacques de Marteilhe_ (ed. by H. Paumier, 1865, p. 169). Smith was given command of the captured ship, but was taken during his first cruise by Captain Nicholas Haddock in the Ludlow Castle. He was then tried at the Old Bailey on June 2, 1708, found guilty of bearing arms against his country, and executed on June 18, 1708 (see the lives of Thomas Smith and Seth Jermy in the _Dictionary of National Biography_, and an article on _The Captains of the Nightingale_ in the _English Historical Review_ for January 1889). _The Last Farewell of Captain Smith_ (p. 154) purports to be his dying speech.

During the first half of the eighteenth century a change in the character of the sea songs produced becomes gradually apparent. ‘Songs intended to bring before shore-going listeners the ways of seamen,’ as Sir Cyprian Bridge describes them, had been produced during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but the output of them now greatly increased. They were designed not merely for the ordinary audience to which ballad-writers appealed, but for a higher class of hearers, for the theatre or the drawing-room as well as the street and the tavern. To hit genteel taste they became more sentimental in tone and more polished in diction and metre. They were written mostly by professional poets or men with some literary training. Gay led off. His two celebrated songs, _Black-eyed Susan_ and _’Twas when the seas were roaring_, mark the beginning of the movement which culminated in the productions of Dibdin. Both will be found in Mr. Stone’s _Sea Songs_, pp. 208, 209. Gay had many imitators. To this class belongs _Fair Sally loved a bonny sailor_ (p. 163), which probably suggested Dibdin’s _Token_. Set to music by Maurice Greene it enjoyed great popularity throughout the eighteenth century. _Come and listen to my ditty_ (p. 162), less artificial in form, obtained a still longer vogue, and was printed as a broadside as late as the beginning of the nineteenth century. It furnished the tune for _Hosier’s Ghost_. Two other songs, if Smollet is to be trusted, became popular in the navy itself. _How pleasant a sailor’s life passes_ (p. 164) was the favourite of Roderick Random’s uncle Lieutenant Thomas Bowling. A quotation from it supplied the place of argument when the lieutenant persuaded Roderick to go to sea.

‘On our way back to the village, my uncle spoke not a word during
the space of a whole hour, but whistled with great vehemence the
tune of _Why should we quarrel for riches, etc._, his visage being
contracted all the while into a most formidable frown. At length
his pace increased to such a degree, that I was often left behind
a considerable way, which when he perceived, he waited for me; and
when I was almost come up with him, called out in a surly tone, “Bear
a hand, damme!--must I bring to every minute for you, you lazy
dog.” Then laying hold of me by the arm, hauled me along, until his
good nature (of which he had a good share) and reflection, getting
the better of his passion, he said, “Come, my boy, don’t be cast
down,--the old rascal is in hell,--that’s some satisfaction;--you
shall go to sea with me, my lad.--_A light heart and a thin pair of
breeches, goes thro’ the world, brave boys_; as the song goes--eh!”
Though this proposal did not at all suit my inclination, I was afraid
of discovering my aversion to it, lest I should disoblige the only
friend I had in the world; and he was so much a seaman, that he never
dreamt I could have any objection to his design; consequently, gave
himself no trouble in consulting my approbation’ (_Roderick Random_,
chap. v. p. 23, ed. 1748).

Another song, _The Boatswain’s Whistle_ (p. 165), which, like the _Bonny Sailor_, was set by Greene, was the delight of Commodore Trunnion and his ex-boatswain when they made merry together in taverns.

‘Come, Pipes, let’s have _The Boatswain’s Whistle_, and be jovial.’
This musician accordingly applied to his mouth the silver instrument
that hung at a buttonhole of his jacket, by a chain of the same
metal, and though not quite so ravishing as the pipe of Hermes,
produced a sound so loud and shrill, that the stranger (as it were
instinctively) stopped his ears, to preserve his organs of hearing
from such a dangerous invasion. The prelude being thus executed,
Pipes fixed his eyes upon the egg of an ostrich that depended from
the ceiling, and without once moving them from that object, performed
the whole cantata in a tone of voice that seemed to be the joint
issue of an Irish bagpipe and a sow-gelder’s horn; the commodore,
the lieutenant, and landlord joined in the chorus, repeating this
excellent stanza,

Bustle, bustle, brave boys!
Let us sing, let us toil,
And drink all the while,
Since labour’s the price of our joys.

The third line was no sooner pronounced, than the can was lifted to
every man’s mouth with admirable uniformity; and the next word taken
up at the end of their draught with a twang equally expressive and
harmonious. In short, the company began to understand one another.’
(_Peregrine Pickle_, chap. ii., p. 18, ed. 1773).

Smollet published _Roderick Random_ in 1748, _Peregrine Pickle_ in 1751. Not only novels, but ballad operas, in imitation of Gay, began to be written in which sailors were the heroes, and their life at sea or loves on shore the subject. In 1745 appeared _The Sailor’s Opera, or a Trip to Jamaica_, written by some anonymous imitator of the _Beggar’s Opera_, while in 1763 _Tommy and Sally, or the Sailor’s Return to his Sweetheart_, was acted at Covent Garden. George Alexander Stevens wrote two: _The French Flogged, or the British Sailors in America_, 1761, and _The Trip to Portsmouth_, 1773. The second contains several good songs.

During the same period also professional poets of higher pretensions began to make the navy their theme. The reign of George I. furnished little for the muse to celebrate. That of George II. begins with an immense blowing of literary trumpets about the navy. George II.’s speech to Parliament on January 27, 1728, contained a passage inviting the two Houses to consider a scheme ‘for the increase and encouragement of our seamen in general; that they may be invited rather than compelled to enter into the service of their country, as often as occasion shall require it.’ With that object the King recommended an addition to the funds for the support of Greenwich Hospital. Edward Young seized the opportunity to publish _Ocean: an Ode occasioned by his Majesty’s royal encouragement of the Sea Service_. He followed this up by writing in 1729 _Imperium Pelagi, a Naval Lyric_, which ends up by an admonition to the ‘grovelling sons of verse’ not ‘to tarnish Britain’s Naval bloom’ by inferior strains on the same subject. Next came in 1733 his _Sea-Piece_ containing (i) _The British Sailor’s Exultation_, (ii) _His Prayer before action_, and last of all in 1734 _The Foreign Address; or the best Argument for Peace_. All are bad poetry, but they do illustrate the influence which the strength of our navy exercised upon the maintenance of peace during a period in which it gained no public triumphs.

Young wrote from the point of view of the King’s ministers: another poet, James Thomson, set forth the case of the opposition. His _Britannia_, written in 1727, but not published till 1729, was, says Johnson, ‘a kind of poetical invective against the Ministry, whom the nation then thought not forward enough in resenting the depredations of the Spaniards.’ It recited, as Glover was to do with more effect twelve years later, the sufferings of Hosier’s fleet during their forced inactivity, recalled the memory of the Spanish Armada, and pictured the indignation with which Blake and other ‘immortal spirits’ must behold

‘their feeble sons
Shrink from that empire o’er the conquered seas
For which their wisdom planned, their councils glowed,
And their veins bled through many a toiling age.’

Thomson’s _Rule, Britannia_ gave him a more lasting claim to remembrance in any collection of naval literature. It was a song in the masque of _Alfred_, written by Thomson and Mallet, and performed on August 1, 1740, in honour of the birth of the Princess Augusta. The authorship of _Rule, Britannia_, has been attributed to Mallet, but it was published in 1752 with Thomson’s name attached to it, and the evidence is on the whole in favour of the usual attribution.

The feeling which inspired Thomson’s opposition to Walpole’s Government, and his attack on its pusillanimous policy towards Spain, was shared by the populace in general. It appears also in a satire called _The Pacific Fleet_ (p. 170).

The popularity of the war with Spain is brought out by _The English Sailor’s Resolution to Fight the Spaniards_. It dwells on the grievances of the merchants, tells the story of Captain Jenkins’s ear, and ends by an appeal to enter under Haddock (p. 172). This probably refers to the sending of Rear-Admiral Nicholas Haddock to the Mediterranean in 1737, when war was expected. _A New Song_, written after the actual outbreak of hostilities, begins by rejoicing that King George has at length resolved to correct the violence of the Spaniards:

‘And now for to maul ’em they press ’em and haul ’em
To get some brave fellows to man our brave fleets.
And now they’ll unpadlock the sword of brave Haddock,
He’ll thump all the Spaniards that ever he meets.’

War was actually declared by England against Spain on October 23, 1739, and the general satisfaction with which that step was welcomed is shown by _England’s Glory in the Declaration of War_ (see p. 174).

The first engagement of importance in European waters took place on April 8, 1740, when the Princesa, a Spanish 70-gun ship, was taken by three of Vice-Admiral Balchen’s squadron, viz., the Lenox, the Kent, and the Orford (Clowes, iii. 267). The part assigned to the Irish first lieutenant of the Princesa and his fellow-countrymen on board her is a new fact, if it is true (p. 175).

Before this capture took place Vernon, on November 21, 1739, had taken Porto Bello. No event in our naval history called forth more indifferent verse. On p. 177 will be found a ballad, entitled _English Courage Displayed_, said to be written by a seaman on board the Burford, Vernon’s flagship. _Hosier’s Ghost_ (p. 179), which is the most famous of all the celebrations of Vernon’s victory, was an attempt to turn it to political profit, and to assist in the attack which the ‘Patriots’ were making on Walpole’s policy by recalling Vice-Admiral Francis Hosier’s blockade of Porto Bello in 1726-7 and the heavy losses which it entailed. ‘It is doubtful,’ says Clowes, ‘whether any other British fleet ever suffered from disease so severely as that of Hosier suffered in 1726-7. Its horrible experiences made a deep and lasting impression upon the nation; and it may be hoped that they have had the effect of impressing upon all later British admirals the supreme importance of taking systematic and rigorous measures for preserving the health of their men. During the two years immediately following Hosier’s first arrival off the Bastimentos, the fleet, the nominal complement of which never, roughly speaking, exceeded 4,750 persons, lost, in addition to a flag officer and 7 or 8 captains, about 50 lieutenants and 4,000 subordinate officers and men, by various forms of sickness’ (_The Royal Navy_, iii. 45).

Vernon attempted to follow up the capture of Porto Bello by taking Cartagena. He bombarded that city for three days in March 1740, but without producing much effect, and made a more serious attack upon it by sea and land in March 1741. The attack began on March 9. Fort San Luis was taken on the night of March 25 and Fort San José followed. But quarrels broke out between the naval and military commanders. The attempted storm of Fort San Lazar failed, and on April 14 it was determined to abandon the siege and re-embark the troops and guns. At the beginning of April, however, the fall of the place seemed imminent, and its capture was actually the subject of two ballads. One, entitled _British Courage Displayed, or Admiral Vernon’s Taking of Carthagena_, is modelled on the ballad on the taking of Porto Bello bearing the same title. The other, entitled _Vernon’s Glory_, will be found on p. 181.

Three ballads in this selection relate to the general actions which took place during the war. _Admiral Mathews’s Engagement against the Combined Fleets of France and Spain_ narrates the indecisive battle of February 11, 1744, which led to the trials of Mathews himself, Vice-Admiral Lestock, and several captains. The author was evidently a partisan of Mathews (p. 186). _The Lucky Sailor, or the Sailor’s Invitation to go with Admiral Anson_, celebrates the victory of Anson and Warren over the French fleet under La Jonquière on May 3, 1747 (p. 195). Hawke’s victory over M. de l’Etenduère on October 14, 1747, is the subject of _Tit for Tat, A Sea Kick for a Land Cuff_ (p. 197). A song on the taking of Port Louis in Hispaniola by Rear-Admiral Charles Knowles, in March 1748, closes the series (p. 199). Several ballads relate to minor actions. Captain Holmes in the Sapphire on January 15, 1743, destroyed five Spanish privateers in Vigo Harbour. The ballad, written by a sailor who lost his arm in the action, dates it January 1744 (p. 184). The true date is given in Samuel Boyse’s _An Historical Review of the Transactions of Europe from the beginning of the war with Spain in 1739_, published in 1747, vol. i. p. 390; and in Beatson’s _Naval and Military Memoirs_, i. 173. During 1744 two small merchantmen fought extraordinarily gallant and successful actions against French privateers, which were celebrated in contemporary ballads (pp. 187, 189).

‘In January Captain Cobb in the Bacchus, bound from Oporto to Lynn,
being attacked by a Spanish privateer, of ten guns and 120 men,
maintained a fight of four hours, with only fourteen men and two
boys; and though the privateer boarded him, he cleared his ship
by killing several of the enemy. Soon after, one of his shot took
place so luckily, that the privateer suddenly foundered, and all he
could do was to save about thirty of the Spaniards, who the next day
treacherously rose upon him. However, after an obstinate fight, in
which eleven were killed, he subdued the rest and brought them into
Dartmouth, where this brave man died of the wounds he received in
this last action.

‘In June, one Richard Hornby, master of a small vessel bound from
Yarmouth to Rotterdam, mounting six guns, and having only five men
and three boys, was attacked on the coast of Holland by the Marquis
de Brancos, a French privateer of eighteen guns and seventy-five men,
against whom he defended himself bravely for four hours, repulsing
the enemy, who attempted to board him twice. At length a shot of his
entering the privateer’s powder-room, she blew up, and all her crew
perished. This action being represented by the Lords of the Admiralty
to his Majesty, he was pleased to reward Captain Hornby with a gold
chain and medal of 200_l._ value.’
(Boyse, ii. 114.)

To this period also belong several ballads commemorating disasters at sea, or escapes from shipwreck. _Admiral Cavendish’s distress on board the Canterbury_ (p. 168) must have been written in the year 1728. It is interesting because its metre is probably an imitation of that of _You Gentlemen of England_, while the refrain, ‘In the Bay of Biscay O,’ evidently inspired the well-known song of that name written by Andrew Cherry (Stone, _Sea Songs_, p. 32). The latter was first sung by Incledon in an operatic sketch entitled _Spanish Dollars_, which was produced in April 1805.

Another ballad dealing with a similar subject is _The Princess Royal’s Escape from the Goodwin Sands_, written by a sailor on board the ship, and describing a storm which took place in February 1744 (p. 190). Two others deal with the loss of Sir John Balchen and the Victory, a first-rate carrying 108 guns, wrecked on the Caskets on October 4, 1744. About a thousand men perished with Balchen (pp. 192-94).

The War of the Austrian Succession closed with the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in October 1748.

The Seven Years’ War commenced in America and India, and spread to Europe. War between France and England was not declared till May 18, 1756, though on June 8, 1755, Boscawen’s fleet captured two French men of war, the Alcide and the Lys, off Newfoundland. As early as February 1755 there was ‘a hot press’ for seamen, and in July Hawke was sent to sea with eighteen ships to intercept the French fleet under Du Guay, and to make reprisals upon French commerce. The story of _The Lighterman’s Prentice_ relates to this cruise (p. 201). Nearly 300 French merchantmen and about 8,000 seamen were captured before the end of 1755 (Entick, _History of the Late War_ i. 137, 187). _Britain’s Resolution to fight the French_ also refers to these captures, but the exultation they caused lasted but a short time (p. 203). Byng’s action with La Galissonière on May 20 and the capture of Port Mahon which followed on June 29, dashed all these hopes, and popular feeling demanded that the admiral’s misconduct should be punished with death. Every scribbler wrote poems and epigrams against him, and political hostility to the Government swelled the cry.

‘To the block with Newcastle and yard-arm with Byng,’ is the chorus of one ballad appropriately entitled _Block and Yard-arm_. A collection of these was published at the time: _Bungiana; or an Assemblage of What-d’ye-call-em’s in prose and verse that have occasionally appeared relative to the conduct of a certain naval commander, 1756_. The French commander’s conduct was not thought much better than Byng’s, and one of the squibs in this collection satirises both. It is entitled _The Pacific Engagement, a poetical dialogue between two courteous admirals_.

‘(_Byng._)

At last we are met--but I hope with no other
Intent or design but to spare one another.
Though we seem by our flags to be desperate foes,
Let us part, if you please, without banging or blows.

‘(_Galissonière._)

But since fighting and wars are the arts which we trade in,
We must have a little and short cannonading;
Our guns must be fired at a distance, but still
With no wicked intention to wound or to kill....’

Byng’s despatch was frequently parodied in verse, and one of these parodies, _The Letter of a certain Admiral_, is given on p. 207, together with _A Rueful Story_ (p. 209). Blakeney became the hero of the hour, and a naval officer who had served in the defence of Fort St. Philip was glorified with him in _A New Song_ (p. 206). Another ballad handed down to tradition, of which the tune as well as the words has been preserved, accused Byng of selling Port Mahon, and contrasted his treachery with the courage of West (p. 210).

Next year another fiasco excited popular feeling to fury, namely the abortive ‘secret expedition’ to Rochefort in September 1757. The navy did its part in capturing the isle of Aix; the ships could not get near enough to batter Rochefort, and the soldiers were never landed. Sir John Mordaunt, the commander of the troops, was acquitted by a court-martial. The _New Song written on the Isle of Aix_ (p. 211) is apparently intended to represent the feelings of Hawke, who was vexed and indignant at the decision of the generals not to attempt a landing (Burrows, _Life of Hawke_, ed. 1896, p. 138).

The year 1758 was more fortunate, but neither Pocock’s engagements in the East Indies nor the capture of Louisbourg are the subject of ballads which have reached us. Keppel’s expedition against the French colonies in Africa attracted more attention. One ballad, _Bold Sawyer_, relates the capture of Goree, which took place December 28, 1758 (Entick, iii. 271-8). While it gives the names of the ships engaged in the expedition correctly, it calls the captain of the Nassau Sawyer, though his name was James Sayer. Another ballad relates the fate of the Lichfield, Captain Barton, which ran ashore on the coast of Morocco on November 29, 1758 (p. 214). The crew were made slaves, and were not released till April 1760, when they were ransomed for 170,000 dollars by a special ambassador sent for the purpose (Duncan, _The Mariner’s Chronicle_, iii. 118-30).

The year 1759 was the great year of the war. On August 18 Boscawen defeated De la Clue, taking three ships of the line and destroying two. On November 20 Hawke beat Conflans in Quiberon Bay. Hawke’s victory is the theme of a ballad apparently written by someone on board the flagship (p. 217). _Neptune’s Resignation_, a pretentious mythological poem ‘written by Mr. Wagnall’ is interesting as a curiosity (p. 218). Twenty-three years later it was adapted to fit Rodney’s victory. Two other pieces of verse--one composed by Paul Whitehead and sung by Mr. Beard at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden, the other by Robert English, chaplain of the Royal George--are reprinted in Hawke’s _Life_ (pp. 253-56). ‘Though the rude billows raged,’ sang the chaplain, ‘so close we engaged

That rarely a shot was misplaced;
The troops on the land chilled with horror they stand
To see the white flag so disgraced.

‘No longer they’ll boast of descents on our coast,
The bright Queen of the main to reduce;
The fair English rose more lovely it blows,
While droops the faint Flower de Luce.

‘Each generous heart played so gallant a part
That glory has crowned our endeavours
And what is still more, the lasses on shore
Will esteem us deserving their favours.’

Boscawen and Hawke had effectively ended the French threats of invasion, for which purpose a number of flat-bottomed boats had been built (Entick, iii. 403; v. 50). It is to this project that Garrick contemptuously refers in _Hearts of Oak_, a song in his pantomime _Harlequin’s Invasion_, which was produced on December 31, 1759. The text of the song is so altered in the current versions that it seemed desirable to print it in its original form (p. 220). The only French landing effected took place in Ireland. In October 1759 M. Thurot, with six frigates and 1,300 troops, eluding the squadron under Commodore Boys, which was blockading that port, set out on his adventurous cruise. The weather frustrated an intended descent near Londonderry, but on February 21 he landed some troops at Carrickfergus, but put to sea again after occupying the place for six days. Next day, on February 28, Captain John Elliot, with the Aeolus, Pallas, and Brilliant frigates, engaged the three ships that were left of Thurot’s squadron, and captured them all (Clowes iii. 230; Entick iv. 319-333). Thurot fell in the fight, and the ballad called _Thurot’s Dream_ records his fate (p. 220). This is one of the rare cases in which oral tradition has preserved a better version of the original piece than any of the printed broadsides.

Another minor action of much interest, which took place a year earlier, is the subject of the ballad entitled _Gilchrist and Hotham’s Bravery_ (p. 216). On March 20, 1759, the Southampton, 32, Captain James Gilchrist, and the Melampe, 24, Captain William Hotham, engaged two French frigates and captured one of them, the Danae, a 40-gun ship (Clowes, iii. 301; Entick, iv. 266). The capture of three French privateers in the West Indies by Captain O’Brien and Captain Taylor in August 1760 furnished another theme for indifferent verse (p. 222, cf. Entick, v. 55).

After 1759 there were no fleet actions in European waters. Hawke, Boscawen, and Rodney blockaded the western ports of France through 1760. In June 1761 the island of Belleisle surrendered to a naval and military force commanded by General Hodgson and Commodore Keppel. This conquest is the subject of _A New Song on the Taking of Belleisle_, but the song touches only the service of the soldiers. Pitt meant to tender the island as an equivalent for Minorca in the negotiations for peace which began about this time. For the rest of the war the interest centres in the West Indies. Guadeloupe had fallen in May 1759; Dominica fell in June 1761; Martinique was taken in February 1762, and Grenada, St. Lucia, and St. Vincent with Martinique.

‘As soon as this news to the French King was brought
He immediately put on his mourning coat,
Saying “Where shall I go or where shall I run?
They’ve ruined my nation, alas, I’m undone.”’

The _New Song on the Taking of Martinico_ thus pictures its effect:

‘And now for Jack Spaniards we’ll show them a dance,
And humble their pride as well as proud France.’

War had been declared against Spain on January 4, 1762, and the squadron which had helped to reduce Martinique now joined an expedition sent from England under Sir George Pocock and the Earl of Albemarle, and laid siege to Havana. The city fell on August 13, 1762, and a ballad on its capture is printed on p. 223. It is remarkable for the badness of its metre and the correctness of its historical details (see Entick, v. 363-385; Clowes iii. 245). With this capture the war ended. The preliminaries of peace were signed on November 3, 1762, the definitive treaty on February 10, 1763.

Peace was welcome news to the sailors. A ballad called _The Sailors’ Dialogue_, evidently written about this date, expresses their views. ‘When all the ship is paid, we’ll lead a merry life,’ says Jack, and rejoices with Tom over the prospect of a full pocket and plenty of drink (p. 227). It gave them additional satisfaction to think that their officers would not be equally pleased. What Jack thought good news was bad news to admiral, captain, and lieutenant, as the ballad called _Distressed Men of War_ sets forth at length (p. 228). A fact which made it worse was that a very limited number of subordinate officers received half-pay, and that the rates were extremely low (Clowes, ii. 233; iii. 19, 340).

It is evident from a number of ballads, some belonging to the middle, others to the later part of this century, that there was considerable discontent in the navy. The feelings which found expression in _The Sea Martyrs_, in William III.’s time, were equally strong when George III. began to reign, and were to manifest themselves later in the mutinies of 1797. One perennial complaint was the badness of the provisions and the cheats of the purser. Musty meat, mouldy biscuit, hard, stinking Suffolk cheese, petty-warrant beer, burgoo ‘fit for nothing but to make a sailor spew,’ were what he provided, ‘though the nation allows men what’s fitting to eat.’ So says _The Saylor’s Complaint; or the true Character of the Purser of a Ship_ (p. 233), and every casual reference to a purser in any ballad is always abusive.

A still greater grievance was the difficulty a man had in getting his pay:

‘My life I have ventured for gold
My king and my country to serve,
Now the wars are all over,
Brave sailors may perish and starve,’

is the sum of a second _Sailor’s Complaint_ (p. 230). Often the sailor received a ticket for his pay, which he was obliged to sell to an usurer at a ruinous reduction--a practice which had existed since the time of Charles II., as Pepys witnesses, but which seems to have been checked towards the middle of the eighteenth century, according to _The Ticket-Buyer’s Lamentation_ (p. 231).

A third grievance was the severity of the discipline. A pamphlet quoted by Entick (v. 59) explains why it is that neither by bounty nor compulsion men enough for the fleet can be found. ‘The reason is known to every common seaman, who, whilst Gazettes are filled with encomiums of their bravery and contempt of danger, and our senators are devising the wisest means for their provision and support, yet languish under the greatest hardships and the most abject slavery, puzzled and perplexed with unnecessary trifles, hard wrought, and ill-used by almost every petty officer of but a month’s standing, who, ignorant of duty, whether performed right or wrong, flourishes his rattan over the head of the ablest seaman, and acts the tyrant over them without control.’

Even ‘snotty boys of midshipmen,’ some hardly ten years old, declares one ballad, ‘strike many a brave fellow.’ In another a sailor declines to volunteer, and gives a captain his reason:

Your damned rogues of officers use men so cruel,
That a man of war is worse than hell and the devil.
(pp. 235, 239).

Ill usage made volunteers scarce and increased the discontent of pressed men. Complaints against impressment, and references to the abuses to which it gave rise, become increasingly frequent during the latter half of the eighteenth century. The pressgang makes its first appearance in fiction in 1748 with Smollet’s account of the seizure of Roderick Random on Tower Hill, and his sufferings in the tender. The earliest caricature representing the operations of a press-gang is _English Liberty Displayed_, which belongs to the year 1770, when Wilkes and the London magistrates were opposing the execution of press warrants in the City (_Catalogue of Satirical Prints in the British Museum_, iv. 641). Next came Gillray’s _Liberty of the Subject_, published October 15, 1779. Our ballads supplement this evidence by stories such as those related in _The Lighterman’s Prentice_ and in the narrative of the eighteen Greenland men (pp. 201, 226, 234-36, 249). Another ballad called a _Dialogue between Will and Jack_, too long to insert, describes the general terror which prevailed about 1778 or 1779. The people seem all run mad, ‘for fear of the press they won’t lie in their beds’; farmers and millers send boys and girls and old men to the markets for them; carriers and carters, ‘like goats in the mountains, they lie in the fields’; and so with all other trades. The French are at sea to invade us, and now our bold sailors must fight for all. The King wants men and will find them out.

The King found it difficult to get men, not merely because his service was unpopular, but also because there was a more profitable alternative.

One characteristic of the wars of the middle of the eighteenth century was the great development of privateering. ‘The privateers,’ writes Sir J. K. Laughton, ‘were, in their day, a most important item in the naval strength of the country, with this additional and especial merit, that they were most numerous and strongest when the royal navy was weakest or most severely taxed.... In looking for valuable services of privateers we find them not in the periods of our national glory, not during the wars of the French Revolution, when Howe and Hood and Nelson crushed the French navy; not during the later years of the Seven Years’ War, when Hawke and Boscawen and Saunders grandly maintained England’s supremacy; but during the war of American Independence or the war of the Austrian Succession, when the fortunes of the navy were at a low ebb.... In such times of disaster and disgrace the rough and ready work of the privateers appeared more brilliant, and had a very real national importance’ (_Studies in Naval History_, p. 201). Of two famous privateer captains, Fortunatus Wright and George Walker, the same author gives a full account, and the exploits of many others are recorded in _The Liverpool Privateers_, published by Mr. Gomer Williams in 1897. Their captures and their battles were sometimes the subject of verse, and therefore a few examples of ballads relating to them have been inserted. In July 1745, Captain Talbot in the Prince Frederick, with Captain Morecock in the Duke, captured two Spanish ships with cargoes worth over 3,000,000 dollars. The share of each seaman amounted to £850 (Laughton, p. 237; Beatson, _Naval and Military Memoirs_, i. 294; Boyse, _An Historical Review of the Transactions of Europe_, ii. 171). This capture is celebrated in _England’s Glory, or the French King Stripped_ (p. 194). At the beginning of the Seven Years’ War the Terrible privateer, commanded by Captain Death, was taken by the French privateer Vengeance, of St. Malo, on December 27, 1756. The Terrible had twenty-six guns, the Vengeance thirty-four. The crew of the Vengeance numbered 350, while the Terrible, weakened by sending away some men in a prize, could muster only 116. Out of them the captain and fifty men were killed outright, and over forty wounded before the ship was taken (Entick, _History of the Late War_, 1765, ii. 110). So desperate a fight, at a moment when the popular indignation against Byng for not fighting it out with La Galissonière was at its height, naturally roused enthusiasm, and Captain Death and the Terrible were celebrated in the ballad and the poem printed on pp. 204-5.

A common form of song is one which takes the form of an invitation to enter on board a privateer under some popular captain. Of this there are many specimens in existence, and two are here reprinted (pp. 225, 226). The Lord Anson and the Hawke were two Liverpool privateers which made many captures in 1756 and 1757 (Williams, pp. 87-95). The Blandford was a Bristol ship, though Captain Stonehouse seems to have been a Liverpool man (_ib._ p. 186). In these and similar invitations the prospect of plunder naturally holds the first place. A Newcastle song says:

If we should meet with a galloon,
Our own we’ll make her very soon,
The drums shall beat and music play,
To the Antigallican haste away.

To Charlotte’s Head then let’s repair,
We’ll be received with welcome there;
We’ll enter then without delay,
To the Antigallican haste away.

(_Rhymes of Northern Bards_, by John Bell, 1812, p. 320). Another song, called _The Sailor’s Courtship to the Lady’s Waiting-Maid_, treats the argument sentimentally:

My love she does wait on a lady so fair,
And I do belong to a stout privateer;
Rich prizes I’ve taken since the wars did begin,
From the lofty monsieurs and brought them all in.

And now of [these] riches my love shall have share,
For she shall be drest in rich silks most rare.
With ribbons and rings my jewel I’ll deck,
And a fine chain of gold to hang round her neck.

And before that my money begins to grow scant,
I’ll away to the sea, for my love shall ne’er want,
And boldly we’ll make the loud cannons to roar,
And bring home rich prizes as heretofore.

You pretty young maids who have sweethearts at sea,
Pray take this advice and be ruled by me,
Slight not a bold sailor while he’s ploughing the main,
Most richly he’ll clothe you when he comes home again.

(_Madden Collection_, Cambridge). The prospect of manning a privateer depended a good deal on the reputation of its commander, and consequently his character was often set forth, as in the ballad called after Captain Barber of the ship Resolution of Liverpool:

Give noble Captain Barber
A good broadsword in hand;
The French to fight [is] his heart’s delight
When Barber gives command.
He’s kind and tender-hearted
And makes his foes to fly,
He governs men with justice
And great generosity.

(_Madden Collection_). Or again in _A New Song_:

Come with me you jolly tars,
We’re talking of the Spanish war,
Come my boys and tack about,
We’ll put the Spaniards to the rout.

_Chorus._

I beg you’ll fill your pots all round,
Success to the fleet that’s outward bound;
Likewise unto all true blues
That sails along with Jemmy Askew,
For he’s the man that’s bold and true,
He’ll fight for his King and country too.

Come haste away to the rendezvous,
There’s plenty of good peck and booze;
Askew is a seaman’s friend,
My boys, you’ll find him in the end.

_Chorus as before._

When the American war began, the British public expected a series of easy victories--at all events wherever the navy was engaged. The ballad called _The Brags of Washington_ is an instance of this (p. 244). Consequently the repulse of the fleet under Sir Peter Parker, which attacked Charleston on June 28, 1776, was a disagreeable surprise. It is the theme of an English ballad, _On the late Engagement in Charleston River_, and of an American song parodying Parker’s despatch (pp. 245-47; cf. Clowes, iii. 372). In February 1778 France concluded a defensive treaty with the United States, and in April hostilities between France and England began. _The Cruisers_ celebrates the beginning of this stage of the war; _The Arethusa_ its first action, namely, the fight between that ship and the Belle Poule on June 17, 1778 (pp. 247-248). The song, according to Sir J. K. Laughton, ‘sets truth and seamanship alike at defiance,’ for the Arethusa fought well but was beaten, and would certainly have been taken or sunk if the approach of the English seventy-fours had not scared the Belle Poule away (_Sea Fights and Adventures_, p. 8). It is to be observed that the crew of the Belle Poule numbered 230 not 500 men, that she was not driven ashore, and that she was ultimately taken by the Nonsuch, 64 guns, in 1780 (Clowes, iv. 13, 99, 114). To the same date or to 1777 belongs a song _On the brave Admiral Lockhart_, printed in Logan’s _Pedlar’s Pack_ (p. 77). Lockhart took the command of the Shrewsbury in 1777. The verses are to be sung to the tune of _Hearts of Oak_.

Ye sons of old Ocean who’re strangers to fear
On board of the _Shrewsbury_ quickly repair;
Brave Lockhart commands her, rejoice every tar,
For Lockhart commanded the _Tartar_ last war.

The Shrewsbury formed part of the Channel fleet under Admiral Keppel. When Keppel first put to sea on June 12, 1778, the public voice confidently predicted his success, as _Admiral Keppel Triumphant_ shows (p. 252). On July 27 he engaged the French fleet under d’Orvilliers off Ushant. Two songs give an account of this indecisive engagement, one of which accounts for its indecisiveness by asserting that Keppel had secret orders not to fight (pp. 253, 255). Then followed recriminations between Keppel and Vice-admiral Sir Hugh Palliser, ending with the trial of Keppel by court-martial on the charges of misconduct and incapacity. On February 11, 1779, he was acquitted, and the charges were pronounced malicious and unfounded. The popularity of the verdict is attested by _Keppel Triumphant_ and _Keppel for Ever_ (pp. 255, 257).

In June 1779 Spain declared war, and during August 1779 the combined French and Spanish fleets dominated the Channel. Paul Jones, who had already signalised himself in 1778 by attacking Whitehaven and capturing the British sloop Drake off Carrickfergus, sailed from L’Orient on August 14, 1779, with a little squadron of four vessels threatened Leith and Edinburgh, and projected an attack on the shipping in the Tyne. On September 23 he fell in with a fleet of merchant shipping coming from the Baltic under the convoy of the Serapis of forty-four guns and the Countess of Scarborough, a hired vessel armed with twenty six-pounders. The capture of these two ships by Jones is celebrated in _Paul Jones the Pirate_. This ballad was evidently written by an American or someone sympathising with the American cause. It was often reprinted in England, but the English versions are full of corruptions and blunders. Nevertheless, by comparison of the various versions, it has proved possible to obtain a more intelligible text than that commonly given (p. 259). Several other ballads, including a Scottish one on the same subject, are reprinted in the _Roxburghe Ballads_, and with them a political song suggesting that Lord Sandwich and Lord North were in reality worse enemies to England than Jones (_Roxburghe Ballads_, viii. 330-35).

As the struggle was for America and the West Indian islands, most of the fleet engagements of the latter part of the war took place in American waters. On July 6, 1779, Vice-admiral John Byron, with Vice-admiral Samuel Barrington as his second in command, fought an action with the French fleet under D’Estaing off Grenada, and got very much the worst of the fight. A ballad on the battle, apparently written by someone on board the Royal Oak, expresses the view generally held in the fleet, that if Barrington had commanded instead of Byron the result would have been different (p. 258; cf. Clowes, iii. 434-40; Mahan, p. 367). _The Bold Blades of Old England_ celebrates the capture of Omoa in October 1779, and concludes by a reference to Rodney’s voyage to Gibraltar in December 1779 and his capture of a Spanish convoy about January 8, 1780 (p. 261; cf. Clowes, iii. 448; iv. 44). On January 16, 1780, Rodney defeated Langara off Cape St. Vincent, taking six Spanish ships of the line. Another, the Santo Domingo, was blown up Prince William was serving at the time on board the Prince George, the flagship of Rear-admiral Robert Digby, which formed part of Rodney’s fleet. Reports of the courage and good conduct of the Prince during the battle increased the popular enthusiasm which welcomed Rodney’s victory, and inspired the song entitled _The Royal Sailor_ (p. 262). On April 12, 1782, took place Rodney’s victory over De Grasse, which brought the naval war to a conclusion. It is the subject of a singularly ungrammatical ballad called _Rodney’s Glory_, and of another entitled _Hood’s Conquest over the Count de Grasse_, in which Rodney’s name is not even mentioned (p. 263). Rodney captured five line-of-battle ships in the battle. Four of them, with three English 74-gun ships, sailed from Jamaica for England at the end of July 1782, but all save two were lost on the way. Two of the prizes, the Ville de Paris and the Glorieux, foundered with all hands; a third, the Hector, was lost, though 200 of the crew were saved by the privateer Hawke. One of the English seventy-fours, the Ramillies, became unseaworthy, lost all her masts, and was abandoned. Another, the Centaur, went down with all her crew except twelve men on September 23, 1782. The ballad called _The Loss of the Centaur_ (p. 265) commemorates the escape of Captain Inglefield and the twelve survivors (Laughton, _Sea Fights and Adventures_, p. 153; Clowes, iv. 88).

Several ballads of the period relate to engagements between single ships. _Captain Farmer_ (p. 260) describes the hard-fought encounter between the Quebec and Surveillante off Ushant on October 6, 1779. The Quebec took fire and blew up, and Captain George Farmer went down with his ship.

Others relate to the fortunes of American privateers. On the American side the laureate of the war was Philip Freneau, whose poems appeared for the most part in newspapers published in America during the war. They were collected and published at Philadelphia in 1786, and republished in England in 1861 by Russell Smith. Many refer to incidents in the naval war. One is _Captain Jones’s Invitation to American Backwoodsmen to become Sailors_; another, _On the Memorable Victory gained by the gallant Captain Paul Jones_, narrates his capture of the Serapis. There are _Stanzas on the new American frigate Alliance_; _On the Death of Captain Nicholas Biddle_, commander of the Randolph, a 32-gun frigate, blown up in action with the British 64-gun ship _Yarmouth_ on March 7, 1778. A third poem, _The British Prison Ship_, tells of the capture of the American privateer Aurora by the Iris (once the American frigate Hancock) and the sufferings of the prisoners on board the hulks Scorpion and Hunter. _The Sailor’s Invitation_ is an encouragement to ship under Captain Barney on board the Hyder Ally privateer; another ballad, describes the capture of the sloop General Monk by the Hyder Ally on April 8, 1782. (Freneau’s Poems, pp. 144, 146, 164, 183, 235, 239, 241.) Another collection, _Songs and Ballads of the American Revolution_, edited by Frank Moore, 1856, contains a satirical letter in verse describing the capture of the South Carolina, a 40-gun frigate, by the British ships Diomede and Quebec on December 20, 1782 (Clowes, iv. 91).

The major operations of the war of the French Revolution and the general engagements are illustrated by numerous ballads, though for the most part of very inferior quality.

‘Now Lord Hood is sailed with his gallant crew,
Bold sailors with ships of the line twenty-two,’

begins _Success to the Grand Fleet, or the Honest Briton’s Prayer_, announcing Hood’s departure for Toulon in August 1793. But the rest is too poor to quote. The temper of the moment is illustrated by some lines from _The Taking of Tobago_ (April 1793), which declares that ‘for murdering of Louis we will make these rebels rue.’ But for the most part very little sign of any feeling against the French as revolutionists appears in popular naval poetry; it is simply the old national hostility. ‘We’ll make them to knock under as we have done before,’ says the same ballad.

Howe’s victory on June 1, 1794, is the subject of at least half a dozen ballads, two of which, with a song written by a lieutenant on board the Bellerophon, will be found on pp. 268-74.

The battle of St. Vincent on February 14, 1797, is celebrated in _A new song on the victory over the Spanish Fleet by Admiral Jervis_, and in _Jervis taking the Spanish Fleet_. According to the author of the first, the tactics of the British ships were simple:

‘They, not heedful of orders, in courage confide;
The best line of battle’s a thundering broadside.’

The second thus sums up the result:

‘Here’s a health to Admiral Jervis, our officers and crew;
Spain with your surprising force we’ve made you for to rue.
Two of your hundred and twenties and two of eighty-four
By Britons brave were soon conveyed safe to old England’s shore.’

Neither deserves reprinting. Duncan was more fortunate than Jervis, and at least four ballads on Camperdown have survived. One by J. Pratt will be found on p. 283. Another by J. More, of the Royal Ayr Volunteers, to be sung to the tune of _The Garb of Old Gaul_, is printed in Ashton’s _Real Sailor Songs_ (p. 9). In one of the ballads Duncan’s religion is commended:

‘No power the pride of conquest has his heart to lead astray:
He summoned his triumphant crew, and then was heard to say,
“Let every man now bend his knee, and here in solemn prayer
Give thanks to God, who in this fight has made our cause His care.”’
(_The Fight off Camperdown._)

In the fourth a subscription for the widows of those who fell in the battle is advocated:

‘Fighting their country’s noble cause they near the Texel fell,
No mutiny, but gloriously they died behaving well.’
(_The Widow’s Lamentation._)

On the battle of the Nile the two most popular ballads--to judge from the frequency of the reprints--were _The Mouth of the Nile_ and _Battle of the Nile_. The former begins:

‘It was in the forenoon of the first day of August,
One thousand seven hundred and ninety eight.
After a long pursuit we o’ertook the Toulon fleet,
And soon we let them know we came for to fight.’

The whole is reprinted in Ashton’s _Real Sailor Songs_. The other poem, more pretentious in style concludes with a sort of apotheosis:

‘In council above rose the deity of war,
Determined to give valour due renown,
And soon on the brow of each hardy British tar
Was placed a resplendent royal crown.

‘While the loud trump of fame on earth and ocean sounded
With Howe, Jervis, Duncan, and Nelson’s name resounded;
But the battle of the Nile was the foremost on the file,
And all the Angel choirs sang the glories of that day.’

Of much greater interest than these is a long narrative ballad, said to have comprised about sixty verses, of which tradition has preserved merely a fragment. From the exactness of the details, it was probably written by some sailor in the fleet. All that survives is printed on p. 287.

The battle of Copenhagen is the theme of two ballads of the ordinary type (pp. 295, 296). To these has been added the original version of Campbell’s _Battle of the Baltic_, which he enclosed in a letter to Sir Walter Scott written on March 27, 1805 (p. 290). ‘Though wanting,’ says Sir J. K. Laughton, ‘the polish which afterwards brought it to something like perfection, though many of the lines are bald, harsh, or tumid, some of the expressions are happier than in the finished work; and, though we do not go to a ballad for historical detail, it is fuller and more accurate’ (_The Nelson Memorial_, p. 196). Campbell was in a special sense the laureate of the war which resulted from the coalition known as the Armed Neutrality of 1801, and he published in the _Morning Chronicle_ of March 18, 1801, his ballad _Ye Mariners of England_ headed _On the Prospect of a Russian War_. The original of this, which differs only in a few unimportant phrases from the later version, is to be found in Laughton’s _Nelson Memorial_, p. 175, and in Beattie’s _Life of Campbell_. It is needless to reprint it here.

Nelson’s next engagement was not against the Russians, as he expected, but against the French flotilla which lay in the harbour of Boulogne prepared for the invasion of England. This disastrous attempt was made on August 15, 1801, and is the subject of _A New Song composed by the wounded Tars_ (p. 297). It was evidently meant to appeal to the charitable, and the lines:

‘All you that relieve us the Lord will you bless
For relieving poor sailors in times of distress’

are a too familiar ballad formula. There are many other ballads of the period ending with similar appeals. Two examples will suffice:

‘A splinter knocked my nose off, “My bowsprit’s gone!” I cries,
“Yet well it kept their blows off, thank God ’twas not my eyes.”
Scarce with these words I’d outed, glad for my eyes and limbs,
A splinter burst and douted both my two precious glims.
I’m blind and I’m a cripple, yet cheerful would I sing
Were my disasters triple, ’cause why? ’twas for my king.’
(_The Blind Sailor._)