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?’