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.’
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.