Part 5
Songs imported from plays or operas were not likely to become popular on board ship until after they had obtained general popularity on shore. One of the characteristics of the ballad literature of the last quarter of the seventeenth century is the great increase in the number of ballads describing the lives, adventures, loves, marriages, meetings and partings of sailors. Most of them were written for consumption on shore, but some doubtless became popular at sea. The printed collection of ballads contain many specimens. In the _Bagford Ballads_ there are reprints of _The Mariner’s Misfortune_, a tale of a shipwrecked sailor and a maiden who for his sake went to sea in disguise; _The Seaman’s Adieu to his pretty Betty_, and _The Fair Maid’s Choice_, which is ‘Of all sorts of tradesmen a seaman for me’ (_Bagford Ballads_, i. 247, 274, 289). In the _Roxburghe Ballads_ there are several groups of ballads of the same nature. The sixth volume contains, _The Gallant Seaman’s Return from the Indies_; _The West Country Nymph_; _The Fair and Loyal Maid of Bristow_; and _The Seaman’s Sorrowful Bride_ (pp. 415, 441, 443, 444). The seventh includes a still larger number: _The Mariner’s Delight, or the Seaman’s seven Wives_; _Faithful Jemmy and constant Susan_; _The Gallant Seaman’s Resolution (whose full intent was to try his fortune at sea, and at his return marry his landlady)_; _Love and Loyalty_; _The two Loyal Lovers_; _A Farewell to Gravesend_; _The Valiant Seaman’s happy Return to his Love_; _The Seaman’s Advice to his pretty Betty, living near Wapping_; _The Sailor’s Departure from his dearest Love_; _The Constant Maiden’s Resolution_; _Loyal Constancy, or the Seaman’s Love-Letter_; _Virtue the Reward of Constancy_; _The Faithful Lover’s Farewell_; _The Valiant Virgin, or Philip and Mary_; _The Seaman’s Dolefull Farewell_; _The Seaman’s Folly, in marrying one so quickly for what he has cause to repent at leisure_; _The Seaman’s Renown in Winning his Fair Lady_ (pp. 490-559). The eighth volume gives us: _The Seaman’s Frolic, or a Cooler for the Captain_; _The Seaman’s Complaint for his unkind Mistress of Wapping_; _The Love-sick Maid of Wapping_; _I father a Child that’s None of my own, being the Seaman’s Complaint_, &c.; _A Mad Marriage, or the Female Fancy of Deptford_ (xciii. 433-443). There are also three verses of _A Kiss of a Seaman is worth two of Another_ (_ib._ pp. 678, 861).
It was obviously impossible to select more than a few specimens of this class of ballads, and it seemed best to choose three or four which for various reasons were of more historical interest than the rest (see pp. 99, 101, 146), and to add two from the Pepys and Druce collections not previously reprinted (pp. 143, 145). The existence of so many ballads of this kind--and there are many more of them in the Pepysian collection, besides others in Lord Crawford’s possession--proves beyond a doubt the growth of popular interest in the navy. Another proof is furnished by the fact that contemporary dramatists represented sailors in their plays with increasing frequency. Shakespeare was one of the first to do this. Everyone will remember the shipwreck scene with which _The Tempest_ opens, and the song of Stephano:
‘The master, the swabber, the boatswain and I, the gunner and his mate, Loved Moll, Meg, Marian, and Marjory, but none of us cared for Kate,’
with its philosophical conclusion, ‘To sea, boys, and let her go hang.’ In Davenant’s _Siege of Rhodes_, performed in 1656, sailors are introduced whose sentiments would do credit to Dibdin’s heroes. ‘What,’ says one of them,
will not the valiant English do When Beauty is distressed and virtue too?’
In Charles the Second’s time Wycherley in 1677 brought upon the stage, in _The Plain Dealer_, Manley, a gentleman ‘of an honest, surly, nice humour, supposed first in the time of the Dutch war to have procured the command of a ship, out of honour, not of interest, and choosing a sea life only to avoid the world.’ There is also Freeman, Manley’s lieutenant, ‘a gentleman well educated, but of a broken fortune.’ The first scene introduces some of Manley’s crew, who speak of him affectionately as ‘our bully tar,’ and tell how he sank his ship that the Dutch might not have her nor the courtiers beg the hulk. Manley’s crew love him in spite of his surliness. ‘He’s always as dogged,’ says one, ‘as an old tarpaulin when hindered of a voyage by a young pantaloon captain.’ ‘’Tis true,’ answers another, ‘I never saw him pleased but in the fight, and then he looked like one of us coming from the pay table, with a new lining to our hats under our arm.’ D’Urfey’s Captain Porpuss, already mentioned, belongs to the year 1681. These instances refute Mr. Gosse’s statement that Ben, in Congreve’s _Love for Love_ (1695), is the ‘first of a long line of stage sailors.’ On the other hand, Ben represents the type in its most perfect shape. He is a younger son, ‘half home bred and half sea bred,’ designed to marry Miss Prue, whom he woos in technical language. ‘I don’t stand much towards matrimony. I love to roam from port to port and from land to land: I would never abide to be port bound.’ Nevertheless he confesses Prue has charms. ‘You’re a tight vessel and well rigged, an you were but as well manned.’ This promising beginning ends in a quarrel. She calls him a ‘stinking tarbarrel,’ he terms her a ‘dirty dowdy’ (Act iii. sc. vi. vii.). But if Ben has not the gallantry of a stage sailor, he has the aggressive honesty. ‘Don’t think I’m false-hearted like a landsman,’ he tells another lady. ‘A sailor will be honest, tho’ perhaps he has never a penny of money in his pocket. Mayhap I have not so fair a face as a citizen or a courtier, but for all that I’ve as good blood in my veins and a heart as sound as a biscuit’ (Act iii. sc. xv.).
The reign of Queen Anne, compared to that of William III., is rather barren in naval ballads. Pepys died in May 1703, and later collectors who took less interest in maritime affairs allowed the songs written about them to perish. Yet the history of the reign, if marked by no victory equal in magnitude to La Hogue, was distinguished by the victories of Rooke and Leake and many minor successes. The finest ballad of the time is that which records Benbow’s disastrous battle with Ducasse, of which it has been possible to discover a longer and better version than that given in Halliwell’s collection (p. 149).
Fortune was less kind to the fame of Rooke than to that of Benbow. There is, it is true, a poem addressed _To the right honourable Sir George Rooke at his Return from his glorious Enterprise near Vigo_. It celebrates his success in forcing the Danes to make peace with Sweden in 1700:
‘To jarring Crowns repose Thy Navy brings, And Quiet broods beneath Her Halcyon wings. Those Gathering Clouds, which not long since broke forth In Storms, and threaten’d to lay waste the North, Thou at Thy first approach didst drive away, And on their Wintry Climes let in the Southern day.’
It goes on to refer to the unsuccessful attempt on Cadiz in 1702, and to say that ‘auspicious Heaven’ pointed out to England a nobler quarry than the town first aimed at, and one more worthy of Rooke’s arms:
‘Shows Her, on wing retiring from the Main, The Wealth of India and the Pride of Spain. This Prize was worthy Thee; and less had been Too mean a Present for an English Queen.’
The attack on the allied fleet on Oct. 12, 1702, is related at length in a ballad called _The Sailor’s Account of the Action at Vigo_ (p. 151). But contemporary poetasters in general attribute the victory to Ormonde and the army rather than Rooke and the navy (_Poems on State Affairs_, ii. 409, 415; _Pills to Purge Melancholy_, v. 115). Added to this, Rooke’s battle with Toulouse off Malaga on August 13, 1704, gained him neither credit nor popularity, and afforded an opportunity to the satirists, of which they made the most (_ib._ iv. 112, 113). Specimens of their satires are given on pp. 153, 154.
Nothing has survived on Leake’s exploits excepting a rather poor ballad on the capture of a Spanish provision fleet in 1708 (p. 156). There is also a spirited ballad called _The Sea-fight, or the French Prize Taken_, published in 1707, which professes to describe an action between two single ships (p. 158).
A contemporary poetaster, describing his voyage to Flanders, inserts some verses ‘in the praise of those heroes commanding the fleet,’ whom he thus commemorates:
‘Russell and Benbow I own to be braves, And Shovell, like Neptune bred up on the waves; Be it spoke to the praise of the bold Captain Jumper, When he met a French ship he bravely would thump her; Nor ever durst Lewis, or Duke of Burgundy E’er look in the face of brave Sir John Mundy; Denbigh and Dursley are lords of great merit, And Jennings possesseth an heroic spirit.’
On reciting these verses to the captain of a man-of-war, with an appropriate compliment to the captain himself, the poet received an effusive welcome on board. The captain admitted that he was a hero too.
‘I am of the blood of the bold Boanerges, And fear not the French when I meet them on surges; ... And if you are pleased for to leave your own nation Most proud I shall be of your sweet conversation.’
Incidentally the poet describes the ship setting sail:
‘Up came the Boatswain, with Countenance stern, With a great Pair of Whiskers, and Mouth like a Churn, He lug’d out his Whistle, and up came the Sailers, And all Hands aloft as nimble as Taylors: There was _Toe-le-ho_, and, _Boys, heave away_, Whilst another was tearing his Throat with, _Belay_; Then _Haul Cat, Haul_: A damnable Yawling; The Boatswain a Swearing, the Master a Bawling, _Helm-a-lee, ye Landlubbard Loobies; Let go the Fore-Bowlings, ye Fresh-Water Boobies; Haul Aft the Main-Sheet, ye Lump of a Dog_, Whilst another was Singing a Tune to the Log. Such Language was us’d by the Tarpauling Rabble, Sure never was such a Confusion at Bable: The Master cry’d out, _Thus, thus, Stedy, Stedy_: A Pox take his Thus, it made my Head Giddy.’ (Rands, _Pax in Crumena; or, the Trooper turn’d Poet_, 1714, pp. 6-7, _The Poet’s Voyage to Amsterdam_.)
The reign of Queen Anne was marked by great disasters from fire and storm. In the great storm of November 26, 1703, twelve vessels belonging to the navy were totally lost, according to the list given by Clowes (ii. 389). A ballad on the event entitled _The Stormy Judgments or the Tempestuous Wind_ is printed in the _Bagford Ballads_ (i. 83), but it gives no details. Another entitled _The dreadful Tempest or a Divine Poem on the Amazing Hurricane which appeared with Wonderful Violence both by Sea and Land on the 27th of November 1703_ describes the loss of four men-of-war:
‘The _Mary_ on the Goodwin-Sands was blown, And all her Sailors perished but one, Who on a piece of wreck was wash’d aboard The _Sterling-Castle_, and to life restor’d.
‘Thus while a Sinking in the Sand she lay, Admiral Beaumont to his men did say, You that can Swim may try your lives to save, For no reliefe we now can hope to have.
‘Then presently the Ship in pieces Split, And he himself upon a plank did sit, Floating a while with Waves encompass’d round, But was wash’d off and in the Tempest drown’d.
‘The warlike _Sterling-Castle_ perish’d then, And all her crew Excepting Eight Men, Who by God’s providence got safe ashore, Amongst whom was the Man preserv’d before.
‘Twice cast away, and twice deliver’d too, Here may we see what the Good God can do, Nay a third time to shew his Mercies more, The Boat was lost that carried him to shore.
‘The _Restoration_ and _Northumberland_, Ere morning light did sink into the sand, And of eight Hundred Souls of both their Crews, Not one escap’d to tell the dreadful news.
‘But what was yet more Mournful you shall hear On board the former as it doth appear, The Captain had his Wife and Children got, Which were seen after on the Seas to Float.
‘Nay, and in several other Ships besides, There many Women with their Husbands died, Many poor Children are left Fatherless, And many Widdows mourning in distress.
‘Of men of war Eleven Sail was lost, Of Merchant men two hundred on our Coast, Beside the Damage done to many more, And seven Thousand Sailors lost therefore.’
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.