There were also ballads on the military preparations and the thanksgivings after the victory which have perished, and a number of ballads relating the exploits of squadrons or single ships, whose titles are entered in the _Stationers’ Registers_. Under November 14, 1588, appears _A Ditty of the Exploit of the Earl of Cumberland on the Sea in October 1588_; under August 5, 1590, a _Ballad made upon the late Fight at Sea between two Ships of Dunkirk and a small Ship of 80 ton appertaining to the Earl of Cumberland_ (Arber, ii. 236, 262). In July 1590 there was published _A Ditty of the Fight upon the seas the 4 of June last in the Straits of Jubraltare between the George and the Thomas Bonaventure against eight gallies with three Frigates_; in May 1591 followed a tract and a ballad on _The wonderful Victory obtained by the Centurion of London against five Spanish Gallies, the 4th of April being Easter Day 1591_; a year later came _The Seamans Carol for the taking of the great Carack_, and in July 1600 a ballad relating _how certain Merchants ships of England fought five Spanish ships of war in the Straits of Gibraltar on May 25, 1600_ (Arber, ii. 262, 274, 293; iii. 62). None of these survive. About the beginning of the seventeenth century new enemies begin to take the place hitherto occupied by the Spaniards in the ballads. Piracy took a new shape after the close of the war with Spain. Captain John Smith devotes the last chapter of his _Travels_ to ‘The bad life and qualities, and conditions of pirates, and how they taught the Turks and Moors to become men of war.’ Because the peace threw them out of employment, and because ‘they grew hateful to all Christian princes,’ they retired to Barbary, and made its harbours their headquarters. Even before that the Barbary coast was a perilous one for richly laden merchantmen, and armed ships that met a likely prize did not always inquire whether their nations were at war. The ballad entitled _The Sailor’s Only Delight_ tells how two English merchantmen sailed for the coast of Barbary (p. 23). The Sweepstake was taken by a French man-of-war, but her consort the George-Aloe captured the French ship later, and made her crew suffer the fate they had inflicted on the crew of the Sweepstake. ‘We laid them aboard on the starboard side And threw them into the sea so wide.’ Two centuries before, Chaucer’s shipman, who had no very scrupulous conscience, as Chaucer owns, used to dispose of the crews of the ships he took in the same fashion. ‘If that he fought and hadde the heigher hand By water he sent hem hoom to every land.’ There are other references to this practice in early seventeenth century ballads, but it was now becoming confined to pirates.