Besides the many dangers that are upon the seas, When they are on the shore they will ramble where they please; For up and down in sea-port town they court both old and young: They will deceive; do not believe the sailor’s flattering tongue. I give you this advice now, as you may understand, It being at the time when seamen come to land, For up and down in Greenwich town the seamen they do trade, And he doth boast that spends the most; oh! he’s a jolly blade. They likewise treat their sweet-hearts when they are on the shore, But when they are gone perhaps you may never see them more; To-day they wed, at night they bed, to-morrow go to sea: Therefore I say, as well I may, a landman still for me. The seamen they are gone to sea, and leave there wives at home, To take what care they can; for there parts they’l take none; They tell their friends they do depend upon their husbands’ pay, And run in debt, while they expect their money every day. Suppose you have a sailor, that sails before the mast; If he’s the best of husbands his breath is but a blast: The roaring waves their wills will have--there’s no man can withstand-- And he may sleep in the ocean deep whilst you are on the land. Suppose you have a captain, a person of great fame; Yet still there is great danger in sailing on the main. The fates unkind in stormy wind may lay his honour low, And then his wife, with careful life, laments his overthrow. Give me an honest tradesman, of high or low degree; I’ll never fix my fancy on a man that goes to sea. A tradesman’s wife’s a happy life, if he’s an honest man: He’ll take a share in all the care; deny it if you can. _THE SEAMEN’S WIVES’ VINDICATION; OR, AN ANSWER TO THE PRETENDED FROLICK WHICH WAS SAID TO BE BY THEM OVER A BOWL OF PUNCH._ You writ that we drank liquor free, but for your writing so You are to blame--nay, blush for shame--since it was nothing so. To the Tune of _O so ungrateful a creature_. Why does the poets abuse us, we that are seamen’s poor wives? Have they not cause to excuse us, knowing our sorrowful lives? We are, alas! broken-hearted, as we can very well prove, When from our joys we are parted, those loyal husbands we love. You that declare we are jolly do but abuse us, we find, For we are most melancholly, always tormented in mind: While that our husbands are sailing on the tempestuous seas Here we are sighing, bewailing; nothing affordeth us ease. Here you have newly reported that we are girls of the game, Who do delight to be courted. Are you not highly to blame, Saying we often are merry, punch is the liquor we praise, Though we are known to be weary of these our sorrowful days?