‘Suppose that the war should break out, Then what will Old England do? Bad usage we plenty receive By not paying us our due. They will cavvil from day to day, “To-morrow you your answer shall have.”’ ‘Damme Jack, I really do say, For I think they are acting the knave.’ ‘Then truely I don’t mean to rebel Again[st] my good king and his laws. Did he then know my distress He soon would relieve my just cause; We should be paid with great speed. The taverns we[’d] make them to roar, We[’d] spend it like brave jolly tars; What else should we do on shore?’ _THE SAILOR’S GARLAND; OR, THE TICKET BUYER’S LAMENTATION._ To the Tune of _Chevy Chase_. God prosper long our noble King, his fleet and sailors all, And grant that they their pay may have, and pride may have a fall. Where courage stout and noble blood within the heart doth reign, There pity soft for others’ woes doth pant in every vein. Our gracious King, by pity moved to do his sailors right, To Parliament did recommend their sad and woful plight. A usurer in Lothbury, a Jew of high renown, Hearing the sailors would be paid strait hasted up to town; All in his hall the clerks amazed and agents, frighted sore, ‘Adieu,’ cried out, ‘for-ty per cent, Adieu--for evermore.’ The Jew he sighed, ‘Alack, my head and heart it acheth much! But hold,’ says he, ‘I’ve got it now. Pray tell me--won’t they touch? ‘What, pay the Navy all, d’you say? Sure that can never be, For then much greater men must lose their trades as well as we. ‘A Sanhedrim we straight must call upon a thing so new. Go summon all, great Shylock first; he’s trusty and true blue.’ While yet he spake, lo at the gate, the head of all the tribe, Shylock, appear’d, the most expert at counsel or at bribe. His chatter and his laugh so loud was heard quite to the door; His belly, of enormous size, came strutting in before. Soon tawny Shadrach plodded in, whose face and wig contend Which in their hue most like shall be to Belzeebub the fiend. Shadrach from father circumcis’d a wight descended sure, Either from Abraham the Jew or Ismael the Moor. ‘I stopt,’ quoth he, ‘by precedent the pinch-gut halfpenny, Tho’ tars on short allowance starv’d, and better they than we.’ From Tower Hill with hang-dog look came one would move your pity. ‘What, no more tickets, sir?’ said he; ‘’twill ruin our trading city.’ Quoth Shylock with a grin, ‘My friends, when ships to Greenland sail They dexterously throw out a tub to fool the mighty whale. ‘Prompt payment publickly to blame may prove a dangerous scheme; Another project we’ll propose for to direct the stream.