When this was written Harman’s brief but glorious career had just ended. In September 1677, while in command of the Sapphire, 34, he engaged an Algerine ship called the Golden Horse, 46, failed to take her, and was mortally wounded in the fight. _Elegiac Verses on the death of Captain Thomas Harman, late commander of his Majesties Frigot the Sapphire_, addressed and presented to the Duke of York, are amongst the Luttrell collection in the British Museum. Like a sturdy oak, stricken by thunder, says the poet, Harman’s body fell on the deck, but his soul flew upwards to heaven, and the other dead British heroes helped him in to the mansions of the blest, ‘Lawson, Minnes, Spragge and many more beside, As soon as they the labouring soul espied, Let down their beams, and pointed out the way To the bright mansions of Eternal Day.’ Our last ballad of the reign of Charles II. is _The Benjamin’s Lamentation_. Though no ship of that name can be found in the lists of the navy, it will serve as an example of the class of ballads relating to shipwrecks, and its metrical form is of some interest. Possibly it is an early chanty. The short reign of James II. affords us only two ballads of interest, both of which come from the collections of Samuel Pepys. One relates the prosperous hunt of William Phipps for the treasure of a Spanish galleon wrecked in the Bahamas (p. 96). He sailed in September 1686 in a King’s ship called the James and Mary, returning in June 1687 with cargo valued at 300,000_l._ (Luttrell’s _Diary_, i. 407-8; Hutchison, _Massachusetts Bay_, i. 397; Ellis, _Correspondence_, i. 295, 325). James knighted him on June 28, 1687. The second is still more interesting, for it shows that even in time of peace the hostility of the Spaniards to the English in the West Indies was so great that a man of war was treacherously attacked as it lay in a Spanish harbour. The Dartmouth, the vessel in question, was a fifth-rate, carrying twenty-eight guns, and according to a note by Pepys the ballad was composed by Hovenden Walker (subsequently Rear-Admiral of the White) who was then serving on board her (p. 92). With the reign of William III. there was a great increase in the number of naval ballads published, due to the increased interest which the nation took in maritime affairs. The war with France was popular both with the navy itself and with the people. ‘Lewis, that Christian Turk,’ was generally hated as a sovereign who designed to ruin all Protestant princes, and sought to ‘lay a heavy yoke’ on the free English nation. This is the argument set forth in _The Boatswain’s Call_ to induce sailors to enter the navy. Impressment was necessary. ‘Some,’ continues the ballad, ‘dread and fear the press as much as dying, ‘And skulk like frighted slaves here in distraction To hide in dens and caves from warlike action.’