Great Britain -- History, Naval -- Poetry; Sea songs -- Great Britain
P. 92. =The Treachery of the Spaniards of Porto Rico.= From the Pepys
collection in the Library of Magdalene College, Cambridge, v. 374.
The Journal of Ignatius White, the captain of the Dartmouth, gives an
interesting account of this incident, dated April 1686 (No. 3819). See
also MS., Rawlinson A., clxxxix. f. 337.
P. 95. =The Golden Voyage.= From the Pepys collection (iv. 199).
Printed for J. Blare, at the Looking Glass on London Bridge.
P. 97. =The Boatswain’s Call.= _Roxburghe Ballads_, iii. 463.
P. 99. =The Undaunted Seaman.= _Roxburghe Ballads_, vii. 551.
P. 101. =The Seaman’s Adieu.= _Roxburghe Ballads_, vii. 524.
P. 104. =The Maiden’s Frolick.= _Roxburghe Ballads_, iii. 402.
P. 106. =The Courageous Commander.= From the Pepys collection (iv.
219). Printed for R. Kell, at the White Hart, near Pye Corner, in West
Smithfield.
P. 108. =The Seaman’s Victory.= _Bagford Ballads_, i. 283.
P. 110. =Torringtonia.= From the Pepys collection (v. 377).
P. 112. =England’s Triumph at Sea.= _Roxburghe Ballads_, vii. 745, and
_Poems on State Affairs_, I. ii. 263. The text of the two versions
differs. Verses 9 and 10 are added from a manuscript.
P. 113. =England’s Great Loss by a Storm of Wind.= Printed in Ashton’s
_Real Sailor Songs_, p. 40*. Another version is in the Madden
collection, entitled _A Copy of Verses made upon the Loss of the
Coronation, and eight more Ships of War_ (_Slipsongs_, i. 174, No.
372). A third version, printed in Marryat’s _Poor Jack_, is headed _The
Return from the Baltic of the English Fleet under Admiral Sir Edward
Russell_. All are late versions, and full of corruptions. They place
the disaster in November, instead of September 1691, and differ in the
names of the ships. According to Burchett, the Coronation was lost with
most of her crew, the Harwich ‘ran on shore and bulged,’ the Royal Oak
and Northumberland ‘tailed on the ground, though afterwards they were
luckily got off’ (_Transactions at Sea_, p. 102; cf. Clowes, ii. 345).
The second line of verse 4 is, in Marryat’s version, ‘But fiercely to
the west did run’; in the Madden copy, ‘The sea strong to the west did
run.’ In verse 5, Marryat’s version runs:
‘A-shore went the Northumberland,
The Harwich and the Cumberland,
The Lion, and the Warwick too;
But Elizabeth, she had most for to rue,
She came stem on, and her Lion broke,
And she sunk the Gloster at the stroke.’
Marryat’s version draws a moral from the disaster:
‘They was punished for their misdeeds
For grumbling when they had no needs.’
The Madden copy, on the other hand, says:
‘Walking Plymouth streets one day,
I heard some sea captains for to say
“God will reward us for our deeds,
In flogging men when there’s no need.”’
There are many minor variations in the three versions which are not
worth noting.
P. 114. =Naval Warfare of 1692.= _Roxburghe Ballads_, vii. 746.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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