A play written in 1681 represents a captain on shore who makes a companion sing one of these songs. Captain Porpuss is described as ‘a blunt tarpaulin captain.’ When a song is proposed in the drawing-room where he happens to be, he demands a song with some sense in it--not a whining thing about Phillis or Chloris--such a song as he used to hear in the happy days when he was Captain of the Success. ‘Well, she was riding at Sole Bay; ’twas just before the fight (wherein I did such notable service); I had then a lieutenant aboard--a little dapper fellow, but as stout as Hercules; and when we met a-nights in the great cabin, over a jolly bowl of punch, the rogue would sing us the best sea-songs, and so roar ’em out! I think I’ve a fellow can remember one of them. Sing, Sirrah! _Song._ Blow, Boreas, blow, and let thy surly winds Make the billows foam and roar! Thou canst no terror breed in valiant minds; But, spite of thee, we’ll live and find the shore. Then cheer, my hearts, and be not awed, But keep the gun-room clear; Tho’ hell’s broke loose, and the devils roar abroad Whilst we have sea-room here, boys, never fear. There now, there’s life, there’s soul, there’s sense. As I’m a living man, gentlemen, the rogue has foxed me three times, one after another, only by singing this song.’ (D’Urfey, _Sir Barnaby Whigg_, 1681, Act i. scene i. See also _Pills to Purge Melancholy_, vol. i. ed. 1719, p. 96.) This song, which was written by D’Urfey himself, was set to music by Purcell, and may be found in his _Orpheus Britannicus_. The same collection also contains Purcell’s song of _Britons, strike home_, from the opera of _Bonduca_, 1695, which is founded on Fletcher’s play of the same name. It was an adjuration to the ancient Britons to avenge the wrongs which their country and Queen had suffered from the Romans, but seems to have been adopted in the navy as a suitable battle-song. An eighteenth-century pamphlet, describing an action between an English privateer and a French ship, relates the following incident:--‘The master-at-arms had one of his arms and part of his body torn away: in this bloody condition he was carried down to the surgeon, who saying it was impossible to save his life, and the poor man finding himself dying, bravely in his last moments sung the song of “Britons, strike home,” and expired with the words in his mouth’ (_A faithful Narrative of the cruel Sufferings of Captain Death and his crew_, by Samuel Stoakes, 1757 [?], p. 6).