Another class of ballads consists of those written by sailors themselves to describe actions in which they had taken part. A ballad was not a difficult thing to write; the metre was usually simple, the rules about rhyme not exacting, and the traditional formulas and phrases to be employed were familiar. Hence it is not surprising that sailors, and occasionally officers, sometimes undertook to celebrate the exploits of the ships in which they served. Such ballads were produced in considerable frequency in the eighteenth century, and even early in the nineteenth, and some specimens are reprinted in this volume. One written by a seaman on board the Burford, Vernon’s flagship, describes the capture of Portobello; a second, written on board the flagship of Admiral Mathews, relates his battle off Toulon; a third, by a lieutenant of the Bellerophon, celebrates Howe’s victory on the first of June, and is said to have been actually sung in the gun-room of the Bellerophon (pp. 177, 186, 271). In some cases the author reveals himself in the last lines of the ballad. ‘I am a saucy foremast Jack, and to the _Arrow_ do belong,’ says the writer of one upon a sloop of that name. Another on the Robin Hood privateer concludes defiantly: ‘My name is George Cook, the author of this, And he may be hang’d that will take it amiss.’ A third, which narrates the escape of the Princess Royal from being wrecked on the Goodwin Sands, ends by suggesting that the poet should be rewarded for his pains: ‘It was a brisk young sailor that these lines did make, And over a can of flip his heart would never ache.’ (Pp. 290, 267, 191.) There are many other ballads in which it is obvious that the writer was personally concerned in the incidents which form the subject of his verses, although no explicit avowal is actually made.