Great Britain -- History, Naval -- Poetry; Sea songs -- Great Britain
_The Death of Nelson_, better known as _’Twas in Trafalgar’s Bay_, is
from John Braham’s opera entitled _The Americans_, which was produced
at the Lyceum on April 27, 1811. In Bell and Daldy’s _Sea Songs and
Ballads_, 1863 (p. 263), the words are attributed to Samuel James
Arnold. There is another _Death of Nelson_--a rough and ungrammatical
popular ballad--which seems to deserve reprinting in spite of its
defects, as a testimony to popular feeling in England (p. 302).
Sir Richard Strachan’s victory on November 4, 1805 (Clowes, v. 171), is
the next important event celebrated, and it is treated as completing
Nelson’s work (p. 304). Clowes describes it as ‘a creditable pendant to
Trafalgar’ (_The Royal Navy_, v. 174). Cochrane’s attempt to destroy
the French fleet in the Basque Roads in April 1810 was also made the
subject of a song. ‘Cochrane undaunted’ has his due praise; Gambier
is not mentioned either for good or evil. The rest of the incidents
recorded are cutting out affairs or frigate fights. Yeo’s exploits
on the coast of Spain in 1805, and the capture of the Thetis by the
Amethyst in November 1808, were both held worthy of recognition in
verse (pp. 300, 305; cf. Clowes, v. 362, 427).
In June 1812 the field of the war was widened by President Madison’s
declaration of war against England. This provides us with some ballads
which give the point of view of England’s opponents, and advantageously
supplement the productions of our own soil. A ballad beginning ‘Ye
Parliament of England’ states the case of the United States against
Great Britain, and summarises the naval history of the war for American
hearers (p. 308). ‘It was still,’ says an American, ‘a favourite song
in many parts of the country as late as 1859, and it is valuable as a
reflection of the spirit in which the war of 1812-14 was regarded by
those who fought in it’ (G. C. Eggleston, _American War Ballads_, 1889,
i. 131). The capture of the Guerrière by the Constitution on August
19, 1812, was the subject of an American song subsequently reprinted
as a broadside in London (p. 309). The capture of the Chesapeake by
the Shannon in June 1, 1813, was the subject of three English ballads,
two of which are here reprinted (p. 311). The metre of the best known
is the same as that of the song on the Constitution and Guerrière, and
one was evidently intended as an answer to the other, though it appears
uncertain which was published first. The last of the series narrates
the capture of the President on January 15, 1815, and is called _The
Endymion’s Triumph_. It just mentions the existence of the rest of the
squadron, but does not attribute any part in the result of the fight to
the Pomone or the Tenedos (p. 313).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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