clerks and paymasters, who thrived on wholesale and shameless peculation. If by some strange chance, or by a singular strength of constitution, some hardy sailors remained to claim their due, they were paid it grudgingly, without interest, and whittled away by deductions amounting to as much as thirty or forty per cent. [Illustration: THE SAILOR'S RETURN FROM PORTSMOUTH TO LONDON. _Publish'd as the Act directs March 2 1772 by J. Bretherton, N{o}. 134, New Bond Street._] But when a man _did_ receive his pay, together with his prize-money, he was like a school-boy out at play. Nothing was too ridiculous or puerile for him to stoop to, and he was, as a class, so entirely innocent and unsophisticated that the land-sharks waiting hungrily for homeward-bound ships found him an easy prey. Stories innumerable have been told of his childlike innocence of landsmen's ways, and pictures and caricatures without end have been drawn and painted with the object of making men smile at his strange doings. Here is a caricature dated so far back as 1772, showing "The Sailor's Return from Portsmouth to London." The point of view chosen is, apparently, only a mile or two from Portsmouth, for in the background rise some ruins obviously intended to represent Porchester Castle. The sailor, after the manner so often dwelt upon, is keeping up a pleasing travesty of sea-faring life. His jaded nag is a ship, and the course is being steered by the nag's tail. The sailor himself has evidently "come aboard" by the rope-ladder, seen hanging down almost to the ground, and he keeps the fog-horn going to avoid collisions. A flag flies from his top-gallant--in plain English, his hat--while a Union Jack is fixed at the forepeak and an anchor is triced up at the bows, in readiness for "heaving-to." His log might well be that of "Jack Junk" on a similar journey:--"Hove out of Portsmouth on board the 'Britannia Fly'--a swift sailer--got an inside berth--rather drowsy the first watch or so--liked to have slipped off the stern--cast anchor at the 'George'--took a fresh quid and a supply of grog--comforted the upper works--spoke several homeward-bound frigates on the road--and after a tolerable smooth voyage entered the port of London at ten past five, post meridian." [Illustration: TRUE BLUE; OR BRITAIN'S JOLLY TARS PAID OFF AT PORTSMOUTH, 1797. _By Isaac Cruikshank._] [Sidenote: _POOR JACK_]