Come all ye jolly sailors bold,
           Lend an ear—lend an ear—
       Come all you sailors bold,
           Lend an ear.
      "Tis of our admiral's fame,
       Brave Benbow called by name,
       How he fought on the main,
           You shall hear—you shall hear.

Admiral Benbow was a great favourite
among the sailors, who, then as now, would
cheerfully forgive any fault in a
commander, if he were but brave. And Benbow
was in his day and profession amongst
the very bravest of the brave men who
have helped to make England the first
naval power in the world. The admiral's
last battle was in West India waters in
January, 1702, when he assailed a French
fleet, of force far superior to his own;
behaved very gallantly, was severely
wounded, and would, it was universally
thought in England when the facts became
known, have gained a great victory, had
not four of his ships neglected to come to
his assistance. The four offenders were
tried by court-martial; two of them,
Captains Kirby and Ware, were shot, a third
died before trial, and the fourth, who
appeared to have been stupid rather than
cowardly or mutinous, was sentenced to
imprisonment for life. The admiral died
of his wounds shortly afterwards. The
most noted of the many songs that bear
his name was inspired by this last achievement,
and was not unfrequently to be
heard in Greenwich Hospital, before the
removal of the old sailors. The air to
which it is sung is a characteristic old
English melody, and the literature of the
composition, though by no means classical,
is good enough for its purpose, and tells
the story plainly, and in words such as
sailors can understand. Its first stanza
runs:

Oh! we sailed to Virginia and thence to Fayal,
Where we watered our shipping, and then we weigh'd
    all,
Full in view on the seas, boys, seven sail we did espy!
Oh! we mannèd our capstan, and weigh'd speedilie!

The song concludes, after five historical
verses describing the battle:

Come all you brave fellows, wherever you've been,
Let us drink to the health of our King and our Queen,
And another good health to the girls that we know,
And a third in remembrance of brave Admiral Benbow.

The famous song, ode, or anthem, of
Rule Britannia, is quite as much a military
as a naval song; but may, from its
celebrated chorus of
      Rule Britannia! Britannia rules the waves!
      Britons never will be slaves,
be included among the maritime lyrics. It
was written by James Thomson, author of
the Seasons, amended by Lord Bolingbroke,
and produced, in 1740, with the
music expressly composed for it by Dr.
Arne, in the Masque of Alfred, at Clifden
House, near Maidenhead, then tenanted by
the Prince of Wales. The occasion was
to celebrate the birthday of the young
Princess Augusta. The Prince of Wales,
afterwards George the Second, the same
who said "he hated Boetry and Bainting,"
did not understand the words, but he
appreciated the subject and the music. The
song speedily became popular, and still
promises, as Southey said of it, "to be the
political hymn of this country, as long as
she maintains her power."

A spirited, though somewhat doleful
ballad, very popular in its day, was written
by Glover, the author of Leonidas, in 1739,
on the occasion of the taking of Portobello
from the Spanish by the fleet under
Admiral Vernon. It was entitled Admiral
Hosier's Ghost, and set forth the wrongs
endured by that gallant sailor thirteen
years previously, when he, too, could have
taken Portobello, had he not received what
the nation considered the "shameful order"
not to fight. The ghost of the Admiral
is supposed to rise from the water in the
moonlight, together with three thousand
other ghosts of British officers and seamen,
while Hosier conjures Admiral Vernon to
carry home to England the recital of his
sad story:

I, by twenty sail attended,
    Did this Spanish town affright;
Nothing then its wealth defended,
    But my orders "not to fight!"
Oh! that in the rolling ocean,
    I had cast them with disdain!
And obeyed my heart's warm motion,
    To have quelled the pride of Spain.

Thus like thee, proud Spain dismaying,
    And her galleons leading home,
Though condemned for disobeying,
    I had met a traitor's doom;
To have fallen, my country crying,
    "He has played an English part!"
Had been better far than dying,
    Of a grieved and broken heart.

"This song," says Ritson, "was written
with a design to incense the public against
the maladministration of Sir Robert
Walpole." It was sung to the old air of
another sea song of no merit, Come and Listen
to my Ditty, all You Jolly Hearts of Gold;
an air that shortly afterwards was
introduced to the public under better auspices
by Mr.G.A.Stevens, with perhaps the
most popular of the sea songs that continue
to be sung by sailors. This song describes