With Monmouth cap and cutlass by my side,
Strutting at least a yard at every stride,
I'm come to tell you (after much petition)
The admiralty has given me a commission,
And now with Tourville I'll engage,
And try my fortune on a floating stage.
What blustering tar at this dare take offense,
While I stand thus to prove my just pretense?
Will he pretend to fight better than I?
'S death! I'd tell him " Damn you, sir, you lie! "
And then I'd ask him how they fought at Rye.
Your Bantry business too was but a fetch
Where you call running, " battering on a stretch. "
But you'll reply, your leaders were to blame,
While I'll condemn you all to bear the shame:
For who the devil e'er refused his meat
Because another had no mind to eat?
" The Dutch were drunk, " you barbarously say,
Pray next do you be drunk too, so you'll stay,
For 'twas your sober fighting lost the day,
For which two millions we at least must pay.
Old Albemarle would say, that men of war
In navy stunk not half enough of tar:
Your o'ergrown pages, and attorney's clerks,
To fight and govern fleets are proper sparks.
Then let the spruce land pirates be content
To swagger in their native element,
And let tarpaulins rule by my consent.
For things now look as if men took commission
To damn all discipline and sow sedition,
And fighting were the least of their ambition!
No matter who comes home with broken bones,
So you but come to touch the patacoons:
The pitch of honor is desire of money,
That paltry coward vice has quite undone ye.
You court preferment on no other score
But to be poorly rich, and basely poor;
For who would not propose a trip to Spain
That has in's prospect double gain,
To line his pockets, and to save his skin;
For none must fight with merchants' money in.
Your heads run round with Mexico and Seville;
I wish the shipping place were at the devil.
Would the good king had but a just relation,
What infamy, what sums 't has cost the nation,
He'd quickly damn your trade of importation,
And add it to the Act of Navigation;
" But how then shall we love, " you murmurers say,
'S life! can't you be satisfied with double pay?
Show us your twofold merit, sirs, I pray.
Some have got two commands by land and sea,
While one might safely swear (might he be free)
They've neither flesh nor fish nor good red herring,
These are your colonels, captains, with a murrain.
Boldy to those two elements you aspire,
But at an awful distance then you fire.
A few there are (and they are very few)
To whom a fairer character is due:
Time was, when captains went on their own errands
And in their pockets carried their press warrants.
Now you employ the villains of the fleet,
While you date from the Downs in Bedford Street;
But times are altered, 'tis not now as then,
For now you press the money, spare the men.
Those plain dull fellows no such secrets found
To make press warrants worth a hundred pound.
'Tis our fate, our frailty, or disease,
To trust our honor in such hands as these,
Raw in their trade, their principles not right,
With hearts too tender, and with heads too light,
Too weak for council, and too nice to fight.
Their bodies are not made of battering stuff,
Their cracknel carcasses not splinter proof,
And yet will fairly tell a sailor's tale,
But must attempt it in a coat of mail.
Some swaggering bully snaps me short and swears,
" Damn me, these fellows would be kicked down stairs. "
Sirs, by your leaves, do but fight at sea
And then kick down the Monument for me.
The Parliament may plague us with taxation,
But till they cure this grievance of the nation,
Monsieur will make the Narrow Seas his station;
Then what becomes of all our ancient rule,
Our right from Edgar and command from Thule?
Believe me, sirs, it will be then confessed
Your flag's a dishclout, and your claim a jest.
The hardy duke we mentioned, whose great name
Stretched the blown cheeks of trumpet-sounding Fame,
Once boldly tried what Englishmen could do.
But such examples who dare now pursue?
A four days' fight he gloriously maintained,
And what he lost in blood, in honor gained;
To keep that spotless, he the ocean stained,
Each day he tacked, and fought from sun to sun,
Against the odds at least of two for one.
Had you been there, sirs, what would you have done?
He ne'er stood shilly, shally, keep aloof,
But fought as if his skin was cannon proof.
Then all that can be said to do you right,
You'll keep a wind, as long as he did fight.
Strutting at least a yard at every stride,
I'm come to tell you (after much petition)
The admiralty has given me a commission,
And now with Tourville I'll engage,
And try my fortune on a floating stage.
What blustering tar at this dare take offense,
While I stand thus to prove my just pretense?
Will he pretend to fight better than I?
'S death! I'd tell him " Damn you, sir, you lie! "
And then I'd ask him how they fought at Rye.
Your Bantry business too was but a fetch
Where you call running, " battering on a stretch. "
But you'll reply, your leaders were to blame,
While I'll condemn you all to bear the shame:
For who the devil e'er refused his meat
Because another had no mind to eat?
" The Dutch were drunk, " you barbarously say,
Pray next do you be drunk too, so you'll stay,
For 'twas your sober fighting lost the day,
For which two millions we at least must pay.
Old Albemarle would say, that men of war
In navy stunk not half enough of tar:
Your o'ergrown pages, and attorney's clerks,
To fight and govern fleets are proper sparks.
Then let the spruce land pirates be content
To swagger in their native element,
And let tarpaulins rule by my consent.
For things now look as if men took commission
To damn all discipline and sow sedition,
And fighting were the least of their ambition!
No matter who comes home with broken bones,
So you but come to touch the patacoons:
The pitch of honor is desire of money,
That paltry coward vice has quite undone ye.
You court preferment on no other score
But to be poorly rich, and basely poor;
For who would not propose a trip to Spain
That has in's prospect double gain,
To line his pockets, and to save his skin;
For none must fight with merchants' money in.
Your heads run round with Mexico and Seville;
I wish the shipping place were at the devil.
Would the good king had but a just relation,
What infamy, what sums 't has cost the nation,
He'd quickly damn your trade of importation,
And add it to the Act of Navigation;
" But how then shall we love, " you murmurers say,
'S life! can't you be satisfied with double pay?
Show us your twofold merit, sirs, I pray.
Some have got two commands by land and sea,
While one might safely swear (might he be free)
They've neither flesh nor fish nor good red herring,
These are your colonels, captains, with a murrain.
Boldy to those two elements you aspire,
But at an awful distance then you fire.
A few there are (and they are very few)
To whom a fairer character is due:
Time was, when captains went on their own errands
And in their pockets carried their press warrants.
Now you employ the villains of the fleet,
While you date from the Downs in Bedford Street;
But times are altered, 'tis not now as then,
For now you press the money, spare the men.
Those plain dull fellows no such secrets found
To make press warrants worth a hundred pound.
'Tis our fate, our frailty, or disease,
To trust our honor in such hands as these,
Raw in their trade, their principles not right,
With hearts too tender, and with heads too light,
Too weak for council, and too nice to fight.
Their bodies are not made of battering stuff,
Their cracknel carcasses not splinter proof,
And yet will fairly tell a sailor's tale,
But must attempt it in a coat of mail.
Some swaggering bully snaps me short and swears,
" Damn me, these fellows would be kicked down stairs. "
Sirs, by your leaves, do but fight at sea
And then kick down the Monument for me.
The Parliament may plague us with taxation,
But till they cure this grievance of the nation,
Monsieur will make the Narrow Seas his station;
Then what becomes of all our ancient rule,
Our right from Edgar and command from Thule?
Believe me, sirs, it will be then confessed
Your flag's a dishclout, and your claim a jest.
The hardy duke we mentioned, whose great name
Stretched the blown cheeks of trumpet-sounding Fame,
Once boldly tried what Englishmen could do.
But such examples who dare now pursue?
A four days' fight he gloriously maintained,
And what he lost in blood, in honor gained;
To keep that spotless, he the ocean stained,
Each day he tacked, and fought from sun to sun,
Against the odds at least of two for one.
Had you been there, sirs, what would you have done?
He ne'er stood shilly, shally, keep aloof,
But fought as if his skin was cannon proof.
Then all that can be said to do you right,
You'll keep a wind, as long as he did fight.