Songs

The beautiful working-songs and shanties of the merchant ships had no place in the Royal Navy, which was a silent service. But even so, there was music aboard a man-of-war: when the grog was served out the ship’s fifer or fiddler played ‘Nancy Dawson’, or ‘Sally in our Alley’; when the men were drummed to quarters it was to the tune of ‘Heart of Oak’; and when the anchor was being weighed the fiddler sat on the capstan and struck up ‘Drops of Brandy’. And then of course there were the songs and ballads the sailors sang, particularly on a Saturday night at sea. Here is one of the most popular of them:

Farewell and adieu to you fine Spanish ladies,

Farewell and adieu all you ladies of Spain,

For we’ve received orders to sail for old England

And perhaps we shall never more see you again.

We’ll rant and we’ll roar like true British sailors,

We’ll range and we’ll roam over all the salt seas,

Until we strike soundings in the Channel of old England –

From Ushant to Scilly ’tis thirty-five leagues.

We hove our ship to when the wind was sou’west, boys,

We hove our ship to for to strike soundings clear,

Then we filled our main-tops’l and bore right away, boys,

And right up the Channel our course we did steer.

We’ll rant and we’ll roar, etc.

The first land we made is known as the Dodman,

Next Ram Head near Plymouth, Start, Portland and Wight;

We sailèd past Beachy, past Fairley and Dungeness,

And then bore away for the South Foreland light.

We’ll rant and we’ll roar, etc.

Then the signal is made for the Grand Fleet to anchor

All all in the Downs that night for to meet,

So stand by your stoppers, see clear your shank-painters,

Haul all your clew-garnets, stick out tacks and sheets.

We’ll rant and we’ll roar, etc.

Now let every man toss off a full bumper,

Now let every man toss off a full bowl,

For we will be jolly and drown melancholy

In a health to each jovial and true-hearted soul.

We’ll rant and we’ll roar, etc.

And here is part of a home-made ballad, one of the many composed and sung by sailors:

I’ll tell you of a fight, boys, and how it did begin.

It was in Gibraltar Gut, which is nigh unto Apes’ Hill;

It was three privateers that belonged unto Spain

Who thought our British courage for to stain.

I’ll tell you, brother sailors: it was on a calm day,

Then one of the privateers they boarded us straightaway:

They hove in their powder-flasks and their stink-pots,

But we repaid them with our small shot.

They being in number three hundred and more,

And is not equal, you’ll say, unto threescore:

But now I will tell you the courage of our men,

That we valued them not, if they had been ten.

Our small arms did rattle, and our great guns did roar,

Till one of them we sank, and the other run ashore;

Such a slaughter we made as you seldom shall see,

Till an hundred and eighty we drown’d in the sea.

Our fight being over, and our fray being done,

And every man then scowering his gun,

And every man to a full flowing bowl;

Here’s a health to all British loyal souls.

My name is George Cook, the author of this,

And he may be hang’d that will take it amiss.

And here is another, about the action between HMS Nymphe and the French frigate Cléopâtre in June 1793:

Come, all you British heroes, listen to what I say;

’Tis of a noble battle that was fought the other day;

And such a sharp engagement we hardly ever knew:

Our officers were valiant and our sailors so true.

The La Nymphe was our frigate, and she carried a valiant crew,

With thirty-six twelve-pounders, that made the French to rue.

At daylight in the morning the French hove in sight;

Captain Pellew he commanded us in this fight.

Full forty eighteen-pounders we had for to engage;

The French they thought to confound us, they seemed so much enrag’d.

Our captain cry’d, ‘Be steady, boys, and well supply each gun;

We’ll take this haughty Frenchman, or force her for to run!’

The action then began, my boys, with shot on every side;

They thought her weight of metal would soon subdue our pride.

I think the second broadside her captain he was slain,

And many a valiant Frenchman upon the decks were lain.

We fought her with such fury, made every shot to tell,

And thirteen brave seamen in our ship there fell,

Tho’ forty-five minutes was the time this fight did last,

The French ship lost her tiller and likewise her mizen mast.

Then yard arm and yard arm we by each other lay,

And sure such noble courage to each other did display;

We form’d a resolution to give the French a check,

And instantly we boarded her off the quarter-deck.

Her colours being struck, my boys, she then became our prize,

And our young ship’s company subdued our enemies,

Altho’ they were superior in metal and in men.

Of such engagements you may seldom hear again.

And now in Portsmouth Harbour our prize is safely moor’d.

Success to all brave sailors that enter now on board;

A health to Captain Pellew, and all his sailors bold,

Who value more their honour than misers do their gold.

Which is not a bad note on which to finish a short account of the Royal Navy of Nelson, St Vincent, Duncan, Howe, Cochrane, Seymour and a hundred thousand other true-hearted seamen.