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INTRODUCTION lxxxvii
Captain Death and the Terrible were celebrated in the ballad and the poem printed on pp. 204-5.
A common form of song is one which takes the form of an invitation to enter on board a privateer under some popular captain. Of this there are many specimens in existence, and two are here reprinted (pp. 225, 226). The Lord Anson and the Hawke were two Liverpool privateers which made many captures in 1756 and 1757 (Williams, pp. 87-95). The Blandford was a Bristol ship, though Captain Stonehouse seems to have been a Liverpool man (ib. p. 186). In these and similar invitations the prospect of plunder naturally holds the first place. A Newcastle song says :
If we should meet with a galloon, Our own we'll make her very soon, The drums shall beat and music play, To the Antigallican haste away. •
To Charlotte's Head then let's repair, We'll be received with welcome there ; We'll enter, then without delay, To the Antigallican haste away.
(Rhymes of Northern Bards, by John Bell, 1812, p. 320). Another song, called The Sailors Courtship to the Lady's Waiting-Maid, treats the argument sentimentally:
My love she does wait on a lady so fair,
And I do belong to a stout privateer ;
Rich prizes I've taken since the wars did begin,
From the lofty monsieurs and brought them all in.
And now of [these] riches my love shall have share, For she shall be drest in rich silks most rare.. With ribbons and rings my jewel I'll deck, And a fine chain of gold to hang round her neck. |
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