Where is the subjects' liberty?
And eke where is their property?

We're forc'd to fight for nought, like slaves,
And though we do we're hang'd like knaves.
This is not like Old England's ways:
'New lords, new laws,' the proverb says.

Besides the seamen's pay, that's spent,
The King for stores, ships, and what's lent,
Does owe seven millions at the least,
And ev'ry year his debt's encreast ;
So that we may despair that we
One quarter of our pay shall see.

Foreigners and confederates

Get poor men's pay, rich men's estates;
Brave England does to ruine run,
And Englishmen must be undone.

If this trade last but one half-year
Our wealth and strength is spent, I fear.

God bless our noble Parliament,
And give them the whole government,
That they may see we're worse than ever,
And us from lawless rule deliver;

For England's sinking, unless they
Do take the helm, and better sway.

ADVICE TO YOUNG MAIDENS IN CHUSING OF HUSBANDS.

To the Tune of In the merry month of June.

You pretty maids of Greenwich, of high and low degree,
Pray never fix your fancys on men that go to sea;
The seamen's wives lead careful lives when at the very best,
For, in my mind, in stormy wind they can take but little rest.

Besides the many dangers that are upon the seas,

When they are on the shore they will ramble where they please; For up and down in sea-port town they court both old and young:

They will deceive; do not believe the sailor's flattering tongue.

I give you this advice now, as you may understand,
It being at the time when seamen come to land,

For up and down in Greenwich town the seamen they do trade,
And he doth boast that spends the most; oh! he's a jolly blade.

They likewise treat their sweet-hearts when they are on the shore, But when they are gone perhaps you may never see them more; To-day they wed, at night they bed, to-morrow go to sea : Therefore I say, as well I may, a landman still for me.

The seamen they are gone to sea, and leave there wives at home, To take what care they can; for there parts they'l take none; They tell their friends they do depend upon their husbands' pay, And run in debt, while they expect their money every day.

Suppose you have a sailor, that sails before the mast;

If he's the best of husbands his breath is but a blast:

The roaring waves their wills will have-there's no man can withstand

And he may sleep in the ocean deep whilst you are on the land.

Suppose you have a captain, a person of great fame;
Yet still there is great danger in sailing on the main.
The fates unkind in stormy wind may lay his honour low,
And then his wife, with careful life, laments his overthrow.

Give me an honest tradesman, of high or low degree;
I'll never fix my fancy on a man that goes to sea.
A tradesman's wife's a happy life, if he's an honest man:
He'll take a share in all the care; deny it if you can.

THE SEAMEN'S WIVES' VINDICATION; OR, AN
ANSWER TO THE pretended FROLICK
WHICH WAS SAID TO BE BY THEM OVER
A BOWL OF PUNCH.

You writ that we drank liquor free, but for your writing so
You are to blame-nay, blush for shame-since it was nothing so.

To the Tune of O so ungrateful a creature.

Why does the poets abuse us, we that are seamen's poor wives?
Have they not cause to excuse us, knowing our sorrowful lives?
We are, alas! broken-hearted, as we can very well prove,
When from our joys we are parted, those loyal husbands we love.

You that declare we are jolly do but abuse us, we find,
For we are most melancholly, always tormented in mind:
While that our husbands are sailing on the tempestuous seas
Here we are sighing, bewailing; nothing affordeth us ease.

Here you have newly reported that we are girls of the game, Who do delight to be courted. Are you not highly to blame, Saying we often are merry, punch is the liquor we praise, Though we are known to be weary of these our sorrowful days?

How could you say there was many wives that did drink, rant, and sing,

When I protest there's not any of us that practice this thing?
Are we not forced to borrow, being left here without chink?
Tis in a cup of cold sorrow if we so often do drink.

Tho' we have little to nourish us while our husbands are there, Merchants in London they flourish through their industrious

care.

They are the stay of the nation, men of undaunted renown ; Why should a false accusation run the poor seamen's wives down,

Saying we swallow'd our liquor with a great gossipping crew, Making our tongues to run quicker then they had reason to do? Thus they would blast all our glory by the soft wits of their brains.

He that invented that story was but a fool for his pains.

L

We are so far from such pleasure, making of jolly punch-bowls,
That we lament out of measure, every woman condoles ;
When she in bed should lye sleeping, if the high winds they do

roar,

There she in sorrow is weeping, fearing to see him no more.

They are to dangers exposed, as we may very well guess.
How can our eye-lids be closed in such a time of distress?
You that are free from that [terror], having your husbands secure,
Little consider the horror that we do dayly endure.

Tho' there is joy in our meeting when they come safe from the main,

Yet 'tis a sorrowful greeting when we are parted again :
Landmen in a full fruition feeds on the fat of the land;
This is a happy condition, having all things at command.

Tho' we have not such a plenty, yet I can very well
prove
That there is not one in twenty but who her husband doth love :
You that have caus'd those distractions, writing a story not true,
May be asham'd of your actions, and thus I bid you adieu.

BILLY THE MIDSHIPMAN'S WELCOME HOME.

To the Tune of Ianthe, etc.

MOLLY.

You're welcome, my Billy, to the English shore ;
I hope you'll not cross the rough seas any more.

Many a day too, and many a night,

My heart grieved sore 'cause you were out of sight;
But now, to my comfort, I see you again.

Oh, never, dear Billy, Oh, never, dear Billy,

Sail more on the main.

BILLY.

Dear Molly, said Billy, the joy of my heart,
Daily I thought of you since we did part;

And when the roaring waves mounting high they did move,

In the greatest danger I thought on my love.

The billows did foam, and the rocks they were nigh,
Yet nothing but death, yet nothing but death
Shall my love part and I.

MOLLY.

I thank thee, my dear, for thy firm love to me
In the midst of thy dangers upon the rough sea;
Each night in my bed still as down I was lain
I dreamed of shipwracks upon the salt main;
But now I do find from these dangers I'm free,
Since him that I love, since him that I love
Is come safe unto me.

BILLY.

Indeed, my dear Molly, the Powers above
Preserv'd me from dangers for thy tender love,
For I have been where thundering cannons did roar,
Their bullets like footballs flying from the shoar;
The danger of tempest and cannon balls too

I have undergone, I have undergone

For the sake, love, of you.

MOLLY.

My dearest, it's true, for the fault is in me,

For thou wouldst have wed, but I said, 'Go to sea.'
But when thou wert gone how my heart was opprest!

I scarce had a minute of pleasure and rest,

For by day all my fear was of danger to thee,

And by night I did dream, and by night I did dream
Still of storms on the sea.

BILLY.

My dear, thou dreamst right, for e're we got home
For several days we had storm after storm.
We lost all our masts and our tackle to boot,
In tempestuous nights on the ocean did float.

But, thanks unto Heaven, we had no men lost,

And the brave Royal Sov'rain, the brave Royal Sov'rain Come safe to our coast.