The Sailor's Garland ; or, The Ticket Buyer's Lamentation

God prosper long our noble King, his fleet and sailors all,
And grant that they their pay may have, and pride may have a fall.

Where courage stout and noble blood within the heart doth reign,
There pity soft for others' woes doth pant in every vein.

Our gracious King, by pity moved to do his sailors right,
To Parliament did recommend their sad and woful plight.

A usurer in Lothbury, a Jew of high renown,
Hearing the sailors would be paid strait hasted up to town ;

All in his hall the clerks amazed and agents, frighted sore,
'Adieu,' cried out, ' for-ty per cent, Adieu for evermore.'

The Jew he sighed, 'Alack, my head and heart it acheth much !
But hold,' says he, ' I've got it now. Pray tell me won't they touch ?

'What, pay the Navy all, d'you say ? Sure that can never be,
For then much greater men must lose their trades as well as we.

'A Sanhedrim we straight must call upon a thing so new.
Go summon all, great Shylock first; he's trusty and true blue.'

While yet he spake, lo at the gate, the head of all the tribe,
Shylock, appear'd, the most expert at counsel or at bribe.

His chatter and his laugh so loud was heard quite to the door;
His belly, of enormous size, came strutting in before.

Soon tawny Shadrach plodded in, whose face and wig contend
Which in their hue most like shall be to Belzeebub the feind.

Shadrach from father circumcis'd a wight descended sure,
Either from Abraham the Jew or Ismael the Moor.

'I stopt,' quoth he, ' by precedent the pinch-gut halfpenny,
Tho' tars on short allowance starv'd, and better they than we.'

From Tower Hill with hang-dog look came one would move your pity.
'What, no more tickets, sir ?' said he ; ' 'twill ruin our trading city.'

Quoth Shylock with a grin, ' My friends, when ships to Greenland sail
They dexterously throw out a tub to fool the mighty whale.

'Prompt payment publickly to blame may prove a dangerous scheme;
Another project we'll propose for to direct the stream.

'Something, be sure, must needs be paid. Let's give them two months' certain:
The other four you friends shall share with me behind the curtain.

'Their wages too we must advance some shillings augmentation :
What tho' it freightage should destroy, that only hurts the nation.

'As toasted cheese the mouse allures within the trap to venture,
Such baits as these will surely make the heedless seamen enter.

'When once they're caught we'll turn 'em o'er for ever and for ay;
They'll then be volunteers for life, and we'll divide their pay.

'Whilst cent, per cent, our friends can gain we are sure of being courted,
Nor can the sailors well complain, for they will be transported.'

But these their plots we know our liege will all to nothing bring;
Then sailors may throw up their caps and cry, ' God save the
King.'