glish
seamen during the wars of 1808, etc., the author of a pamphlet on
"Naval Subjects" says, that all the best seamen, the steadiest and
best-behaved men, generally succeeded in avoiding the impress. This
writer was, or had been, himself a Captain in the British fleet.

Now it may be easily imagined who are the men, and of what moral
character they are, who, even at the present day, are willing to enlist
as full-grown adults in a service so galling to all shore-manhood as
the Navy. Hence it comes that the skulkers and scoundrels of all sorts
in a man-of-war are chiefly composed not of regular seamen, but of
these "dock-lopers" of landsmen, men who enter the Navy to draw their
grog and murder their time in the notorious idleness of a frigate. But
if so idle, why not reduce the number of a man-of-war's crew, and
reasonably keep employed the rest? It cannot be done. In the first
place, the magnitude of most of these ships requires a large number of
hands to brace the heavy yards, hoist the enormous top-sails, and weigh
the ponderous anchor. And though the occasion for the employment of so
many men comes but seldom, it is true, yet when that occasion _does_
come--and come it may at any moment--this multitude of men are
indispensable.

But besides this, and to crown all, the batteries must be manned. There
must be enough men to work all the guns at one time. And thus, in order
to have a sufficiency of mortals at hand to "sink, burn and destroy;" a
man-of-war, through her vices, hopelessly depraving the volunteer
landsmen and ordinary seamen of good habits, who occasionally
enlist--must feed at the public cost a multitude of persons, who, if
they did not find a home in the Navy, would probably fall on the
parish, or linger out their days in a prison.

Among others, these are the men into whose mouths Dibdin puts his
patriotic verses, full of sea-chivalry and romance. With an exception
in the last line, they might be sung with equal propriety by both
English and American man-of-war's-men.

"As for me, in all weathers, all times, tides, and ends,
Naught's a trouble from duty that springs;
For my heart is my Poll's, and my rhino's my friends,
And as for my life, it's the king's.

To rancour unknown, to no passion a slave,
Nor unmanly, nor mean, nor a railer," etc.

I do not unite with a high critical authority in considering Dibdin's
ditties as "slang songs," for most of them br