A third old sea-song gives voice to the universal complaint that landsmen cheat sailors who come home flush of gold.

   For Sailors they be honest men,
     And they do take great pains,
   But Land-men and ruffling lads
     Do rob them of their gains.

Here, too, is some Cordial Advice against the wiles of the sea, addressed To all rash young Men, who think to Advance their decaying Fortunes by Navigation, as most of the sea-dogs (and gentlemen-adventurers like Gilbert, Raleigh, and Cavendish) tried to do.

   You merchant men of Billingsgate,
     I wonder how you thrive. 
   You bargain with men for six months
     And pay them but for five.

This was an abuse that took a long time to die out.  Even well on in the nineteenth century, and sometimes even on board of steamers, victualling was only by the lunar month though service went by the calendar.

   A cursed cat with thrice three tails
     Doth much increase our woe

is a poetical way of putting another seaman’s grievance.

People who regret that there is such a discrepancy between genuine sea-songs and shore-going imitations will be glad to know that the Mermaid is genuine, though the usual air to which it was sung afloat was harsh and decidedly inferior to the one used ashore.  This example of the old ‘fore-bitters’ (so-called because sung from the fore-bitts, a convenient mass of stout timbers near the foremast) did not luxuriate in the repetitions of its shore-going rival:  With a comb and a glass in her hand, her hand, her hand, etc.

Solo.  On Friday morn as we set sail
It was not far from land,
Oh, there I spied a fair pretty maid
With a comb and a glass in her hand.

Chorus.  The stormy winds did blow,
And the raging seas did roar,
While we poor Sailors went to the tops
And the land lubbers laid below.

The anonymous author of a curious composition entitled The Complaynt of Scotland, written in 1548, seems to be the only man who took more interest in the means than in the ends of seamanship.  He was undoubtedly a landsman.  But he loved the things of the sea; and his work is well worth reading as a vocabulary of the lingo that was used on board a Tudor ship.  When the seamen sang it sounded like ‘an echo in a cave.’  Many of the outlandish words were Mediterranean terms which the scientific Italian navigators had brought north.  Others were of Oriental origin, which was very natural in view of the long connection between East and West at sea.  Admiral, for instance, comes from the Arabic for a commander-in-chief. Amir-al-bahr means commander of the sea.  Most of the nautical technicalities would strike a seaman of the present day as being quite modern.  The sixteenth-century skipper would be readily understood by a twentieth-century helmsman in the case of such orders as these:  Keep full and by!  Luff!  Con her!  Steady!  Keep close! Our modern sailor in the navy, however, would be hopelessly lost in trying to follow directions like the following:  Make ready your cannons, middle culverins, bastard culverins, falcons, sakers, slings, headsticks, murderers, passevolants, bazzils, dogges, crook arquebusses, calivers, and hail shot!