Dibdin’s songs exercised a very powerful effect on landsmen, and contributed greatly to foster national pride in the navy and popular sympathy with sailors.  It was presumably a cordial recognition of this fact that led Pitt to grant him a pension.  It would, indeed, be difficult to conceive poetry more calculated to make the chord of national sentiment vibrate responsively than “Tom Bowling” or that well-known song in which Dibdin depicted at once the high sense of duty and the rough, albeit affectionate, love-making of “Poor Jack”: 

    I said to our Poll, for, d’ye see, she would cry,
      When last we made anchor for sea,
    What argufies sniv’ling and piping your eye? 
      Why, what a damn’d fool you must be!
          . . . . . 
    As for me in all weathers, all times, tides and ends,
      Nought’s a trouble from duty that springs,
    For my heart is my Poll’s, and my rhino my friend’s,
      And as for my life it’s the King’s;
    Even when my time comes, ne’er believe me so soft
      As for grief to be taken aback,
    For the same little cherub that sits up aloft
      Will look out a good berth for poor Jack!

Pride in the navy and its commanders is breathed forth in the following eulogy of Admiral Jervis (Lord St. Vincent): 

    You’ve heard, I s’pose, the people talk
      Of Benbow and Boscawen,
    Of Anson, Pocock, Vernon, Hawke,
      And many more then going;
    All pretty lads, and brave, and rum,
      That seed much noble service;
    But, Lord, their merit’s all a hum,
      Compared to Admiral Jervis!

“Tom Tough” is an example of the same spirit: 

    I’ve sailed with gallant Howe, I’ve sailed with noble Jervis,
      And in valiant Duncan’s fleet I’ve sung yo, heave ho! 
                Yet more ye shall be knowing,
                I was cox’n to Boscawen,
      And even with brave Hawke have I nobly faced the foe.

Perfervid patriotism and ardent loyalty find expression in the following swinging lines: 

    Some drank our Queen, and some our land,
      Our glorious land of freedom;
    Some that our tars might never stand
      For heroes brave to lead ’em! 
    That beauty in distress might find
      Such friends as ne’er would fail her;
    But the standing toast that pleased the most
      Was—­the wind that blows, the ship that goes,
    And the lass that loves the sailor!

The whole-hearted Gallophobia which prevailed at the period, but which did not preclude generous admiration for a gallant foe, finds, of course, adequate expression in most of the songs of the period.  Thus an unknown author, who, it is believed, lived at the commencement rather than at the close of the eighteenth century, wrote: