y. He persuaded 'divers young lawyers of the Innes
of Court and Chancerie' to go to Newfoundland. A hundred and twenty men
set off in this modern ship of fools, which ran into Newfoundland at
night and was wrecked. There were no provisions; and none of the 'divers
lawyers' seems to have known how to catch a fish. After trying to live
on wild fruit they took to eating each other, in spite of Master Hore,
who stood up boldly and warned them of the 'Fire to Come.' Just then a
French fishing smack came in; whereupon the lawyers seized her, put her
wretched crew ashore, and sailed away with all the food she had. The
outraged Frenchmen found another vessel, chased the lawyers back to
England, and laid their case before the King, who 'out of his Royall
Bountie' reimbursed the Frenchmen and let the 'divers lawyers' go scot
free.

Hawkins and Hore, and others like them, were the heroes of travellers'
tales. But what was the ordinary life of the sailor who went down to the
sea in the ships of the Tudor age? There are very few quite authentic
descriptions of life afloat before the end of the sixteenth century; and
even then we rarely see the ship and crew about their ordinary work.
Everybody was all agog for marvellous discoveries. Nobody, least of all
a seaman, bothered his head about describing the daily routine on board.
We know, however, that it was a lot of almost incredible hardship. Only
the fittest could survive. Elizabethan landsmen may have been quite as
prone to mistake comfort for civilization as most of the world is said
to be now. Elizabethan sailors, when afloat, most certainly were not;
and for the simple reason that there was no such thing as real comfort
in a ship.

Here are a few verses from the oldest genuine English sea-song known.
They were written down in the fifteenth century, before the discovery
of America, and were probably touched up a little by the scribe. The
original manuscript is now in Trinity College, Cambridge. It is a true
nautical composition--a very rare thing indeed; for genuine sea-songs
didn't often get into print and weren't enjoyed by landsmen when they
did. The setting is that of a merchantman carrying passengers whose
discomforts rather amuse the 'schippemenne.'

Anon the master commandeth fast
To his ship-men in all the hast[e],
To dresse them [line up] soon about the mast
Their takeling to make.

With _Howe! Hissa!_ then they cry,
'What howe! mate thou