Benbow and Vernon
H. E. Piggott
With the sea-songs of the early eighteenth century Mr. Piggott finally leaves the field of the shanty and its kind and is obliged to confine himself to the ballad commemorating contemporary victories. However, some even of these have now become traditional ; the authors are forgotten and the ballads survive as folksongs. A typical example is one of the songs about Admiral Benbow, which Cecil Sharp unearthed in Somerset:
' Come, all you seamen bold, and draw near, and draw near ;
Come, all you seamen bold, and draw near.
It's of an admiral's fame, 0 brave
Benbow was his name,
How he fought all on the main, you shall hear, you shall hear.'