Although the claim of Alfred the Great to be the founder of the British navy is now generally rejected by historians, it is certain that from the very earliest times the need of dominating the sea was present in the minds of Englishmen, and that this feeling gained in strength as the centuries rolled on and the value of sea-power became more and more apparent.  In a poem entitled “The Libel of English Policy,” which is believed to have been written about the year 1436, the following lines occur: 

    Kepe then the see abought in specialle,
    Whiche of England is the rounde walle;
    As thoughe England were lykened to a cite. 
    And the walle enviroun were the see. 
    Kepe then the see, that is the walle of England,
    And then is England kepte by Goddes sonde.

A long succession of poets dwelt on the same theme.  Waller—­presumably during a Royalist phase of his chequered career—­addressed the King in lines which forestalled the very modern political idea that a powerful British navy is not only necessary for the security of England, but also affords a guarantee for the peace of all the world: 

    Where’er thy navy spreads her canvas wings
    Homage to thee, and peace to all, she brings.

Thomson’s “Rule, Britannia,” was not composed till 1740, but before that time the heroism displayed both by the navy collectively and by individual sailors was frequently celebrated in popular verse.  The death of Admiral Benbow, who continued to give orders after his leg had been carried off by a chain-shot at the battle of Carthagena in 1702, is recorded in the lines: 

    While the surgeon dressed his wounds
        Thus he said, thus he said,
    While the surgeon dressed his wounds thus he said: 
        “Let my cradle now in haste
        On the quarter-deck be placed,
        That my enemies I may face
    Till I’m dead, till I’m dead.”

But it was more especially the long struggle with Napoleon that led to an outburst of naval poetry.  It is to the national feelings current during this period that we owe such songs as “The Bay of Biscay, O,” by Andrew Cherry; “Hearts of Oak,” by David Garrick[110]; “The Saucy Arethusa,” by Prince Hoare; “A Wet Sheet and a Flowing Sea,” by Allan Cunningham; “Ye Mariners of England,” by Thomas Campbell, and a host of others.  Amongst this nautical choir, Charles Dibdin, who was born in 1745, stands pre-eminent.  Sir Cyprian Bridge, in his introduction to Mr. Stone’s collection of Sea Songs, tells us that it is doubtful whether Dibdin’s songs “were ever very popular on the forecastle.”  The really popular songs, he thinks, were of a much more simple type, and were termed “Fore-bitters,” from the fact that the man who sang them took his place on the fore-bitts, “a stout construction of timber near the foremast, through which many of the principal ropes were led.”  However this may be, there cannot be the smallest doubt that