Page:Twenty years before the mast - Charles Erskine, 1896.djvu/117

 Upon the ocean’s wide domain our tars are firm and true, sirs, And Freedom’s cause they well maintain, with Yankee Doodle doo, sirs.

The Fourth day of July, ’t is said, — that day will Britain rue, sirs, — An independent tune we played, called Yankee Doodle doo, sirs.

Columbia’s sons then did declare they would be independent, And for King George they would not care, nor yet for his descendant.

The regent thought he’d send a fleet of ships to take our few, sirs, But then to sea our sailors went, playing Yankee Doodle doo, sirs.

The British tars think that they can whip Yankees two to one, sirs, But only give us man for man, — they’ll see what we can do, sirs.

That our tars care no more for France than Britain is most true, sirs, They can make any nation dance to Yankee Doodle doo, sirs.

After this we "spliced the mainbrace" all together, the English drinking their ’alf and ’alf out of pewter mugs,  the French drinking their claret out of very thin glasses,  while our Russian shipmates and ourselves drank something harder out of thick glasses which were very small  at the bottom. Although the Russians had sweet, soft voices, their national song is, like "Rule, Britannia,"  very tame, and extraordinarily short. The Marseillaise Hymn, however, made up for both. It was inspiring.

I have never been in a place where there existed such a low state of society, and where so much drunkenness  was to be seen. There were not only half-dressed, dirty soldiers, but dirty and drunken women, staggering along  the public streets, brawling and fighting, or being carried  off by the police, who, by the way, were the proprietors