The Famous Sea-Fight between Captain Ward and the Rain-bow.
To the Tune of Captain
Ward.
STrike up you lusty Gallants,
with Musick and sound of Drum.
For we have discryed a Rower.
upon the Sea is come.
His name is
Captain Ward,
right well it doth appear:
There has not béen such a Rower
found out this thousand years.
For he has sent unto our King,
the sixth of
January,
Desiring that he might come in
with all his company.
And if your King will let me come,
till I my tale have told,
I will bestow for my ransome,
full thirty Tun of Gold.
O nay, O nay, then sayes our King,
O nay this may not be,
To yield to such a Rower,
my self will not agree.
He has deceived the Frenchman,
likewise the King of Spain:
And how can he be true to me
that hath been false to twain.
With that our King provided,
a Ship of worthy fame,
Rainbow she is so called,
if you would know her name.
Now the gallant Rainbow,
she Rowes up on the Sea,
Five hundred gallant Seamen
do bear her company.
The Dutch man, and the Spaniard,
she made them for to flye,
Also the bony Frenchman,
as she mot them on the Sea.
WHen as this Gallant Rainbow,
did come where
Ward did lie,
Where is the Captain of this Ship,
this gallant Rainbow did cry.
O that am I sayes Captain
Ward,
there's no man bids me lye,
And if thou art the Kings fair Ship,
thou art welcome unto me.
I'le tell thee what sayes
Rainbow,
our King is in great grief,
That thou shouldst lye upon the Sea
and play the Arrant thief.
And will not let our Merchant Ships
passe as they did before,
Such tidings to our King is come
which grieves his heart full sore.
With that this gallant
Rainbow,
she shot out of her pride.
Full fifty gallant brasse pieces
charged on every side.
Although these gallant shooters,
prevailed not a pin,
Though they were brass on the outside
yet
Ward was steel within.
shoot on shoot on, sayes Captain
Ward,
your sport well pleaseth me,
And he that first give over,
shall yield unto the Sea.
I never wronged an English ship,
but the Turk and King of Spain,
For and the Iovial Dutchman,
as I met on the main.
If I had known your Ki
[...]g,
but one two years before,
I would have s
[...]ed brave
Essex life,
whose death did grieve me sore.
Go tell the King of
England,
go tell him thus from me,
If he Raign King of all the Land,
I will raign King at Sea.
With that the Royal
Rainbow shot,
and shot, and shot in vain,
And left the Rovers company,
and returned home again.
Our Royal King of
England,
your Ship's return'd again,
For
Wards ship is so strong,
she never will be tane.
O everlasting sayes our King,
I have lost Iewels three,
Which would agone to the Seas,
and brought proud
Ward to me.
The first was Lord
Clifford,
Earle of
Cumberland.
The second was the Lord
Mountjoy,
as you shall understand.
The third was brave
Essex,
from field would never flée,
Who would have gone unto the Sea,
and brought proud
Ward to me.
London, Printed for Fr. Coles at the sign of the Lamb in the Old-Baily.