Arethusa, The

DESCRIPTION: "Come all ye jolly Sailors bold, Whose hearts are cast in honours mould." The frigate, with two hundred men, fights a French ship with 500 off the French coast. "We fought till not a stick would stand Of the gallant Arethusa" and force the French ashore
AUTHOR: Prince Hoare (1755-1834) (Source: Bodleian web site; Stone-SeaSongsAndBallads; Uden/Cooper)
EARLIEST DATE: 1891 (Ashton-RealSailorSongs)
KEYWORDS: navy battle
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
17 Jun 1778 - The Belle Poule/Arethusa fight
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (4 citations):
Ashton-RealSailorSongs, #7 insert, "The Arethusa" (1 text)
Kinsey-SongsOfTheSea, pp. 151-152, "The Arethusa" (1 text, 1 tune)
Stone-SeaSongsAndBallads LXIV, pp. 121-122, "The Arethusa" (1 text)
ADDITIONAL: Reginald Nettel, _Seven Centuries of Popular Song_, Phoenix House, 1956, p. 167, "(no title)" (1 partial text)
ST AshS007i (Partial)
Roud #12675
BROADSIDES:
Bodleian, Harding B 28(177), "The Arethusa," W. Armstrong (Liverpool), 1820-1824=Harding B 28(177); also Harding B 11(102); Harding B 11(2502), "The Arethusa," J. Catnach (London), 1813-1838; Harding B 16(188a), "On board of the Arethusa," W. Forth (Bridlington)=Firth c.12(58); Harding B 11(104), J. Harkness (Preston), 1840-1866; Firth c.12(56), H. Such (London), 1863-1885=Harding B 11(103); Harding B 11(1558), W. and T Fordyce, J. Whinham and Co. (Newcastle), c. 1840
NOTES [134 words]: According to Grant Uden and Richard Cooper, A Dictionary of British Ships and Seamen, 1980 (I use the 1981 St. Martin's Press edition), p. 24, the Arethusa "(38 guns) was commanded by the famous frigate captain Sir Edward Pellow (later Lord Exmouth). She gained the sobriquet 'Saucy,' first given in a somewhat doggerel poem, 'The Arethusa', by Prince Hoare (1755-1834). The poem referred to an action against the French Belle Poule (in which, as a matter of fact, the Arethusa got the worst of it!)." The entry then quotes the first stanza of the poem.
For those who wish to learn more, the fight has a Wikipedia page, and was apparently the subject of several paintings. It is considered to have been the first naval skirmish between the British and French in the American Revolutionary War. - RBW
Last updated in version 6.5
File: AshS007i

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