Smollett gives it that in April 1726, Hosier was sent, with a powerful fleet, "to block up the galleons in the ports of the Spanish West Indies, or, should they presume to come out, to seize and carry them into England." He was another victim to red-tape procedure as made at home. He was not to attack the ports. So after long lying about off Porto-Bello and Bastimentos, seeing his officers and men go down by the dozen with fever and dysentery, and being the butt of the Spaniards' derision, he sailed for Cartagena; where he remained, still losing hands, till he died of a broken heart. Glover's ballad became so popular that it was at last parodied by an unknown scribe; and where one was heard, in public, the other was screeched out, till at last the parody was left in possession of "the Town," and presently died for lack of its parent to feed on-as most parodies do when the original is no longer on the popular tongue.

"SIR ANDREWE BARTON."

As this ballad is the record of a piratical fight (much as Scots writers, like Americans concerning Paul Jones, have refused to look on Barton as a rover), it may seem to be out of place amongst stories of naval fights. But behind it there was, so far as one can ascertain at this day, a matter of great national importance. What we know is this: A Scots merchant seaman named Barton had a valuable cargo taken from him by the Portuguese; being unable to gain redress, he secured a letter-ofmarque from James IV, which apparently remained in force so long that Barton's sons- some accounts say two, as the ballad has it, others give the number as three-eventually practised common piracy on Portuguese and English craft, mainly in the lower part of the English Channel, under that letter. The depredations of Andrew became notorious in most of the ports of England. Then, in June 1511, the Earl of Surrey said, at the King's Council, that if his Majesty did not move in the matter he himself would "furnish out a ship" to meet

and destroy the pirate. The result was that two vessels were fitted out under the command of the Earl's two sons, Sir Edmund-or Edward and Sir Thomas. After cruising about for some time they fell in with Barton (there appears to be some doubt as to whether he was a knight or not), whose vessel was named Lion. Sir Thomas engaged him, while Sir Edward did the same with Barton's other craft, the Union. The fight was protracted; but the Howards won, and took the damaged Lion to Deptford on August 2, 1511-or 1512, as Burton has it in his "History of Scotland." Now it became the turn of James to seek redress from Henry; but the English king refused. It has evidently been the opinion of English writers that James had a material interest in Barton's piracy; whether so or not, he continued for some time to trouble Henry for a monetary payment on the loss of Barton and his vessels, and was so greatly chagrined at his non-success that the affair seems to have been almost the beginning of James's animosity towards Henry. Whilst this went on an English army joined issue with Spain against France. James remained friendly to the old ally of his country; and the Queen of France wrote to him a letter in which she dubbed herself his mistress and entreated him to amass an army and advance into England, if only a few feet, in the hope that such a move would compel Henry to draw off his allies to the Spaniards. Inflamed by this letter and embittered by Bluff King Hal's treatment of the Barton matter, James gathered together an army of 30,000 men, crossed the border and there dallied about-contrary to the strenuous advice of both his counsellors and his queen, who was the daughter of Henry VII-till the Earl of Surrey (the father of Barton's conquerors) scratched up 32,000 men and hurried north. The result was Flodden Field, Scotland's most disastrous battle, in which the Sir Edmund of the ballad, as leader of the right wing of the English army, defeated by the left wing of the Scots under the Earls of Home and Huntly. Thus, in a way, a piratical encounter in the English Channel was partially the cause of Flodden Field.

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