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Intricate cases are the tacklings, executions the anchors, capiases the cables, chancery bills the huge sails, a long term the mast, law the helm, a judge the pilot, a counsel the purser, an attorney the boatswain, his Setting clerk the swabber, bonds the waves, outlawries gust, the verdict of juries rough wind, extents the knocks that split all in pieces.
How I have heard him cried up for his John Swabber, and Simpleton the Smith; in which he being to appear with a large piece of bread and butter, I have frequently known several of the female spectators and auditors to long for it; and once that well-known natural, Jack Adams of Clerkenwell, seeing him with bread and butter on the stage, and knowing him, cried out, 'Cuz!
"If you want to know all about it, you young swabber, I may tell you I stood on the Naiad's gun-deck with better folk than you are ever likely to come across" he stamped his foot here as if he had the deck under him "when, with one broadside from the Dictator, the three masts and bowsprit were shot away, and the main deck came crashing down upon the lower;" the last sentence was taken from 'Exploits of Danish and Norwegian Naval Heroes, and the old man was as proud of these lines as he would have been of a medal.
A genial sailor-man and an equally ungenial deck swabber advised him, in totally different styles of address, to stay below if he knew what was good for him, only to be thanked with all the blitheness of a man who jolly well knows what is good for him, or who doesn't care whether it is good for him or not so long as he is doing the thing that he wants to do.
The earliest mention I have found of a public fire-eater in England is in the correspondence of Sir Henry Watton, under date of June 3rd, 1633. He speaks of an Englishman "like some swabber of a ship, come from the Indies, where he has learned to eat fire as familiarly as ever I saw any eat cakes, even whole glowing brands, which he will crush with his teeth and swallow."
Rowland Gryffin. William Millard. Iohn Twit. Edward Seclemore. Iohn Anwike. Christopher Marshall. Dauid Williams. Nicholas Swabber. Edward Chipping. Siluester Beching. Vincent Cheyne. Hance Walters. Edward Barecombe. Thomas Skeuelabs. William Walters. XXVI. An extract of Master Ralph Lanes letter to M. Richard Hakluyt Esquire, and another Gentleman of the middle Temple, from Virginia.
I'm almost as much ashamed of my countrymen as if I was a Frenchman, and I believe in my heart there i'n't a pin to choose between them; and, before long, we shall hear the very sailors talking that lingo, and see never a swabber without a bag and a sword." "He, he, he!-well, 'pon honour," cried Mr. Lovel, "you gentlemen of the ocean have a most severe way of judging." "Severe!
Surely, if this Swabber doth thoroughly take care to discharge this his charge I easily believe that he may have his hands full, and especially if there chance to be any number of Landmen aboard." Under the swabber there was a temporary rate known as the liar. He had to keep the ship clean "without board," in the head, chains, and elsewhere. He held his place but for a week.
'Chirurgeon, look to the wounded, and wind up the slain, and give them three guns for their funerals! Swabber, make clean the ship! Purser, record their names! Watch, be vigilant to keep your berth to windward, that we lose him not, in the night! Gunners, spunge your ordnance! Souldiers, scour your pieces! Carpenters, about your leaks! Boatswain and the rest, repair sails and shrouds!
Three men scuffed by, sanding the decks. D'ri was leaning placidly over the big gun. He looked off at the white line, squinted knowingly, and spat over the bulwarks. Then he straightened up, tilting his hat to his right ear. "They 're p'intin' their guns," said a swabber. "Fust they know they'll git spit on," said D'ri, calmly.
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