DUEL BETWEEN FRENCH AND ENGLISH SHIPS.
Chaucer gives us a graphic description of the British sailor of the fourteenth century in his Prologue to the “Canterbury Tales,” It runs as follows:—
“A schipman was ther, wonyng fer by Weste:
For ought I woot, he was of Dertemouthe,
He rood upon a rouncy, as he couthe,
In a goun of faldying to the kne.
A dagger hangyng on a laas hadde he
Aboute his nekke under his arm adoun.
The hoote somer had maad his hew al broun;