“A prosperous gale attend his motion; and a Christian vote and blessing be present, in all their debates and consultations, for doubtless, ’tis a sacrifice pleasing both to God and man, and plainly denotes unto the people of England, that our magistrates had rather bring home exiles, than make more.”[485]
After the Restoration the name of this ship was changed into the Royal Charles, (which also occurs as a sign,) that ill-fated ship taken by the Dutch in 1667, when, under Admiral de Ruyter, they made their descent on Chatham and Sheerness, and burnt a part of our fleet. The Royal Charles was one of the ships they took away. Its stern is still kept as a trophy in Rotterdam.
Ships occur in various conditions, as the Full Ship, Hull; Ship in Dock, Dartmouth; and the Ship on Launch, in every ship-building locality. The Ship in Full Sail was the sign of the first shop of Murray the publisher, in Fleet Street—probably in opposition to Longman, who had the Ship at Anchor. The Ship in Distress is a touching appeal to the good-natured wayfarer to assist in keeping the pump going. At Brighton, there was such a sign in the last century, on which the poet had assisted the painter to invoke the sympathy of the thirsty public:—
“With sorrows I am compass’d round,
Pray lend a hand, my ship’s aground.”
The Ship is to be met with in innumerable combinations: the Ship and Pilot Boat, Narrow Quay, Bristol; the Ship And Anchor is not uncommon, and in one place, at Chipping Norton, it is quaintly corrupted into the Sheep and Anchor;[486] the Ship and Whale, in compliment to the Greenland Fishery, occurs at South Shields, and the Ship and Notchblock is a sailor’s coffee-house in the Ratcliff Highway. All these explain themselves; most of the other combinations seem to result from the quartering of two signs, as the Ship and Bell, Horn Dean, Hants; the Ship and Fox, “next door but one to the Five Bells tavern, near the Maypole in the Strand,” in 1711; the Ship and Star on a trades token of Cornhill, may be the north star by which ancient mariners used to navigate; the Ship and Rainbow is common to many places; the Ship and Shovel, Tooley Street; said to be a deterioration of the Sir Cloudesley Shovel, but more likely alluding to the shovels used in taking out ballast, coal, corn, (when in bulk) and various other cargoes; the Ship and Plough, Hull; the Ship and Blue Coat Boy, Walworth Road, although susceptible of explanations, are doubtless only but quarterings. The Ship and Castle, though of common occurrence, seemed to puzzle the public already in the seventeenth century:—
“What resemblance the Ship and the Castle may bear
To ships floating on clouds, or to castles in air,
We know not; but this we are sure of, ’tis plain
Their clarets are perfectly Leger-de-Main.”
Search after Claret, 1691, canto I.
If not a combination of two signs, it may have some reference to our national defences. It was a sign in Cornhill as early as 1716, when, on November 9, the newspapers conveyed the following information to the metropolis:—
“We are informed that this day a fowl was roasted in a wonderful sun-kitchen on the top of the Ship and Castle tavern, Cornhill, in view of many gentlemen. The artist performer, who is a gentleman newly come from France, proposes to roast and boil meat, bake bread, prepare tea and coffee, and all kitchenwork done without common fire; some particular thing to be seen every day that the sun shines out brightly. ’Twas observable that when the fowl was dressed, it had the same taste and smell as if done by a common fire. The machine is composed of about a hundred small looking or convex-glasses.”
The scheme, seemingly, did not succeed in dethroning “old king coal,” for if we had to depend on the sun for our cookery, it is to be feared we would often have cold cheer.