Amongst all these ships, of course, Jack tar could not be forgot. The Ship Friends occur in Sunderland; the Three Mariners is an old sign, of which there are examples among the trades tokens, and which is still to be seen on two or three public-houses in London. There was formerly a tavern known by this sign in Vauxhall.
“On repairing it in 1752, in it was found a remarkably high-elbowed chair covered with purple cloth, and ornamented with gilt nails. An old fisherman told Mr Buckmaster that he had heard his grandfather say, that King Charles II. disguised, used on his water tours with his ladies to frequent the above tavern to play at chess, &c., and that the chair found, was the same as the king sat in. The chair was repaired and kept as a curiosity by the late John Dawson, Esq., but by neglect was, at the pulling down of his old dwelling at Vauxhall in 1777, destroyed. Mr Buckmaster sat in the chair many times, but his feet would not touch the ground. King Charles was very tall. No tavern of this name is known to exist now in Lambeth, but there is one of the sign of the Three Merry Boys,[487] probably a corruption of the above name.”[488]
In other places we meet with the Three Jolly Sailors; at Castleford there used to be one representing the jolly sailors “with a sheet in the wind,” and under it the following professional invitation:—
“Coil up your ropes and anchor here,
Till better weather does appear.”
In North Street, Hull, there is a sign of Jack on a Cruise, not on board H.M. ship, but “out on” what the lands folk call “a spree;” the cruises, however, are generally confined to rather low latitudes. The Boatswain appears to have been a public-house in Wapping in the reign of Charles II., for Wycherly in the “Plain Dealer,” 1676, makes Jerry Blackaire say:—“I should soon be picking up all our own mortgaged apostle spoons, bowls, and beakers, out of most of the ale-houses betwixt Hercules Pillars and the Boatswain in Wapping.” The Boatswain’s Call is a public-house sign in Frederick Street, Portsea, whose invitation the sailors, no doubt, accept with much more pleasure than the boatswain’s call of “all hands on deck” on a frosty winter morning. It was the name of a patriotic sea song during one of the wars with France. Red, White, and Blue, and its synonyme, the Three Admirals, both occur in more than one instance in Liverpool.
The Anchor was, perhaps, set up rather as an emblem than as referring to its use in shipping. It is frequently represented in the catacombs, typifying the words of St Paul, who calls hope “the anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast.” St Ambrose says, “it is this which keeps the Christian from being carried away by the storm of life.” Other early writers use it as a symbol of true faith, and one of them has this beautiful idea:—
“As an anchor cast into the sand will keep the ship in safety, even so hope, ever amidst poverty and tribulation, remains firm, and is sufficient to sustain the soul; though, in the eyes of the world, it may seem but a weak and frail support.”[489]
It was a favourite sign with the early printers, probably in imitation of Aldus.[490] Thus Thomas Vautrollier, a scholar and printer from Paris and Rouen, who came to England about the beginning of Queen Elizabeth’s reign, and established his printing-office in Blackfriars, had an anchor for his sign, with the motto, “Anchora Spei.” At West Bromwich there is an ale-house having the sign of the Anchor with the following inscription:—