48 
under Sir Andrew Barton, of Scotland, on the other. Lord 
Howard is represented as having met at Thames mouth a 
merchantman which had been plundered by the Scotch 
admiral, and the captain offered to sail back with him and 
assist in the forthcoming fight if he were armed with a few 
pieces of ordnance. He was also to signal to the English 
admiral when he made out the enemy. The merchant 
captain says : 
‘ Seven pieces of ordnance 
I pray your honor to lend to me, 
One each side of my shipp along, 
And I will lead you on the sea. 
And a glass Fie set that may be seene 
Whether you sayle by day or night, 
And to-morrow I sweare, by nine of the clock 
You shall meet Sir Andrew Barton, Knight.’ 
“It is clear that this glass was some sort of heliographic 
signal, for the ballad goes on to say : 
The merchant set my lorde a glasse 
Soe well apparent in his sight, 
And on the morrow by nine of the clock, 
He showed him Sir Andrew Barton, Knight. 
“ The real credit of the invention of the heliograph there- 
fore belongs to this brave merchant captain, Henry Hunt, 
and even he probably only used a common means of signal- 
ling understood among all sailors four hundred years ago.” 
It would not follow as a matter of course that the ballad 
account of this battle must be regarded as a contemporary 
narrative. The oldest text is that in the Percy Folio, and 
the lines there do not refer so clearly to signalling — 
if you chance Sir Andrew for to bord, 
lett no man to his Topcastle goe ; 
& I will give you a glasse, my Lord, 
