The lyrics for this chest-thumping song were written by two Scots
for a play about King Alfred the Great, and they were sung lastly by merchants and businessmen who saw Britain's future lay with the blue water empire of trade. But someone was in the way of this prosperous future and that someone was Robert Walpole. Merchants felt Walpole was concerned and his cronies cared too much about land and not enough about business. So they were not amused when Walpole raised the taxes on the kind of things that made money for them,beer and coal while making damn sure to keep the land tax low. Now, what would be the only thing that could raise those land taxes?Well, war, of course. So no wonder Walpole, unforgivably,pussyfooted around the Spanish when they presumed to interfere with our ships.