Nautical Experience Two sailors are confronted by a farmer. One sailor, on the right, has the donkey in a 'piggy-back' whilst the other helps to push him over the fence of the enclosure where he has been kept. The stout farmer, standing on the left, asks: "Who gave you authority to release that ass from the Pound?" The sailor holding the donkey replies: "Why look you master - the thing was this - we saw him aground without victuals d'ye see see so my Messmate and I agreed to cut his cable and set him at liberty because we have known before what it is to be at short allowance". [1807-1818]