Row Well, Ye Mariners ~ Williams

Lead up a D. forwards and back That again

First man two slips cross the Room one way, the woman the other Back again to your places

Fall back both Meet again

Clap both your own hands, then clap each other's right-hands against one another's; clap both your own hands again, then clap left-hands, then clap both hands again, then clap your breasts, then meet both your hands against one-another The same again, only clap left-hands first

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First man sides with the next wo. and his wo. with the next man, doing the like till you come to your own places, the rest following and doing the same.

From the Sloane manuscript (where it is called simply "The Marriners"):

They first Lead up: they slide alonge one before the other to one side and then turne Backes, then faces againe. and then clap hands. first their owne together, then right hands: then their owne againe then left hands. then their owne againe; then their Thighs: and with both hands the both hands of the other:
The man pass'es to the next Woman, et e Con verso; and after Sides to one another slide as before. &C

Playford's music is complicated. It's a jig with a 4 bar strain, a two bar strain, another two bar strain, and another 4 bar strain. All appear to be repeated. The Sloane MS provides no music.

Sharp interpreted Playford's version as a two part dance where most of the second half of the dance has been omitted (and Bolton seems to gone off on a tangent of his own). I think it is an "Up a double/Siding/Arming" dance where what Sharp viewed as a second part is just a concise description of doing the same thing except using siding now.

Playford says First man two slips cross the Room one way, the woman the other, Sloane says they slide alonge one before the other to one side. Sharp has people slipping up and down the hall, but Playford says "cross" which usually means at 90 degrees to up or down. Sloane has them sliding before each other, which I think means they pivot to one side, and move in to the center to stand face to face.

The version in the Sloane manuscript uses the old figure "backs and faces", which maybe described in "The Gipsys" from the Lovelace Manuscript:

...then they all turne theire backes, both men, and woemen, towards one another, and then turne themselves as they were before, all their faces together,...

Presumably this involved some fancy footwork which is even more lost than the figure itself.

Playford does not mention backs and faces, but he does say the clapping sequence should be done twice instead. 16 counts of clapping is rather a lot from my perspective, that's a third of the dance. So I have used "backs and faces" and only one set of clapping.

The progression seems to have been left out. Nor is there any time left in the music. Which leads me to think that it must be very simple. Playford says First man sides with the next wo. and his wo. with the next man, and Sloan says The man pass'es to the next Woman, et e Con verso. Now how can the man be passing to the next woman? Could the 1s be improper? Playford doesn't say so, and as improper dances were rare then he usually mentions it. It is physically possible for all four corners to side into the center at once, but I've never seen that danced, and I doubt it is what Playford intended. Or could it simply mean that both partners take one step left (or right), and bingo they are facing a different partner. The half-hannikin progression pattern that Bolton suggests using. In the clapping sequence there are seven counts of clapping but 8 counts of music, so there's enough time for a foot to move, or both feet if we start moving on the last clap..

There is no clear moment in the dance when the progression should happen. The clapping sequence takes 7 counts and there are 8 counts of music, so that would allow one step to the side. Or the motion could start on the last clap, allowing both feet to move.

On the other hand, Playford spends a great deal of space describing the progression pattern in Half Hannikin, which argues that he would have done so here had that progression been intended.

Colin Hume has found yet another source for the dance, from a French publisher Dezais, who used Feuillet diagrams to describe dances. This dance has mutated even further from Playford's original, it, however, shows a conventional duple minor pass through with neighbors to progress.