I thought I had presented them as opinions backed up by my own research and experiences. I have already clearly stated that the common people have creativity in abundance when given the opportunity to express it. If Hugill states that seamen had leisure time, it wasn't during the Napoleonic Wars. Yes I do know what the deadman's face is. Songs that include exclusive technical terms are few and far between. The vast bulk of the songs contain material that would have been common knowledge to all during the period discussed. More than half deal with amorous encounters and most people have had these.

I didn't suggest the pressing to sea of broadside writers. I stated clearly that the press gangs weren't fussy who they took, and at their height they took many middle class people so that is one way there would have been literate people aboard the fleet before the mast.

I am not denying that the sailors before the mast made songs at sea. The merchantmen obviously made most of the sea shanties (some were shore songs adapted) but the majority of their songs surely (IMO) would have been the parodies and bawdy songs that were also endemic in the two world wars of the last century. Not many of these found their way into folk song anthologies until quite recently.

Jim, I see no problem with both of us holding our strongly held different opinions, backed up by our obviously different experiences and this does not worry me.

I will repeat my challenge for you to come up with half a dozen songs from the general canon and I will check their probable origins out. It may well be that you come up with some that were not written by broadside hacks or for commercial gain. There are plenty in the canon, but I still state the vast majority were originally written for commercial gain (IMO)

Here's a good cross section of categories
1 Child ballad
1 love song
1 lament
1 murder ballad
1 forebitter
1 carol
chosen at random to give me a chance at least.