The Fire Ship

Roger Thompson, in his Unfit for Modest Ears (Totowa, N.J.: Rowman and Littlefield, 1979), p. 87, notes the use of this title to identify diseased prostitutes as early as 1691 by the minor poet Richard Ames in a 19-page screed entitled "The Female Fire-Ships. A Satyr Against Whoring In a Letter to a Friend just come to Town" and published in London by E. Richardson.