B - Kennedy, Peter "Folksongs of Britain and Ireland
" (1975) page 695 (no. 313)
(Collected from Bill Cameron of St Mary's, Scilly Isles, 1956. Bill learned the song from Tommy Crocker, a fireman on board the "Lioness", a mail ship which ran from Penzance to Scilly, before World War I)

In Belfast's famous city,
An apprentice boy I was bound
And many's the happy hour
Have I spent in that neat little town.
Till my future prospects belated,
Which gave me to understand,
Then by me, young man, take a warning;
Beware of the black velvet band.

O, one evening as I rambled,
Not thinking of long for to stay,
Till I met with a gay young deceiver
Came a tripping across the pathway.
O her eyes they shone like diamonds
And I thought her pride of the land,
And her hair it hung down o'er her shoulders,
And tied in a black velvet band.

O one evening a flash-man a watchman,
She happened to meet on the sly;
I could tell that her mind it was altered
By the roll of her dark eye.
O that watch she took from his pocket,
She slipped it right into my hand
Then she gave me in charge to a policeman
Bad luck to the black velvet band.

Now before the Lord Mayor I was taken,
My "Guilty" they prov-ed quite plain,
And he said if I was not mistaken,
I should have to cross the salt main.
Now it's sixteen long years they have gave me
To plough on Van Diemens Land,
And it's far from my friends and relations;
My curse to the black velvet band.