As IanC observed earlier in this thread, John Masefield was almost certainly the first writer to connect "A-Roving" with Heywood's song. Later collectors seem to have taken this statement on faith; there's just no likelihood that the resemblance was passed on by word of mouth at sea ("Arrrrrgh! Know ye that 'A-Rovin'' comes from a seventeenth-century play by Thomas Heywood called 'The Rape of Lucrece'?" : Sorry, this just doesn't work for me !).

Hugill printed the Heywood song in "Shanties and Sailor Songs" in 1969.