Descended from a mid 17th century popular song expanded by Laurence Price into "Loves fierce desires and hopes of recovery", which is in the Laurence Price file on my website. www.erols.com/olsonw. Sometimes begins "The Americans have stolen my dearest away. See Margaret Dean Smith's 'A Guide to English Folk Song Collections' for several traditional versions in books of folksongs and JFSS. (2 tunes for it in JFSS are stressed note and mode cooded in file COMBCOD2.TXT on my website