Not directly related to the New England tradition of Child 243, but yesterday I saw for the first time the text noted down by the English poet John Clare from his mother's singing, recorded in his manuscript collection of songs from the 1820s. The bulk of the verses resemble closely (though with differences in detail) the Distressed Ship's Carpenter broadside, but the first three - although a little garbled - are much more like those published by Peter Buchan in Ancient Ballads and Songs of the North of Scotland (1828). It seems highly unlikely (given the chronology and geography) that Clare's mother could have been influenced by Buchan's text and, since her own background seems to have been solidly English, the suggestion is that the ballad was extant in England around 1800 (which is interesting in itself since we have no other example from this period), and that it existed in a form partly resembling that which we've tended to assume was its 'Scottish' form.

Just for your interest...!