From: Edain42 Date: 19 Jun 01 - 10:31 AM

"All I can tell u is the first few lines of a song a local group to me sing.

It was on the 18th day of June Napoleon did advance
The choicest troops that he could raise Within the bounds of France
Their glittering eagles shone around A terror to their foe
But Britain's Lions, tore their wings On the plains of Waterloo."

This is from the broadside Battle of Waterloo.

Chorus; With Wellington we'll go, With Wellington we'll go,
For Wellington commanded us, on the Plains of Waterloo.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: with wellington we'll go
From: GUEST,John Foxen Date: 13 Nov 13 - 10:36 AM

"Roy Palmer in his splendid The Rambling Soldier gives an earlier version of the song "Written on the late famous victory obtained over the French Army under the command of Lord Wellington on the 22 and 23 of July 1812." The tune is the Brags of Washington -- near enough Nutting Girl -- and the chorus is "With Wellington we'll go, with Wellington we'll go, Across the main o'er to Spain and fight our daring foe.""

This refers to the Battle of Salamanca.

The words have the same metre as The Warlike Lads of Russia; they may well have originally shared the same tune too. Nic Jones found this broadside in the Harkness Collection in Preston and set it to his own tune;

From Mainly Norfolk; Nic Jones sings The Warlike Lads of Russia

When Bonaparte from Poland into Muscovy went,
With all his troops and all his men, their minds were fully bent
For to take the Russian country, oh, they were full employ'd,
But the Russians fought against them and they soon did them destroy.

Chorus; Oh, the warlike lads of Russia, oh, they fought all in one mind;
Made Bonaparte to run and leave his troops behind.

The tune re-emerged once again after the Peterloo massacre of 1819.
From Traditional Tunes, Frank Kidson (collector and editor), 1891;

With Henry Hunt we'll go, my boys, with Henry Hunt we'll go
We'll mount the cap of Liberty in spite of Nadin Joe

Kidson considers that the tune was originally The Jolly Ploughboy, found in Bunting's Irish Airs, 1840.

Henry Hunt also had a link with Preston, where he was elected MP in 1830 defeating the future British Prime Minister Edward Stanley. Preston was probably alone in having universal male suffrage at that time. The Great Reform Act of 1832 actually restricted voting rights in Preston.