The last line of that song shows French's delight in word-play; the first line should be,

"Come all ye lads who Plough the Seas, and likewise Seize the Plough..."

(Although I think I read it as "and also seize", the name of the Captain, incidentally, being "Jamesie Duff"); not dissimilar to the line about wind lashing rigging while the Pilot lashes the horse.


There are a number of Irish ballads about the Canal-boats of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; a few are included in the two volumes of Colm O'Lochlainn's "Irish Street Ballads". One vessel mentioned included, ambiguously, in its manifest "a cargo of farmers' dung." Good Luck.