BOLD DANIEL

1. On the fourteenth day of January*
From England we set sail.
We were bound down to Laguire,
With a sweet and pleasant gale.
The Roving Lizzie we are called;
Bold Daniel is my name,
And we sailed away to Laguire,
Just out of the Spanish main.

2. And we reached Laguire,
Our orders did read so:
“When you discharge your cargo,
It’s sail for Callao.”
Our captain called all hands right aft,
And unto us did say,
“Here is money for you to-day, my lads,
For to-morrow we’ll sail away.”

3 It was early the next morning,
As daylight did draw nigh,
The man from at the mast-head
A stranger sail did espy;
With a black flag under her mizzen peak
Came bearing down that way;
“I’ll be bound she is some pirate,”
Bold Daniel he did say.

4. In the course of three or four hours,
The pirate ranged alongside,
And with a speaking trumpet,
“Where are you from?” he cries.
“The Roving Lizzie we are called,
Bold Daniel is my name,
And we sailed away from Laguire,
Just out of the Spanish mam ”

5. “Come, back your topsails to your mast,
And heave your ship under my lee.”
“Oh, no! oh, no!” cried Daniel,
“I’d rather sink at sea.”
They hoisted up their bloody flag,
Our hearts to terrify;
With their big guns to our small arms
At us they did let fly.

6. We mounted four six-pounders
To fight a hundred men,
And when the action did begin,
It was just about half-past ten.
We mounted four six-pounders,
Our crew being twenty-two;
In the course of an hour and a quarter
Those pirates we did subdue.

7. And now our prize we’ve taken
Unto Columbia’s shore,
To that dear old place in America
They call sweet Baltimore;
We’ll drink success to Daniel,
Likewise his gallant crew,
That fought and beat that pirate
With his noble twenty-two.

*Dean (p. 39) prints: "It was on the . ..” But this is as he sang it.

Source: Ballads and Songs of the Shanty-Boy, Franz Lee Rickaby, 1926 - #43, pp. 153-155

Colcord says she got her version from Rickaby, but it certainly wasn't this Rickaby book.

I'll transcribe the melody if you ask me nicely...