BOLD DANIELS

1. On the twenty-second of February from old England we set sail,
Bound down to La Guire with a sweet and pleasant gale.
Our captain called all hands right aft, and unto us did say,
"There's money for you today, my boys; tomorrow we'll sail away."

2. We had not been long sailing all under Callanding shore,
When [to] a man [in] our main mast head a strange sail did [appear] With a black flag on her mizzen peak came bearing down this way.
“I’ll be bound she’s some pirate,” Bold Daniel he did say.

3. In the space of twenty-five minutes, my boys, this pirate ranged alongside,
With a loud and speaking trumpet, “Where are you from?” he cried.
“The Roaming Lizzie we are called; Bold Daniel is my name;
We sailed from La Guire just under the Spanish Main.”

4. “Come, back your fore main topsails and heave your ship to under my lee.”
“O no, O no!” cried Daniel, “I would rather sink at sea.”
So up went their bloody flag, our lives to terrify;
With their great guns to our small arms at us they then let fly.

5. We mounted [five six-pounders] to fight one hundred men,
And when this action first began, it was about half past ten;
We mounted [five six-pounders], our crew being twenty two.
In the space of twenty-five minutes, my boys, those pirates cried,
“Mirbleu.”

6. So now we fought ’em and taken [a] rich prize all under Callanding shore,
A good old place in America; we named it Baltimore;
We’ll drink success to Daniel; likewise his jovial crew
Who fought and be[a]t those pirates with his noble twenty-two.


NOTES (from Frank) BOLD DANIELS (Laws K-34)
Of this rare ballad about an encounter with a Caribbean pirate Laws reported no broadsides, it is not in any songsters, and all of Laws’ citations (including Colcord’s Songs of American Sailor¬men) trace to Minnesota and the singing of one Michael C. Dean. Another specimen is reported from Labrador by MacEdward Leach, who says of its shorter text, “The ballad gains by this compression.” It appears to have been influenced by “The Bold Princess Royal" [#20].
"La Guire” (”La Guayra” in some texts; corrupted to “Maguire” in at least one) refers to La Guira, founded in 1588, the seaport for Caracas, Venezuela, which is indeed "under the Spanish Main."

Source: #24 in The New Book of Pirate Songs, by Stuart M. Frank (2011, CAMSCO Music) - page 63