We can take it back another 4 years to 1886 and it must be considerably older than that.

We gave a version collected by Hammond in Hampshire from George Lovett in 1906 in our book Southern Songster. There are at least 3 versions in the Hammond Gardiner Collection (see VWML website).

The 1886 version was given in an autobiographical account 'Spunyarn and Spindrift, a sailor boy's Log of a Voyage Out and Home in a China Tea-Clipper'. The ballad shares phrases with 'Bold Princess Royal' and with 'The London Man-o-war' which is no big surprise.