The song, THE FLYING CLOUD (Laws K28?)is a good ballad. It sure does sould like it was originally a broadside, maybe from the mid 19th Century.   So far as I can make out, there are no Mudcat threads on the song, no mention in Bodleian, and nothing on the net except versions of the lyrics and discographic references. The Traditional Ballad Index gives the "earliest mention" as 1896, states it may have been based on a novel about a Spanish pirate, and observes that no pirate ship known as the "flying cloud" is known to have existed. (Citing Doerflinger, which I am not familiar with. The discussion of slavery in the song suggests that it might have originally been a political tract, although a long, Irish or pseudo-Irish, nautical ballad seems like an odd choice of vehicle for an anti-slavery tract. In fact, so far as I know the political "folksong" is more a mid-20th Century phenomenon. Does anyone know more about it?