Lyr Add: Cpt. Barton's Distress on the Lichfield

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Cpt. Barton's Distress on the Lichfield
From: Mad Maudlin
Date: 04 Jul 03 - 12:20 AM

Thanks Malcolm! Now that I read it I think, "it was so easy, why didn't you understand it before?" Thank you for the background information as well! It said in the CD booklet that no tune was indicated on the broadside, so they used the one of "The Silk Merchant's Daughter", which fit it very well, I thought.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Cpt. Barton's Distress on the Lichfield
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 03 Jul 03 - 05:25 PM

...bound unto Goree to fight our proud foe.

...quite naked for to increase our pain

Unto our fleet...

...bastinade...

...store of liquors...


-Roy Palmer, Boxing the Compass, 2001 (formerly published as The Oxford Book of Sea Songs), pp. 121-3. The text is quoted from a broadside in the Madden collection. Palmer comments: "In December 1758 Goree [West Africa] was seized from the French. Captain Matthew Barton (?1715-95) and some 220 survivors of his crew of 350 were ransomed by the British Government, and arrived at Gibralter in June 1760. The ballad... probably appeared soon afterwards."

No tune is indicated. The song doesn't seem to have been found in tradition.

Subject: Lyr Add: CAPT. BARTON'S DISTRESS ON THE LICHFIELD
From: Mad Maudlin
Date: 03 Jul 03 - 04:50 PM

Hi all,

The "Roast Beef of Old England" CD has been playing here all day, and I tried very hard to understand a place name and one or two words in the great "Captain Barton's Distress on the Lichfield". Here is what I understood:


CAPTAIN BARTON'S DISTRESS ON THE LICHFIELD

Come all you brave seamen that plough on the main,
Give ear to my story, so true to maintain,
Concerning the Lichfield, that was cast away,
On the Barbary shore by the dawn of the day.

The tenth of November, the weather being fine,
We sailed from Kinsale, five ships of the line,
With two bombs and two frigates, with transports also,
We was bound unto (?) to fight the proud foe.

The 29th of November by the dawn of the light,
We spied land that put us in great fright.
We strove for the weather, but we run quite aground,
With the seas mountain-high made our sorrows abound.

Our masts we cut away, our wreck for to ease,
And being exposed to the mercy of the seas
Where one hundred and thirty poor seamen did die,
Whilst we out for mercy most loudly did cry.

Two hundred and twenty of us got on shore,
No sooner we landed but were stripped by the Moors
Without any subsistance but dead hogs and sheep
That was drove on shore by the sea from the ship.

For seven days together with us did remain
Our bodies quite naked for to end (?) and pain,
Till some Christian merchant that lives in the land
Sent us relief by his bountiful hand.

Unto (?) our fleet the same fate did share,
Then unto Morocco we all marched there,
Where they are captives in slavery to be
Till old England thought proper for to set them free.

When the black king we all came before,
He stroked his long beard, by Mahomet he swore,
"They are all stout and able and fit for the hoe -
Pray, to my gardens, pray let them go!"

We had cruel Moors, our drivers to be,
By the dawn of the day at the hoe we must be,
Until four o'clock in the afternoon,
Without any remission, boys; work was our doom.

If that you offer for to strike a Moor,
Straightway to the king they will have you before,
Where they will bastonade you till you have your fill,
If that will not do, your blood they will spill.

Soo now in Morocco we shall remain
Until our ambassador cross the main
Where a ransom he'll bring and soon set us free,
And then to Gibraltar we will go speedily.

So now my brave boys to old England were bound,
We will have store o'liquors, our sorrow to drown.
We will drink a good health, success never fail,
Success to the bawds and the whores of Kinsale!

Thanks for your help!

Nathali