BONNYMUIR
(Allan Murchie)

Although our lives were ventured fair
To free our friends from toil and care,
The English troops we dint to dare,
And wish'd them a' good mornin'.

It's with three cheers we welcomed them
Upon the Muir of Bonny Plain,
It was our rights from them to gain
Caused us to fight that mornin'.

With pikes and guns we did engage;
With lion's courage did we rage
For liberty or slavery's badge
Caused us to fight that mornin'.

But some of us did not stand true,
Which caus'd the troops them to pursue,
And still it makes us here to rue
That e'er we fought that mornin'.

We're a' condemned for to dee,
And weel ye ken that's no a lee,
Or banish'd far across the sea
For fightin' on that mornin'.

But happy we a' ha'e been
Since ever that we left the Green,
Although strong prisons we ha'e seen,
Since we fought that mornin'.

If mercy to us all shall be shown
From Royal George's kingly crown,
We will receive't without a frown,
And sail the seas some mornin'.

Mercy to us has now been shown
From Royal George's noble crown,
And we're prepared without a frown,
To see South Wales some mornin'.

Footnote : This song was written by one of the participants in the Battle of Bon
nymuir on 5 April 1820. He
was among the nineteen Radicals taken prisoner by Government troops and subseque
ntly
sentenced to life transportation in Australia. He wrote the song when imprisone
d in Stirling Castle awaiting transportation. Dunfermline-born Allan Barbour Mu
rchie was twenty-four when he stepped off the ship Speke to spend the rest of h
is life, forty-five years, in Australia. He married and had seven children and
seems to have prospered far beyond any prospects available to him in his native
land. For the story of the 1820 Radical Rising read James Halliday's booklet 'T
he 1820 Rising - The Radical
War'.

@Scottish @battle @transportation
( Tune : Johnny Cope )
filename[ BONYMUIR
TUNE FILE: JOHNCOPE
CLICK TO PLAY
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