Steve - I wouldn't like to cause too much thread creep so early, but I am very intrigued by your comment that Philip de Saumarez actually wrote the original version of "The Dolphin", as I would have thought that it would have been an unusual thing for a gentleman to have done in the mid-17th century, or at least to have put his name to.

Saumarez's most famous fight was with the French man-o-war "Mars" in 1746, and I have a feeling that "Warlike Seamen", which shares some verses with "Dolphin", is about this action. There is nothing in the "Dolphin" which links it with de Saumarez or any specific event. In fact, there's precious little in "Warlike Seamen" either. In the Coppers' version, (also used by Peter Bellamy, other names being found in other versions) the ship is commanded by "an Irish captain, his name was Somerville". I wonder whether Somerville could be a corruption of Saumarez, and though Saumerez was not Irish, he was an "island captain", coming from Guernsey. It's just a curious point of course, not the kind of thing which can be taken too seriously when looking for a song's origin, so I just mention that by way of being an interesting point. But there is certainly is an very odd feature about about "Warlike Seamen", which is the way the ship's name changes. In verse 1 she is "Nottingham", Saumarez's ship. In verse 3 she is "London", one of the ships involved in the Spithead Mutiny of 1797, and a name which would have been very much common knowledge at the time. It seems to me that "Warlike Seamen" was a recycled version of an older song, the most likely candidate being Saumarez's. So with Phil Edwards I look forward to seeing the text. Can you definitely confirm de Saumarez was the author?