A writer in "Chambers's Journal" (March 30, 1878) mentions it as a favorite in the Royal Navy that he heard when "ashore in the straits of Malacca."

He also heard "The Loss of the Ramilies."

By the 1880s "Cawsand Bay" must have been considered a very typical English sea song. On April 1, 1884, the Tiverton Gazette reported the performance, by "the full band of Her Majesty's Flag-Ship 'Royal Adelaide,' a composition by E. Binding called 'Our Life on the Ocean,"
which consisted of a number of nautical selections:

A Life on the Ocean Wave
The Lass the Loves a Sailor
In Cawsand Bay Lying
The anchor's Weighed
Poor Jack
Come, Come My Jolly Lads
Bay of Biscay
Hearts of Oak
Tom Bowling
Death of Nelson
The saucy "Arethusa"
Sailor's Hornpipe
Farewell and Adieu, Ye Fair Spanish Ladies
Home, Sweet Home
Rule, Britannia

Binding's piece had some popularity. It was even performed by the U.S. Third Infantry Regiment Band at Fort Snelling, Minnesota, in 1897 (says the Saint Paul Globe, Jan. 24, 1897).