Bob, I'm scanning the old grey matter here and presume it is a song I heard on the radio and taped. I've been through the tapes I have left, (they don't keep through the years) not finding what I'm looking for. I suspect the song was written when it was ok to admit convict ancestry and in a similar vein to songs such as Judy Small's "Mary Parker's Lament". The performer(s) may have been a group. Also found more words, some missing, scribbled down in a notebook and probably the whole song:

James Ruse is my name and from Cornwall I came
A husbandman born in times of reform
Two watches I stole and a few shillings more
And for this was sentenced to seven years far, far, far from my own native shore

CH (Also the epitaph on his grave)
My mother reared me tenderly with me she took much pain
And when I arrived in this colony I sowed the first grain
And now with my heavenly father I hope forever to remain

They took me on board of the Scarborough then
And off to Australia with many poor men
Across the two oceans we zig-zagged our way
With good Captain Phillip sailing so far, far, far to Botany Bay

I'll give you a garden James Ruse he did say
And 20 more acres if you'll make it pay
So I sowed the first grain in this far distant .....
And when it was ripe the first harvest I saw, saw, saw
In this distant.....

Oh many's the troubles that I had to bear
From drought and from flood and hard labouring fare
I wed Lizzy Perry down under to share
The first farming country that ever was here, here, here,
In this hot dusty air

So now I do lie in St John's Campbelltown
Beside my good wife on Australian ground
We had a hard life and I'm proud to proclaim
I was the first farmer and husbandman here, here, here,
In this distant domain


I think have the tune for the verses but the chorus is very vague. Great song.

Notferjo