G'day yet again kat & co,

Here's another - with a broadside origin in the early 19th century ... and a "honed-down" version from the early 'folk revival' period. This is interesting since many suspect that the broadside was actually encouraged ... indeed, perhaps instituted, by the authorities - to counter the stories circulating in London about convicts who had done well in the new colony and were better off that they had been, in service, in London. The current folk scene version seems to have been entirely "trimmed" in the revival!

BTW: I would tend to hear the current tune as a variant of The Croppy Boy. If anyone wants to investigate that line ... I could supply my tune in ABC (and supply a MIDI to the Mudcat MIDIs).

Regards,

Bob

True Patriots All , Geofrey C. Ingleton, Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1952, contains a reproduction of this ballad, titled THE LONDON CONVICT MAID; originally printed by "Birt, Printer, 39 Great St. Andrew Street, Seven Dials, London" and later in the collection of Mr Harry Hodges and then in the Dixson collection, Sydney.

THE LONDON CONVICT MAID

Charlotte W -, the subject of this narrative, is a native of London, born of honest parents, she was early taught the value and importance of honesty and virtue; but unhappily ere her attaining the age of maturity, her youthful affections were placed on a young Tradesman, and to raise the money to marry her lover, she yielded to the temptation to rob her master, and his property being found in her possession, she was immediately apprehended, tried at the Old Bailey Sessions, convicted and sentenced to seven years transportation. On her arrival at Hobart Town, she sent her mother a very affecting and pathetic letter, from which the following verses have been composed, and they are here published by particular desire, in the confident hope that this account of her sufferings will serve as an example to deter other females from similar practices.
                               __________________________________

Ye London maids attend to me,
While I relate my misery;
Thro' London Streets I oft times stray'd,
But now I am a convict maid.

In innocence I once did live,
In all the joys that peace can give;
But sin my youthful heart betray'd,
And now I am a convict maid.

To wed my lover, I did try
To take my master's property,
So all my guilt was soon diplay'd,
And I became a convict maid.

Then I was soon to prison sent,
To wait, in fear, my punishment,
When at the bar, I stood dismay'd;
Since doom'd to be a convict maid.

At length the judge did me address,
Which fill'd with pain, my aching breast,
To Botany Bay you will be convey'd,
For seven years a convict maid.

For seven years! oh, how I sighed;
While my poor mother loudly cried;
My lover wept, and thus he said,
May God be with my convict maid.

To you that hear my mournful tale,
I cannot half my grief reveal;
No sorrow yet has been portray'd,
Like that of the poor convict maid.

Far from friends and home, so dear.
My punishment is most severe;
My woe is great, and I'm afraid
That I shall die a convict maid.

I toil each day in grief and pain,
In sleepless thought the night remain;
My constant toils are unrepald,
And wretched is the convict maid.

Oh, could I but once more be free,
I'd ne'er again a captive be,
But I would seek some honest trade,
And never become a convict maid.

The broadside version seems not to have been collected in Australia - but a much trimmed version appears in folk clubs in the 1950s:

THE CONVICT MAID
(Tune: The Sailor Boy)

You lads and lasses all attend to me
While I relate my tale of misery;
By hopeless love was I once betrayed,
And now I am, alas, a convict maid.

To please my lover did I try so sore,
That I spent upon him all my master's store,
Who In his wrath did so loud upbraid
And brought before the Judge this convict maid.

The judge his sentence then to me addressed,
Which filled with agony my aching breast:
"To Botany Bay you must be conveyed,
For seven long years to be a convict maid."

For seven long years I toil in pain and grief,
And curse the day that I became a thief,
O, had I stuck by some honest trade.,
I ne'er had been, alas, a convict maid.

A pithy abbreviation of "The London Convict Maid", a broadside about "Charlotte W-".