Basically Sam Hall is the Captain Kidd tune. The early Victorian pre-musical version was said to be sung in a very rough and agressive way. People would faint it's claimed, but that might just have been hype. It was definitely notorious:

"There's the `Ross' and the `Sam Hall' song-books," said one man, "the `eighteenth series,' and I don't know what; but I don't like to ven-ture on working them, though they're only a penny. There's lots to be seen in the shop-windows; but they might be stopped in the street, for they an't decent." (From here)