RTim's version is pretty much the version I sing & it's also what Roy Plamer gives inhis "Oxford Book of Sea Songs". Roy gives an in depth bacground of the details behind this true & tragic tale.
Captain Rogers, a 37 year old Swansea man took command of the Sunderland barque the Martha & Jane in 1856 when she put into Barbados for repairs, where Andrew Rose also boarded her & signed on. The 2nd mate Charles Seymore, after finding fault with Rose's work ave him a beating. Rose jumped ship but was brought back by the Police. After sailing the 2nd mate beat him again as well as the captain & 1st mate William Miles, this became an almost daily occurrence. For singing a hymn he was gaged with an iron bolt for 1 1/2 hrs, the captain taught his dog to bite him. The 1st mate did send him aloft to furl a sail naked & whipped him up & down the rigging. He was forced into a water cask, which was then headed up with onlythe bunghole left open & then rolled around the deck after that it was lashed to the ulwarks for 12 hrs. Finlly he was suspended from the mainmast by a rope around his neck until he almost suffocated, 2 or 3 days later he lost his reasoning & died. His body was dragged to the ship's side toss over with out ceremony.
When tthe ship reached Liverpool on June 9th, 1857 the captain & the 2 mates (2nd & 3rd) were arrested, tried & found guilty. Despite a reommendation from the jury for mercy the were all sentenced to hang. The log claimed Rose went "rotten from the inside" & his treatment went unrecorded. The 2 mates sentences were commuted to imprisonment but Rogers was hung on Sept 12.

I used this song to start off the Blood & Gore workshop at the Getaway recently but the song isn't as gory as the truth.

Barry