The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #127132 Message #2833492
Posted By: Jim Carroll
08-Feb-10 - 07:52 PM
Thread Name: Lyr Req: Ship Rambolee / Loss of the Ramillies
Subject: Lyr Add: THE LOSS OF THE RAMILLIES
This is how it was sung in Norfolk - never came across a chorus before.
THE LOSS OF THE RAMILLIES
From the singing of Walter Pardon
It was on one day, one certain day
The Ramillies at her anchor lay,
That very night a gale came on
And our ship from its anchorage away did run
The rain poured down in terrible drops,
The seas broke over our foretop,
With our yards and canvas neatly spread
We were thinking to weather at Rames Head
Our bosun cried, my hearties all,
Listen unto me while I blow the call,
So launch your boats, your lives to save,
Or the seas this night will be your grave.
Then overboard our boats we tossed,
So may got in that lives were lost,
Some were in one boat, some were in another
And the watch below, they were all smothered.
And when the sad, sad news to Plymouth came
That the Ramillies was lost with most of her men,
Only two are left that can tell the tale
Who were lost that night in that terrible gale.
Come all you pretty fair maids and weep with me,
Who have lost your sweethearts on the Ramillies,
All Plymouth town was swum with tears
At the hearing of such sad affairs.
The HMS Ramillies was wrecked at Bolt Head near Plymouth on 15 February 1760. Of her crew of around 850 men, all were lost except for twenty seamen and one midshipman.
Jim Carroll