Here's Andrew Rose to be going on with, along with Roy Palmer's excellent note - From The Oxford Book of Sea songs.
Will look out The Captain's Apprentice when (and if ) I wake up
Jim'll do by the way, Mr Carroll was my father.
Jim Carroll

Andrew Rose

Andrew Rose, the British sailor,
Now to you his woes I'll name.
'Twas on the passage from Barbados
Whilst on board of the Martha Jane.

Wasn't that most cruel usage,
Without a friend to interpose?
How they whipped and mangled, gagged and strangled
The British sailor, Andrew Rose.

'Twas on the quarterdeck they laid him,
Gagged him with an iron bar.
Wasn't that most cruel usage
To put upon a British tar?

'Twas up aloft the captain sent him,
Naked beneath the burning sun,
Whilst the mate did follow after,
Lashing till the blood did run.

The captain gave him stuff to swallow,
Stuff to you I will not name,
Whilst the crew got sick with horror,
While on board the Martha Jane.

'Twas in a water-cask they put him;
Seven long days they kept him there.
When loud for mercy Rose did venture
The captain swore no man should go there.

For twenty days they did ill-use him.
When into Liverpool they arrived
The judge he heard young Andrew's story:
'Captain Rogers, you must die.'

Come all ye friends and near relations
And all ye friends to interpose,
Never treat a British sailor
Like they did young Andrew Rose.


The Martha and Jane was a Sunderland-owned barque which sailed from Hartlepool to Calcutta in 1856, and thence to Demerara. Homeward bound, she put into Barbados for repairs, and there Henry Rogers, a thirty-seven-year-old Swansea man, went on board to take command. There were also changes in the crew, and among those joining was an able seaman, Andrew Rose. While the ship was still in harbour the second mate, Charles Seymour, found fault with Rose's work, and gave him a beating. Rose jumped ship, but was brought back by the police. After the vessel had sailed he was beaten again by Seymour and also by the captain and by the first mate, William Miles. This treatment became almost a daily occurrence, but there were further cruelties. For singing a hymn Rose was gagged with an iron bolt for an hour and a half. The captain taught his dog to bite him, and even to tear out pieces of his flesh. The first mate sent him aloft naked to furl a sail, and whipped him up and down the rigging till the blood ran. On another occasion Rose was forced to get into a water cask, which was then headed up, with only the bunghole left open. It was then rolled round the deck, then lashed to the bulwarks for twelve hours. Finally, Rose was suspended from the mainmast by a rope round the neck until he almost suffocated. Two or three days later, Rose lost his reason, and then died. His body was dragged to the ship's side at the end of a rope and thrown overboard without ceremony. When the vessel reached Liverpool, on 9 June 1857, Rose's shipmates went to the police. The captain and his two mates were arrested, and stood trial at the assizes. The evidence of the seamen called by the prosecution was damning, and it was found that the ship's log was silent about most of the incidents, and put Rose's death down to his 'going rotten inside'. The three defendants were all found guilty, and, despite a recommendation to mercy from the jury, sentenced to death. The sentences of the two mates were later commuted to imprisonment, but not that of Captain Rogers. While waiting for death he vehemently proclaimed his innocence, maintaining that the account of his treatment of Rose had been 'much overdrawn'. On 12 September, the day of execution, a crowd of between twenty and thirty thousand people assembled to watch outside Kirkdale (now Walton) Gaol included many sailors. One said: 'My word, he'll be a different man on that quarterdeck than he was on the quarterdeck of the Martha and Jane.' Another shouted to Rogers: 'Luff, luff, and weather hell.' Rogers was unlucky only to the extent that he was far from being the only captain to cause the death of a sailor by brutality. Joanna Colcord says that American sailors would sing the song to taunt the British, but it was also sung by the British themselves.