Apologies, Lighter, I was talking rubbish for a moment there (the hour was late and I'd quite forgotten that I'd posted to a different thread on this subject nine years ago).

The similarities I had in mind are not between the Dorset melody and the Harrigan-Braham tune (which, as you say, is quite different), but between the Dorset one and Lena Bourne Fish's song. Not only does the latter have a similar tune, but it alters the H&B chorus with lines about 'the briny ocean', and 'lots of grog', which look to me like lifts from the English broadside text. But I've said all this before.

Has anyone got any closer to discovering how come Mrs Fish came to be singing a song that seems to be an amalgam of H&B and the English song - a version that also found its way into the Maritimes?