Among much else, this ballad offers some fascinating illustrations of the "folk process" in action. The ship is consistently the Flying Cloud (even though the only known real ship of that name came well after the main era of slaving and piracy and was never used for those purposes), her captain is always Moore, and the protagonist's place of birth almost always Waterford, but everything else varies: the protagonist's name; whether he was apprenticed to a butcher or a cooper; where he met Moore; the ship's size, speed and complement of crew and guns; where the slaves were sold; and the name of the naval vessel that eventually made the capture. Also there are many verses that occur in some versions and not in others.