Interesting ballad versions Jim, especially Fair Annie, which is a rarity.

The Captain Ward ballad is a bit confused chronologically (as Kennedy suggests), since Ward only took up piracy after James I had revoked his privateer's licence, yet variants of the ballad repeatedly mention 'the Queen'. That Dublin text is similar to the version in Roud & Bishop's 'New Penguin' book, from East Anglia via Butterworth, 1913, with all the same stanzas present but quite a few differences in textual detail.

Intrigued to hear about your Irish - American Hind Horn, too.