There seems to be few musical examples of the fireship theme for many decades. Around 1765, however, there appeared - probably in Newcastle - "The Frigate Well Mann'd" (ROUD 21847) Not much happens in it. The speaker is initially attracted to a well-dressed streetwalker, soon determines she's not a "Virgin Dove,", and beats a hasty retreat.

The text is from a printing of about 1770. The words reappeared in Glasgow in 1802 with a few inconsequential changes. It was published in Stirling about fifteen years later. The only important 1802 differences are the replacement of the nonsensical "Pumb" with the reasonable "pomp" and "Shift" with "skiff."



                               The
                        FRIGATE WELL MANN'D

                It blows a soft and pleasant Gale,
                  Into the South, near the Strand;
                I met a Frigate under Sail;
                  Still she wanted to be mann'd.

                With swelling Sails and Streamers spread,
                   So sweetly in the Wind her Course she steer'd,
                She sail without Wind, Line, or Lead;
                   into the Western Port she bore.

                Instead of having Canvas Wings,
                   Her Sailes were of Satten fine;
                Her Ropes were Silk, her Bolts Gold Rings;
                   She strove fair Flora to outshine.

                Then I saluted her with a Gun,
                   And at the Time she did the like!
                She vaunted like the rising Sun,
                   And in her Pumb was loath to strike.

                O then I Boarded her straightway,
                   And on her Quarter-deck I came.
                She sigh'd and said, be not cruel, Sir,
                   And I will let you know my Name.

                My Name it is the Virgin Dove,
                   I'm lately come from Plymouth Town,
                My loading is the Charms of Love,
                   And I am for fair Venus bound.

                O then I view'd her every Part,
                   Main-top, main,-cabbin, Head and Stern;
                But by her false deluding Tongue,
                   I could no more of her discern.
                
                I built myself a very Shift,
                   To get on shore, when the Tide was low:
                I turn'd my Frigate 'bout a drift,
                Now she is gone and let her go.


Surprisingly, Baring-Gould heard the rather insipid song sung in 1892 by the elderly Robert Hard of South Brent. Hard advised him the fifth line of each stanza - a simple repetition of the fourth - should be "trumpeted with the mouth." he heard Hard's 4/4 tune played in 6/8 perhaps twenty miles away on Dartmoor.

Baring-Gould (1895) printed in six-line stanzas a text partly of his own making.

Martin and Shan Graebe with Keith Kendrick recorded Hard's "A Frigate Well Manned" on their 2008 album "Dusty Diamonds."