The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #173610   Message #4210094
Posted By: RTim
19-Oct-24 - 07:12 PM
Thread Name: The wreck of the Ramillies Song/ Website
Subject: ADD: The Loss of the Ramillies
Here is the version of the song I recorded on my - "From Spithead Roads" CD - collected from Frederick White in Southampton Workhouse Infirmary by DR. George Gardiner in 1906..I think!! I don't have an audio to post, but I maybe able to post one soon....
Tim Radford

The Loss of the Ramillies - Frederick White - H384.
Roud 523

It was on one day, one certain day,
When the Ramillies at her anchor lay,
That very night a gale came on,
And our ship from her anchorage away did run.

The rain poured down in terrible drops,
The sea broke open our fore-top,
Our yards and our canvas neatly spread,
We were thinking to weather the Old Ram’s Head.

Our bo’sun cries, my good fellows all,
Listen unto me while I blow my call,
Launch out your boats your lives to save,
Or the sea this night will be our grave.

Then overboard our boats we tossed,
Oh, some got in but some were lost,
There was some in one place, or, some in another,
The watch down below, they all were smothered.

When this sad news to Plymouth came,
That the Ramillies was lost and all of her men,
Excepting two that told the tale,
How the ship behaved in that dreadful gale.

Come all you pretty maids and weep along with me,
For the loss of your true lovers in the Ramillies,
All Plymouth Town it flowed with tears,
When they heard the news of that sad affair.

Lost in February 1760
Over 700 men lost.