I agree with Jed, who lives way north of me, but I must say this ballad would have been hardly known in it's own City for some time, the vast majority of the residents nonenglish speakers... Laredo, un ciudad en Tejas yahhhhhh...

So while that ?might? have been a reason to say it by some later writer, at the time it is supposed to refer, makes nearly no sense at all.

Also - despite - the pilfering nature of many Aglophile collectors, both melody and lyric is many times ascribed to an Irish author, which is not at all suprising when you know that the latest white settlers in South Texas (1750s-1850s) were the persecuted Irish Catholics who earlier gladly accepted from the Mexican Government refuge from the British landthieves who had stolen their Nation, enslaved the people, and outlawed - under a death penatly - their Catholic religion.

The tune, like many softer strains is a Gaelic folk theme. See The Irish Harp - Google several sites.