Lyr Add: Quebec Trader

Subject: Lyr Add: QUEBEC TRADER
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 23 Aug 06 - 05:14 PM

Lyr. Add: QUEBEC TRADER

On the 14th of November to Quebec we set sail,
Bound to New York in America, with sweet and pleasant gale,
Four hundred hands we had on board and 5 and 20 men,
And out of all that number only 5 could reach the land.

Well fitted out to plough the seas, our fortune did run so,
That we was scarce 3 days at sea, when a heavy gale did blow.
Our captain on the quarter-deck unto the wheel did run
Says he my boys stand to the pumps or we *le are undone,

These words were scarcely from his mouth, till she struck against a rock,
The Lord have mercy on our souls, the deep must be our lot,
At seven o'clock next morning, most shocking to relate,
Only one female was left on board, hard was her hapless fate!

A little infant at her breast, her husband strove to save,
But was soon compell'd to give it up unto the briny wave.
So to conclude and end my song, you landsmen all around,
For when a sailor is on shore, he meets with many a frown.

If we should happen to be lost at sea, our friends would grieve full sore,
Perhaps a wife and family lies weeping on the shore.
All you landsmen that's upon the land, and sleeping in your own beds,
While we poor sailors are toss'd to and fro, the water for our beds.

* you, probably meant.

Bodleian Collection, Ballads catalogue: 2806 c.17(354), printed R. Heppel, Birmingham, ca. 1827-1840.

I cannot find any notice of a wreck of a Quebec trader with large loss of life in the first half of the 19th c. Quebec traders lost during that period included the Crawford, Diamond, and New London. A trader named the Amanda was lost, but details are sketchy; there is a tombstone and notice of salvage, but no indication of large loss of life and no clear information of her port or owner that I could find.

Any suggestions? Probably just a song.

@shipwreck @America.