Come all you men thoughout this nation
I will have you warning take by me
Don't be like me ill-treat your servants
When you sail on the raging sea.

This boy was bound to me apprentice
This boy was bound to me, I say,
From Saint Giles's Workhouse I hailed him
For this poor boy was motherless.

One day this boy he did offend me
But little to him I did say,
To the mizzen-top I hauled him
And kept him there all that long day.

His hands, his feet they were exhausted.
His arms, his legs, they were likewise.
With my marlin-spike I cruelly gagg-ed him
Because I could not bear to hear his cries.

With my log-line I cruelly beat him,
So cruelly I can't deny.
Through my cruel and bad ill-treatment
The very next morning this poor boy died.

So now my men, they do eject me,
To think that I have done so wrong.
In my cabin they closely confin-ed me
And brought me to London in an iron strong.

So now my trial do come over
And here lay I condemned to die.
If I had 'a' been my manners been ruly
I might have saved the poor boy's life and mine.

abc | midi | pdf

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Source: Journal of the English Folk Dance and Song Society, Dec 1958

Notes:
From the singing of Harry Cox. Recorded by Peter Kennedy, October 9th, 1953. Transcribed by Michael Bell. BBC Record RPL 21480

The Journal Entry follows:

E. J. Moeran noted this song from Harry Cox and printed the tune (no words) in the Folk Song Journal of 1922 (No 26, p 5). This tune shows certain variations which do not occur in the recording noted above. Several other versions have been printed in the Journal (No 8, pp 161-2, No 17, pp 355-6, No 26, pp 4-5 and No 27, pp 566-7). Frank Kidson wrote in FSJ No 8 p 162 that 'the ballad was probably called forth by a particulary brutal case of ill-treatment, similar to that narrated in it, which occurred some twenty or thirty years ago' (i.e. c 1870-90) - S.J.

Details of the incident are given on a broadside. Unfortunately I have lost my reference, but it took place, I think, a good deal earlier, probably about 1810-20, and I believe, off the Suffolk coast - A. L. L.

I have added a time signature of 7/4 at one point in order to make the notes fit the bar. It is possible, but I think unlikely, that the correct course would have been to alter the timing of some of the notes. I have also omitted some variations in the melody given for later verses. As the lyrics were not fitted to the melody in the Journal, I have left this to the reader, rather than impose my interpretation.

Roud: 835 (Search Roud index at VWML) Take Six
Laws:
Child: