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1890
[This ballad appears to refer to one of the exploits of the notorious Paul Jones, an American pirate. It is founded on fact.]
… AT the close of a winter day, | |
| Their anchors down, by London town, the Three Great Captains lay; | |
| And one was Admiral of the North from Solway Firth to Skye, | |
| And one was Lord of the Wessex coast and all the lands thereby, | |
| And one was Master of the Thames from Limehouse to Blackwall, | 5 |
| And he was Chaplain of the Fleet—the bravest of them all. | |
| Their good guns guarded their great grey sides that were thirty foot in the sheer, | |
| When there came a certain trading brig with news of a privateer. | |
| Her rigging was rough with the clotted drift that drives in a Northern breeze, | |
| Her sides were clogged with the lazy weed that spawns in the Eastern seas. | 10 |
| Light she rode in the rude tide-rip, to left and right she rolled, | |
| And the skipper sat on the scuttle-butt and stared at an empty hold. | |
| “I ha’ paid Port dues for your Law,” quoth he, “and where is the Law ye boast | |
| “If I sail unscathed from a heathen port to be robbed on a Christian coast? | |
| “Ye have smoked the hives of the Laccadives as we burn the lice in a bunk, | 15 |
| “We tack not now for a Gallang prow or a plunging Pei-ho junk; | |
| “I had no fear but the seas were clear as far as a sail might fare | |
| “Till I met with a lime-washed Yankee brig that rode off Finisterre. | |
| “There were canvas blinds to his bow-gun ports to screen the weight he bore, | |
| “And the signals ran for a merchantman from Sandy Hook to the Nore. | 20 |
| “He would not fly the Rovers’ flag—the bloody or the black, | |
| “But now he floated the Gridiron and now he flaunted the Jack. | |
| “He spoke of the Law as he crimped my crew—he swore it was only a loan; | |
| “But when I would ask for my own again, he swore it was none of my own. | |
| “He has taken my little parrakeets that nest beneath the Line, | 25 |
| “He has stripped my rails of the shaddock-frails and the green unripened pine. | |
| “He has taken my bale of dammer and spice I won beyond the seas, | |
| “He has taken my grinning heathen gods—and what should he want o’ these? | |
| “My foremast would not mend his boom, my deck-house patch his boats; | |
| “He has whittled the two, this Yank Yahoo, to peddle for shoe-peg oats. | 30 |
| “I could not fight for the failing light and a rough beam-sea beside, | |
| “But I hulled him once for a clumsy crimp and twice because he lied. | |
| “Had I had guns (as I had goods) to work my Christian harm, | |
| “I had run him up from his quarter-deck to trade with his own yard-arm; | |
| “I had nailed his ears to my capstan-head, and ripped them off with a saw, | 35 |
| “And soused them in the bilgewater, and served them to him raw; | |
| “I had flung him blind in a rudderless boat to rot in the rocking dark, | |
| “I had towed him aft of his own craft, a bait for his brother shark; | |
| “I had lapped him round with cocoa-husk, and drenched him with the oil, | |
| “And lashed him fast to his own mast to blaze above my spoil; | 40 |
| “I had stripped his hide for my hammock-side, and tasselled his beard in the mesh, | |
| “And spitted his crew on the live bamboo that grows through the gangrened flesh; | |
| “I had hove him down by the mangroves brown, where the mud-reef sucks and draws, | |
| “Moored by the heel to his own keel to wait for the land-crab’s claws. | |
| “He is lazar within and lime without; ye can nose him far enow, | 45 |
| “For he carries the taint of a musky ship—the reek of the slaver’s dhow.” | |
| The skipper looked at the tiering guns and the bulwarks tall and cold, | |
| And the Captains Three full courteously peered down at the gutted hold, | |
| And the Captains Three called courteously from deck to scuttle-butt:— | |
| “Good Sir, we ha’ dealt with that merchantman or ever your teeth were cut. | 50 |
| “Your words be words of a lawless race, and the Law it standeth thus: | |
| “He comes of a race that have never a Law, and he never has boarded us. | |
| “We ha’ sold him canvas and rope and spar—we know that his price is fair, | |
| “And we know that he weeps for the lack of a Law as he rides off Finisterre. | |
| “And since he is damned for a gallows-thief by you and better than you, | 55 |
| “We hold it meet that the English fleet should know that we hold him true.” | |
| The skipper called to the tall taffrail:—“And what is that to me? | |
| “Did ever you hear of a Yankee brig that rifled a Seventy-three? | |
| “Do I loom so large from your quarter-deck that I lift like a ship o’ the Line? | |
| “He has learned to run from a shotted gun and harry such craft as mine. | 60 |
| “There is never a law on the Cocos Keys, to hold a white man in, | |
| “But we do not steal the niggers’ meal, for that is a nigger’s sin. | |
| “Must he have his Law as a quid to chaw, or laid in brass on his wheel? | |
| “Does he steal with tears when he buccaneers? ’Fore Gad, then, why does he steal?” | |
| The skipper bit on a deep-sea word, and the word it was not sweet, | 65 |
| For he could see the Captains Three had signalled to the Fleet. | |
| But three and two, in white and blue, the whimpering flags began:— | |
| “We have heard a tale of a—foreign sail, but he is a merchantman.” | |
| The skipper peered beneath his palm and swore by the Great Horn Spoon:— | |
| “’Fore Gad, the Chaplain of the Fleet would bless my picaroon!” | 70 |
| By two and three the flags blew free to lash the laughing air:— | |
| “We have sold our spars to the merchantmen—we know that his price is fair.” | |
| The skipper winked his Western eye, and swore by a China storm:— | |
| “They ha’ rigged him a Joseph’s jury-coat to keep his honour warm.” | |
| The halliards twanged against the tops, the bunting bellied broad, | 75 |
| The skipper spat in the empty hold and mourned for a wasted cord. | |
| Masthead—masthead, the signal sped by the line o’ the British craft: | |
| The skipper called to his Lascar crew, and put her about and laughed:— | |
| “It’s mainsail haul, my bully boys all—we’ll out to the seas again— | |
| “Ere they set us to paint their pirate saint, or scrub at his grapnel-chain. | 80 |
| “It’s fore-sheet free, with her head to the sea, and the swing of the unbought brine— | |
| “We’ll make no sport in an English court till we come as a ship o’ the Line: | |
| “Till we come as a ship o’ the Line, my lads, of thirty foot in the sheer, | |
| “Lifting again from the outer main with news of a privateer; | |
| “Flying his pluck at our mizzen-truck for weft of Admiralty, | 85 |
| “Heaving his head for our dipsy-lead in sign that we keep the sea. | |
| “Then fore-sheet home as she lifts to the foam—we stand on the outward tack, | |
| “We are paid in the coin of the white man’s trade—the bezant is hard, ay, and black. | |
| “The frigate-bird shall carry my word to the Kling and the Orang-Laut | |
| “How a man may sail from a heathen coast to be robbed in a Christian port; | 90 |
| “How a man may be robbed in Christian port while Three Great Captains there | |
| “Shall dip their flag to a slaver’s rag—to show that his trade is fair!” | |
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