| Share page | Visit Us On FB |
|
348 SONGS AND BALLADS
witness calls it, i.e. a French fishing-ship bound for Newfoundland (see verse 8). At Babs Key or Bobs Key, 'a small island at the entrance of the Red Sea,' Kid projected an attack upon ' the Mocca fleet,' fourteen or fifteen merchantmen of various nationalities, but found them too strong for him (verse 9).
Captain Culliford (mentioned in verse 15) was a notorious pirate, commander of the Resolution, formerly the Mocca frigate, whom Kid met at Madagascar. When they met, Culliford thought Kid had come to arrest him. But they became friends at once. And on the quarter-deck they made some bomboo and drank^ together; and Captain Kid said, " Before I would do you any harm I would have my soul fry in hell fire," and wished damnation to himself several times if he did' (State Trials, xiv. 153, 167). In the report of the trial Culliford is described as now in custody, and he probably followed Kid to the gallows.
Kid was executed May 23, 1701.
On his case see also A full Account of the Proceedings in relation to Capt. Kidd, in A Collection of State Trials, published during the Reign of King William III., vol. iii. p. 230.
A fragment of a traditional version of this ballad is given in Masefield's A Sailor's Garland, p. 17.
P. 137. A Satyr on the Sea Officers. Printed in the Miscellaneous Works of George Duke of Buckingham, i. p. 90, 1704. Probably written about 1691. The players were at Oxford in July 1691 (Cal. S.jP. Dom., 1690-1, p. 430).
P. 140. The Sea Martyrs. From the Pepys collection (v. 375). The broadside has no printer's name or date. Probably written about January 1691. Luttrell notes, about the middle of December 1690, that 'some seamen belonging to the Suffolk man-of-war, having mutinied for want of their pay, are secured and sent to the Marshalsea in order to their trial' (Diary, ii. 144.)
P. 143. Advice to Young- Maidens. From The Hampshire Garland in the Douce collection in the Bodleian Library.
P. 145. The Seamen's Wives' Vindication. From the Pepys collection (iv. 185). A broadside printed for J. Deacon, at the Angel in Giltspur Street.
P. 146. Billy the Midshipman's Welcome Home.
Bagford Ballads, i. 112. From the Midshipman's Garland, published about the beginning of Queen Anne's reign. The tune is given in Fills to Purge Melancholy, v. 301.
P. 148. Admiral Benbow. Printed in Halliwell's Early Naval Ballads, p. 38. A slightly different version is given in Ashton's Peal Sailor Songs, p. 19*. A chapbook dated 1784, entitled Four Excellent JVezv Songs, in the Bodleian Library (Douce S. 370) seems to be the earliest printed version. From |
||
|
1
j |
||