Folk and Traditional Song Lyrics:
Bold Pirate

The Bold Pirate

The Bold Pirate

`Twas on the eighteenth day of March
  We sailed from Bristol Town,
And we sail-ed all that livelong day
  Till the night came rolling on.

And then we saw a bold pirate
  Sailing three foot to our one;
He hail-ed us in English,
  And asked us whence we come,

We told him we was from Bristol Town,
  And on our course was bound,
And ask-ed of him the reason why
  He ran us so fast down.

Up spoke this bold old pirate,
  `I soon will let you know!
Haul down your fore and main courses
  And let your ship lie to,

`And if you fire one shot at me,
  This instant you I'll sink,
And every man you have on board
  This day shall walk the plank.'

Then up spoke our brave commander,
  And says, `No such thing can be
While we have twenty-eight brass guns
  To bear us company.

`Besides, we have three hundred men,
  All British seamen hold.
Who value more their honor
  Than a miser does his gold.'

Then this bold pirate boarded us
  With three hundred of his men;
With pistols, pikes and cutlasses
  We soon did slaughter them.

He haul-ed down our ensign flag,
  Thinking our royal ship to take;
We ran them such a rig, my boys,
  Made their very hearts to ache.

Then this bold pirate boarded us
  With the remainder of his men;
By the word of our commander bold,
  We soon did slaughter them.

And out of that five hundred men
  We reduc-ed them to three,
And down on their knees for mercy cried,
  But none it was their due.

Then this bold pirate strove from us,
  And tried to run away;
But a broadside from a rounded gun
     Caus-ed him to stay.

We h'isted out our boats from the buoys
  And boarded her immediately;
And there we saw this bold commander
  With both legs shot off to his knees.

We took her all in tow, my boys,
  What a glorious sight to see
We towed her in to the sight of land,
  Beside the Bristol quay,

Where each one had his fortune made
  And we all got safe on shore.
We'll ask one another to dine together
  And not plough thu sea any more.

Collected from three ladies over eighty years old in 1924, of Baker &
Little Cranberry Islands. They learned it when children from their
father, Joseph Gilley.  _Minstrelsy of Maine_ (Eckstorm & Smyth, 1927)
Page 254.  There was no prior record of this song. AJS

DT #411
Laws K30
AJS