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About the Wild Colonial Boy, Jack Dowling was his name,
Of poor but honest parents was born in Castlemaine;
He was his father's favourite and his mother's only joy,
And dearly did they always love the Wild Colonial Boy.
So come along my hearties, we'll roam the mountainside,
Together we will plunder, together we will ride;
We'll ride over hills and mountains and gallop over the plains,
For we scorn to die in slavery bound down by iron chains.
He was scarcely sixteen years of age when he left his father's home,
And through Australia's sunny climes the bushranger did roam;
He robbed those loyal squatters and their flocks he did destroy,
And a terror to Australia was the Wild Colonial Boy.
Oh, Jack strolled out one morning and he softly rode along,
Listening to the mocking birds, their merry laughing song;
Up rode three mounted troopers Davis, Kelly and Fitzroy,
And of course rode up to capture the Wild Colonial Boy.
"Surrender now, Jack Dowling, you see there's three to one,
Surrender in the Queen's name, you outlaw plundering son;"
Jack drew a pistol from his belt and he flashed the little boy,
"I'll fight but not surrender," cried the Wild Colonial Boy.
Now he fired at trooper Kelly and he brought him to the ground,
And in return from Davis he received a dreadful wound;
With one leg in the saddle still firing at Fitzroy,
Now that's the way they captured the Wild Colonial Boy.
Notes:
In Folk Songs Of North America, Alan Lomax writes:
"The Donahue story began in 1823, in Dublin, when Bold Jack was sentenced to be transported to Australia for life for 'intent to commit a felony'. Brought to Australia in chains, Jack soon bunked out of his convict stockade and turned bushranger. His mates acted as his spies and in return Donahue kept them supplied with rum and tobacco and wrought instant retribution on any planter who oppressed his convicts. The whole colony was kept in an uproar by Donahue's daring robberies until 1830, when the bush police at last surrounded him and shot him down. His ballad spread like wildfire through the colony - such a focus for popular discontent that soon it became a civil offence to sing it in any public place. Several variant songs thereupon appeared, with precisely the same content but different names for their heroes. One of these ballads, The Wild Colonial Boy, can be heard today in Irish pubs 'round the world. The original ballad, meanwhile, took refuge in America, where fishermen, lumberjacks, and cowboys kept the bold bushranger's memory green."
