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Ye ramblin' b'ys of pleasure, I'll have you to beware,
Don't never go sailing in a Yankee ship, nor dungeon jumpers wear;
But have your monkey jackets always at your command,
Beware of the cold nor'westerns on the Banks of Newfoundland.
Our captain being a Yankee, our first mate was the same,
Our second mate an Irishman from Limerick town he came;
And all the rest were Irish b'ys, they came from Patty's land,
Only four or five of us seamen belonged to Newfoundland.
We had a female kind on board, Brigett Walsh it was her name,
To her I promised marriage, on me she had a claim;
She told her friend in Petty Cove to make mittens for my hands,
Saying, "I cannot see my true love freeze on the Banks of Newfoundland."
One night as I lay on my bed I had a pleasant dream,
I dreamt I was in Liverpool way down in City Peel,
With a comely maiden beside me and a jug of beer in hand,
But I woke quite broken-hearted on the Banks of Newfoundland.
So, b'ys, fill out your glasses and merrily they'll go around,
We'll drink a health to the b'ys and girls from Liverpool town.
Collected in 1959 from Alan MacArthur of Upper Ferry, NL, by Kenneth Peacock and published in Songs Of The Newfoundland Outports, Volume 3, pp.854-855, by the National Museum of Canada (1965) Crown Copyrights Reserved..
Kenneth Peacock noted that this is a localized version of Van Dieman's Land [Laws L18] which dealt with the transportation of convicts to Tasmania.
