Print This Page#01552 Print This Page
Come all you bold undaunted seamen,
Come listen a while to what I'm saying;
I will sing you of a cruel murder
That happened on board of the Martha Jane.
Oh, now think on his cruel tortures,
He had no friends for to interpose,
Where they whipped and mangled, gagged and strangled
That British sailor named young Andrew Rose.
The captain swore he would ill-use him
Seven long days before the time;
Then the cruel mate and the cruel captain
They then commenced at their bloody crime.
'Twas up aloft they sent that victim,
He was naked to the burning sun;
Then the cruel mate he flogged him after,
He flogged him till his blood in streams did run.
In an empty water-cask they put him,
Seven long days they kept him there;
And so pitiful he begged for water,
But our cruel captain would let none come near.
Then the captain and mate they made him swallow
Things on earth I cannot name;
And all of our crew fell sick with sorrow
Whilst on board of the Martha Jane.
Then the captain trained his dog to bite him,
He not knowing what he would get;
And he bit and tore him, served him barbarous,
There were mouhfuls laying upon our deck.
And when his sores commenced to fester,
His legs and back and his sides likewise,
Then poor old Rose he could live no longer,
He lay down on the fore-hatch and died.
Oh, now think on his cruel tortures,
He had no friends to interpose,
Where they whipped and mangled, gagged and strangled
That British sailor named young Andrew Rose.
Now for six long weeks we sailed the ocean,
Then our ship in Liverpool arrived;
But as soon as the justice came for to know it,
He said, "Captain Rogers, now you must die."
"Here stands my wife and children beside me,
Here stands my wife and children three;
I will leave them all now for my conduct,
For it's hung I'll be on the gallows tree."
Collected in 1960 from Mrs. Mary Ann Galpin of Codroy, NL, by Ken Peacock and published in Songs Of The Newfoundland Outports, Volume 3, pp.825-826, by the National Museum of Canada (1965) Crown Copyrights Reserved.
Note: "Some ship's captains were very harsh, none more so than Captain Rogers of the Martha Jane. In 1857 on the way from Barbados to Liverpool he ill treated Andrew Rose of his crew so badly that the poor sailor died. Rogers was one of the first people to be hanged at the new Kirkdale Jail in Liverpool, an event which was immortalised in a song of the time published in the volume, Old Street Ballads ca.1857."
From Port Cities - Mersey Seafarers (Infamous Liverpool Seafarers).
