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It's of the fishing schooner Gin that sailed the wintry seas,
The skipper has taken a crew of men to trawl off Jefferey's;
So stout of heart, so strong of limb was the crew he shipped that day,
And each one hailed, they did declare, from good old Boston Bay.
The trips to the Banks were quickly made, they all fell in a week,
Until the fog it settled down, they could not see to speak;
Our captain he lost his reckoning, what he never had done before,
He smashed his compass in a rage saying, "Let 'er drift ashore!"
The vessel drifted for two long days with ever-increasing fog,
The men they feared for plenty of food, they were starved for the want of grog;
Then old Bill Jones in the rigging stood as he mournfully gazed away,
"What's the matter, Bill?" the skipper said, and Bill these words did say:
"Oh, captain, I smell a familiar smell, this time I can hear it plain,
It smells like a Boston Saturday night out here on the raging main."
Our captain he took another sniff and a smile on his face o'erspread,
"It is Boston, boys, I can smell the beans, we are drifted home, he said."
We dropped our anchors then and there and we swallowed the rest of our grog,
And we were guided along by the sinful smell as we walked ashore on the fog.
Collected in 1960 from Jim Smurridge of Burnt Islands, NL, by Ken Peacock and published in Songs Of The Newfoundland Outports, Volume 1, pp.110-111, by The National Museum Of Canada (1965) Crown Copyrights Reserved.
