Captain Ward- Bennett (NL) 1958 Peacock
[From Kenneth Peacock's Songs of the Newfoundland Outports; 1965. This version is similar to or based on the Forget-Me-Not Songster versions.
R. Matteson 2014]
Excerpts from: Kenneth Peacock's Songs of the Newfoundland Outports
by David Gregory, Athabasca University.
The largest and most varied of the various collections of Newfoundland vernacular songs, Kenneth Peacock's three-volume Songs of the Newfoundland Outports, was first published in book form in 1965.
The other community on the west coast of the Northern Peninsula that Peacock visited extensively in 1958 was 5t. Paul's. Here he discovered the Bennett family: Clarence, Everett, Jim, and Mr. and Mrs. Freeman Bennett. Together, in the course of two
summers, they supplied him with 87 songs, by far the largest quantity of material that he found in any one outport. Everett Bennett, who sang 37 items, was the most prolific of all Peacock's source singers, and Freeman Bennett, who contributed 31 songs, was not far behind. There is not space here to analyze in detail the repertoire of this amazing extended family, but a few highlights may be mentioned to give a sense of the breadth and depth of this community's traditional music. Clarence Bennett, for example, knew the comic song "The Derby Ram" and an old English pirate ballad "Captain Ward" (Child # 288), as well as "Hembrick Town" (a version of Child # 221 "Katherine Jaffray", and a fine American tragic sea-ballad, "Bound for Newfoundland" (aka "The Schooner 'Mary-Ann"').
Captain Ward- This variant collected in 1958 from Clarence Bennett of St. Paul's NL, by Kenneth Peacock and published in Songs Of The Newfoundland Outports, Volume 3, pp.840-841, by The National Museum Of Canada (1965).
Come all ye jolly seamen bold that live by tyrant rum, [1]
I'll tell you of a rank robber now to the seas is gone,
Whose name was callèd Captain Ward, now you the truth shall hear,
There hasn't been such a rank robber found out this hundred and fifty year.
He wrote a letter to the King on the fifth of January,
To know whether he would take him in and all his company,
To know whether he'd accept of him and all his seamen bold,
And for ransom he would give five thousand pounds in gold.
"Oh no, oh no," then said the king, "Sure that could never be,
For he has been a rank robber and a pirate on the sea."
"Oh now, oh now," said Captain Ward, "My boys, we'll put to sea again,
For to see what prizes we can win on the coast of France and Spain."
'Twas there we spied a lofty ship come sailing from the west,
She was loaded with silk and satin and cambrics of the best.
We then bore up to her straightway not thinking of such a thing,
We robbed them of their merchandise and bid them tell the King.
But when the King he heard of this it grieved his heart full sore,
For to think his ships could not get by as they had done before.
Oh then he called a war-like ship, a war-like ship of fame,
The Rainbow he did call her, the Rainbow was her name.
He riggèd her, he fitted her, he sent her to the sea
With five hundred bold mariners to bear her company.
They sailèd east, they sailèd west, but nothing could they spy,
Until they came to the very spot where Captain Ward did lie.
"Who is the owner of this ship?" the captain he did cry.
"Oh here I am," said Captain Ward, "Let no man me deny."
"What brought you here you cowardly dog, you ugly wanton thief?
What lies you at an anchor to keep our King in grief?"
"You lie, you lie," said Captain Ward, "As ever I heard you lie,
I never robbed an Englishman, an Englishman so high,
As for those worthy Scotchmen, I loves 'em as my own,
My chief delight it is to pull the French and Spaniards down."
"May the curse be on you, bold robber, you soon will humble your pride."
With that the gallant Rainbow she shot out of her side.
"Fire on, fire on," said Captain Ward, "I value not one pin,
If you are brass on the outside, I am good steel within."
They fought from eight o'clock in the morn till eight o'clock that night,
And then the gallant Rainbow began to take her flight.
"Go home, go home," said Captain Ward, "And tell your King for me,
If he reigns King all on dry land I will reign King on sea!"
With that the gallant Rainbow she shot and shot in vain,
She left the Rover's company and homeward returned again.
"Tell your royal King of England his ship is returned again,
And Captain Ward he is too strong, he never will be taken!"
1. drum