Chapter IV: Captain Ward

"That piece of song,
That old and antique song we heard last night."

--'Twelfth Night,' II. iv.

This old song was lately taken down from the lips of an old Suffolk (Monk Soham) labourer, who has known it and sung it since he was a boy. The song is of much repute in the parish where he lives, and may possibly be already in print. At all events it is a genuine "old and antique" song, whose hero may have been one of the sea captains or rovers who continued their privateering in the Spanish Main and elsewhere, and upon all comers, long after all licence from the Crown had ceased. The Rainbow was the name of one of the ships which formed the English fleet when they defeated the Spanish Armada in 1588, and she was re-commissioned, apparently about 1618. The two verses in brackets are from the version of another labourer in my parish, who also furnished some minor _variae lectiones_, as "robber" for "rover," "Blake" for "Wake," &c.

RECTOR.

Come, all ye valiant soldiers
That march to follow the drum,
Let us go meet with Captain Ward
When on the sea he come.

He is as big a rover
As ever you did hear,
Yeou hain't h'ard of such a rover
For many a hundred year.

There was three ships come sailing
From the Indies to the West,
Well loaded with silks and satins
And welwets of the best.

Who should they meet but Captain Ward,
It being a bad meeting,
He robbed them of all their wealth,
Bid them go tell the King.

["Go ye home, go ye home," says Captain Ward,
"And tell your King from me,
If he reign King of the countrie,
I will be King at Sea."]

Away went these three gallant ships,
Sailing down of the main,
Telling to the King the news
That Ward at sea would reign.

The King he did prepare a ship,
A ship of gallant fame,
She's called the gallant Rainbow--
Din't yeou niver hear her name?

She was as well purwided
As e'er a ship could be,
She had three hundred men on board
To bear her company.

Oh then the gallant Rainbow
Sailed where the rover laid;
"Where is the captain of your ship?"
The gallant Rainbow said.

"Here am I," says Captain Ward,
"My name I never deny;
But if you be the King's good ship,
You're welcome to pass by."

"Yes, I am one of the King's good ships,
That I am to your great grief,
Whilst here I understand you lay
Playing the rogue and thief."

"Oh! here am I," says Captain Ward;
"I value you not one pin;
If you are bright brass without,
I am true steel within."

At four o'clock o' the morning
They did begin to fight,
And so they did continue
Till nine or ten at night.

[Says Captain Ward unto his men,
"My boys, what shall we do?
We have not got one shot on board,
We shall get overthrow.]

"Fight you on, fight you on," says Captain Ward,
"Your sport will pleasure be,
And if you fight for a month or more
Your master I will be."

Oh! then the gallant Rainbow
Went raging down of the main,
Saying, "There lay proud Ward at sea,
And there he must remain."

"Captain Wake and Captain Drake,
And good Lord Henerie,
If I had one of them alive,
They'd bring proud Ward to me."

Appended was this editorial note: "The date of Captain Ward is approximately established by Andrew Barker's 'Report of the two famous Pirates, Captain Ward and Danseker' (Lond. 1609, 4to), and by Richard Daburn's 'A Christian turn'd Turke, or the tragical Lives and Deaths of the two famous Pyrates, Ward and Dansiker. As it hath beene publickly acted' (Lond. 1612, 4to).

And the next week there was the following answer:--

"Having found that in Chappell's 'Popular Music of the Olden Time'
there was mention made of a tune called 'Captain Ward,' I wrote to Mr
Chappell himself. He says about the ballad: 'For "A famous sea-fight
between Captain Ward and the Rainbow" see Roxburghe Collection, v. 3,
fol. 56, printed for F. Coles, and another with printer's name cut off
in the same volume, fol. 654; an edition in the Pepys Collection, v.
4, fol. 202, by Clarke Thackeray and Passinger; two in the Bayford,
[643, m. 9 / 65] and [643, m. 10 / 78]. These are by W. Onbey, and
the second in white letter. Further, two Aldermary Church Yard
editions in Rox. v. 3, folios 652 and 861. The ballad has an
Elizabethan cut about it, beginning, "Strike up, you lusty Gallants."
If I remember rightly, Ward was a famous pirate of Elizabeth's reign,
about the same time as Dansekar the Dutchman.'

"I went down myself to Magdalene, and saw the copy in the Pepysian
Library there. It is entirely different from that in the 'Suffolk N.
and Q.,' though at the same time there are slight resemblances in
expression. As ballads they are quite distinct. I suppose the other
copies to which Mr Chappell refers are like the Pepysian, which begins
as he says, 'Strike up, ye lusty Gallants.'

"W. ALDIS WRIGHT.

"CAMBRIDGE."