Digital Tradition Mirror

Botany Bay (3)

(This score available as ABC, SongWright, PostScript, PNG, or PMW, or a MIDI file)
Pennywhistle notation and Dulcimer tab for this song is also available

Botany Bay (3)

Farewell to old England forever
Farewell to my rum culls as well
Farewell to the well known Old Bailey
Where I used for to cut such a swell

Singing Tooral liooral liaddity
Singing Tooral liooral liay
Singing Tooral liooral liaddity
And we're bound for Botany Bay

There's the captain as is our commander
There's the bosun and all the ship's crew
There's the first and the second class passengers
Knows what we poor convicts go through

Taint leaving old England we cares about
Taint cos we mis-spells what we knows
But because all we light fingered gentry
Hops around with a log on our toes

These seven long years I've been serving now
And seven long more have to stay
All for bashing a bloke down our alley
And taking his ticker away

Oh had I the wings of a turtle dove
I'd soar on my pinions so high
Slap bang to the arms of my Polly love
And in her sweet presence I'd die

Now all my young Dookies and Dutchesses
Take warning from what I've to say
Mind all is your own as you toucheses
Or you'll find us in Botany Bay


First published in Sydney Golden Songster  in 1893
This song is a burlesque, written by Stephens and Yardley,  from the comedy
'Little Jack Shepherd' that played in London in 1885, and in Melbourne in
1886.

'Botany Bay' shares two verses with 'Fairwell to Judges and Juries' a
broadside c.1820
MG

Thanks to Mudcat for the Digital Tradition!