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Title: A Ballad For A Boy
Author: William Johnson Cory [
More Titles by Cory]
When George the Third was reigning a hundred
years ago,
He ordered Captain Farmer to chase the foreign foe.
"You're not afraid of shot," said he, "you're not
afraid of wreck,
So cruise about the west of France in the frigate
called Quebec.
Quebec was once a Frenchman's town, but twenty
years ago
King George the Second sent a man called General
Wolfe, you know,
To clamber up a precipice and look into Quebec,
As you'd look down a hatchway when standing on
the deck.
If Wolfe could beat the Frenchmen then so you can
beat them now.
Before he got inside the town he died, I must allow.
But since the town was won for us it is a lucky name,
And you'll remember Wolfe's good work, and you
shall do the same."
Then Farmer said, "I'll try, sir," and Farmer bowed
so low
That George could see his pigtail tied in a velvet bow.
George gave him his commission, and that it might be
safer,
Signed "King of Britain, King of France," and sealed
it with a wafer.
Then proud was Captain Farmer in a frigate of his
own,
And grander on his quarter-deck than George upon
his throne.
He'd two guns in his cabin, and on the spar-deck ten,
And twenty on the gun-deck, and more than ten score
men.
And as a huntsman scours the brakes with sixteen
brace of dogs,
With two-and-thirty cannon the ship explored the fogs.
From Cape la Hogue to Ushant, from Rochefort to
Belleisle,
She hunted game till reef and mud were rubbing on
her keel.
The fogs are dried, the frigate's side is bright with
melting tar,
The lad up in the foretop sees square white sails afar;
The east wind drives three square-sailed masts from
out the Breton bay,
And "Clear for action!" Farmer shouts, and reefers
yell "Hooray!"
The Frenchmen's captain had a name I wish I could
pronounce;
A Breton gentleman was he, and wholly free from
bounce,
One like those famous fellows who died by guillotine
For honour and the fleurs-de-lys, and Antoinette the
Queen.
The Catholic for Louis, the Protestant for George,
Each captain drew as bright a sword as saintly smiths
could forge;
And both were simple seamen, but both could under-
stand
How each was bound to win or die for flag and native
land.
The French ship was La Surveillante, which means
the watchful maid;
She folded up her head-dress and began to cannonade.
Her hull was clean, and ours was foul; we had to
spread more sail.
On canvas, stays, and topsail yards her bullets came
like hail.
Sore smitten were both captains, and many lads beside,
And still to cut our rigging the foreign gunners tried.
A sail-clad spar came flapping down athwart a blazing
gun;
We could not quench the rushing flames, and so the
Frenchman won.
Our quarter-deck was crowded, the waist was all
aglow;
Men clung upon the taffrail half scorched, but loth
to go;
Our captain sat where once he stood, and would not
quit his chair.
He bade his comrades leap for life, and leave him
bleeding there.
The guns were hushed on either side, the Frenchmen
lowered boats,
They flung us planks and hencoops, and everything
that floats.
They risked their lives, good fellows! to bring their
rivals aid.
'Twas by the conflagration the peace was strangely
made.
La Surveillante was like a sieve; the victors had no rest.
They had to dodge the east wind to reach the port of
Brest.
And where the waves leapt lower and the riddled ship
went slower,
In triumph, yet in funeral guise, came fisher-boats to
tow her.
They dealt with us as brethren, they mourned for
Farmer dead;
And as the wounded captives passed each Breton
bowed the head.
Then spoke the French Lieutenant, "'Twas fire that
won, not we.
You never struck your flag to us; you'll go to
England free."
'Twas the sixth day of October, seventeen hundred
seventy-nine,
A year when nations ventured against us to combine,
Quebec was burnt and Farmer slain, by us remem-
bered not;
But thanks be to the French book wherein they're
not forgot.
Now you, if you've to fight the French, my youngster,
bear in mind
Those seamen of King Louis so chivalrous and kind;
Think of the Breton gentlemen who took our lads to
Brest,
And treat some rescued Breton as a comrade and a
guest.
1885.
[The end]
William Johnson Cory's poem: Ballad For A Boy
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