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The Fancy Frigate / The Flash Frigate / La Pique

[ Roud 2563 ; Master title: The Fancy Frigate ; Ballad Index ShaSS178 ; trad.]

Peggy Seeger and Ewan MacColl printed La Pique in their 1960 book of English and Scots folksongs, The Singing Island. The song was contributed by A.L. Lloyd.

The Exiles sang La Pique in 1966 on their Topic album Freedom, Come All Ye. Gordon McCulloch noted:

Although this song is thought to have originated some forty years after the mutiny at Spithead and Nore, an iron discipline still obtained on board British warships. The Pique, a 36-gun frigate of the Royal Navy, was “the flash-packet of the navy in her day” and, as such, became particularly notorious in this respect.

The Ian Campbell Folk Group sang The Flash Frigate on their 1972 album Something to Sing About. They noted:

(Compiled by Hugill)

Not a shanty, this song comes from the Royal Navy of the 1850s and gives a very clear picture of the rough discipline and hard labour of life before the mast in a ship of the line.

The Taverners sang La Pique in 1973 on their Trailer album Blowing Sands.

Lyrics

La Pique in The Singing Island

It’s of a fine frigate, La Pique was her name,
All in the West Indies she bore great fame.
For cruel bad usage of every degree,
Like slaves in the galleys we ploughed the salt sea.

Chorus (after each verse):
Derry down, down, down derry down

Now at four in the morning our work does begin,
In our ’tween decks and cockpit a bucket might swim;
Our main and top foremen so loudly do bawl
For sand and for holystone both great and small.

Now Mr. McKeever we know him too well,
He comes up on deck and he cuts a great swell;
It’s: “Up on them yards, boys, or God damn your eyes,
I’ve a pump-handle here to trim down your size!”

And now, my brave boys, comes the best of the fun,
It’s hands about ship and reef tops’ls in one;
It’s lay aloft, topmen, as the helium goes down,
And clew up your tops’ls as the mainyard comes round.

Now your quids of tobacco, I’d have you to mind,
If you spit on the deck, that’s your death-warrant signed;
If you spit over bow, over gangway, or starn,
Your sure of three dozen by way of no harm.

So now, brother sailors, where’er you may be,
From them West India frigates I’ll have you keep free,
For they’ll haze you and work you till you ain’t worth a damn
And send you half-dead to your dear native land.