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ASSISTED PASSAGE

Lyrics and Music   Harry Robertson

Don’t take a trip like this me boys
don’t sail across the sea,
For to Botany Bay I’m headed
and I’m chained in misery.

Chorus
Oh the whaling barque is rolling bad
it makes our irons clang,
As we pitch across the ocean
for to join the prison gang.

It was on a cold and moonlit night
the frost lay all around,
His lordship’s keepers beat me ’til
I fell upon the ground.

Chorus

They took the rabbit I had caught
to feed me child at home,
For fourteen years the judge he said
my sins I must atone.

Chorus

They took me from the dungeon
on to a whaling barque,
And with rats and roaches now I sail
and savage bureaucrats.

Chorus

Oh Mother England’s clever
and her business methods stark,
For the ships that take the convicts out
will bring her whale oil back.

Chorus

© Harry Robertson and subsequently ©1995 Mrs Rita Robertson, Brisbane, AUSTRALIA
Registered with APRA/AMCOS www.apra-amcos.com.au