Sea Songs :: :: University of Virginia Library

Oh! gallant Ned Pellew
Was a hero, lads, as true
As ever yet drew seaman's breath;
No braver heart than he
Ever sailed the stormy sea
Or laughed right in the face of death.

Was there fighting to be done
Or a good risk to be run
What, for odds, did Ned Pellew care?
When once he only knew
What work he had to do,
He did it well, right off, then and there.

At Plymouth now one night
He was riding through all right
In fine togs to some great folks' ball,
But a gale, it blew great guns,
And a crowd, it shoreward runs;
To an Indiaman, a wreck, rush all.

He was 'mongst them, like a shot;
To the beach, he quickly got,
And there, through the spray and roar,
The Dutton, in the gloom,
Lay waiting for her doom,
While her officers had skulked to shore.

Five hundred souls they knew
Were aboard and women too
And children too in scores were there;
To order things aright,
Not a soul was there that night,
Nor a pilot, out to go, would dare.

“I'll go myself,” he said,
Our gallant dauntless Ned;
One rope, from shore to ship, held still;
So, along that hawser, he,
Across the boiling sea,
Was hauled aboard with right good will.

Then he shouted on the deck,
“Every soul upon the wreck,
Is safe; all that beach shall tread;
But you'll all do what I say,
And, if one dare disobey,
I'll run him through, I swear,” he said.

The mad disorder hushed,
Into willing working crushed;
Not a woman but had trust in him;
He would save them from sea-graves,
He would snatch them from the waves,
If the Dutton, half an hour, would swim.

So there was hope for fears;
There rang out three wild cheers;
They were safe; their faith in him was fast;
Though his ship's barge vainly tried,
And his launch, to reach her side,
To a boat, at last, two hawsers passed.

Hurrah! the shore they reach;
They are capstaned to the beach;
Now with travelling ropes the cradles go;
The women, children, first,
Then the sick across are nursed,
While the thundering, hungering billows race below.

Then the soldiers safe were sent,
Then every sailor went,
And when none but he on board remained,
The last to tread the deck,
The last to leave the wreck,
Along the rope, the beach he gained.

The stormy waves might roar,
But a mightier roar ashore
Rang out, to greet him safe to land,
Bruised, and crippled sore, he came,
With a nobler, grander fame
Than if he'd brought red victory in his hand.

Of himself he never thought,
'Twas to others that he sought
The praise of this, his deed, to give;
But thousands that deed saw,
And had looked on him with awe,
A hero, in their hearts, to live.

So the nation of him raved:
Of the town where he had saved
Five hundred, he was voted free;
And Liverpool gave plate,
And he hadn't long to wait
Till a baronet they bade him be.

A lord, in after years,
He thundered down Algiers
And spoke law to the Dey from his deck;
But as great and brave was he
When, o'er Plymouth's boiling sea,
He swung the last from that doomed wreck.