Botany Bay is a song from the musical burlesque, Little Jack Sheppard, a comedy staged in London, England in 1885 and Melbourne, Australia in 1886. The show was written by Henry Pottinger Stephens and William Yardley, though the music for \"Botany Bay\" was written by Florian Pascal a pseudonym for Joseph Williams, Jr. (1847-1923), a music publisher and composer. It has become an adopted Australian song with its story of how convicts were transported in unpleasant circumstances to say the least to the penal colonies in that country and in particular, Botany Bay itself.
Botany Bay
Traditional
No capo
G D7 G C G
Farewell to old England the beautiful! Farewell to my old pals as well!
C G D7 G
Farewell to the famous Old Bailey where I used to cut such a swell.
Singing too-ral li oo-ral li addity Singing too-ral li oo-ral li ay
Singing too-ral li oo-ral li addity For we’re bound for the Botany Bay.
It's seven long years I been serving, it's seven I got for to stay,
For beatin' a cop down our alley an' takin' his truncheon away.
'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.
There's the captain what is our commander, the bos'n an' all the ship's crew,
The married and also the single ones knows what us poor convicts goes through.
It ain't that they don't give us grub enough, it ain't that they don't give us clothes;
It's all 'cause we light-fingered gentry goes about with a chain on our toes.
O had I the wings of a turtle dove, I'd spread out my pinions and fly
Into the arms of my Polly love and on her soft bosom I'd lie.
Now all you young viscounts and duchesses take warning by what I do say,
And mind it's all yours what you touches-es or you'll land down in Botany Bay.
