Black Ball Line
(The Blackball Line)
Main version
I served my time in the Black Ball Line
Ch: To me way-aye-aye hurrah, oh
In the black ball line I wasted my prime
Ch: Hurrah for the Black Ball Line
The Black Ball ships they are good and true,
And they are the ships for me and you.
For once there was a Black Ball ship
That fourteen knots an hour could clip.
You will surely find a rich gold mine;
Just take a trip in the Black Ball Line.
Just take a trip to Liverpool,
To Liverpool, that Yankee school.
The Yankee sailors you'll see there,
With red-top boots and short-cut hair.
Additional verses
There's Liverpool Pat with his tarpaulin hat
And Paddy McGee the Packet rat.
They carry it along through ice and snow
They take ya where the winds don't blow.
I've seen the line both rise and shine
And I've crossed that line a-many's the time.
Oh drink a health to the Black Ball line
Their ships are stout and the men are fine.
Oh it's the line where ye can shine
That's the line where I wasted me prime.
The Black Ball Line was the first and most famous line of American packet-ships to run between New York and Liverpool. Starting in 1816, these small ships (300 to 500 tons), were for many years the most direct means of communication between North America and Europe. Ships left New York on the first and sixteenth of each month, averaging three weeks out and six weeks home. The line developed a reputation among sailors for the tight discipline necessary to maintain such strict deadlines.
The house flag of the Black Ball line, National Maritime Museum, Greenwich.