Martyn Windham-Read brought this song to life for The Valiant Sailor, the companion album to Roy Palmer's book about "sea songs, ballads, and prose passages illustrating life on the lower deck in Nelson's Navy".
The words here appear in the Journal of the [English] Folk-Song Society, Vol. 7, No. 27 (1923) with the title Come All You Pretty Fair Maids. H. E. D. Hammond transcribed the singing of Joseph Elliott at Todber, 1905. Hammond notes the curious melody:
The strong G major effect of the second and third phrases in this hexatonic tune, and the Dorian effect of the first and fourth phrases together with the absence of the F make it a very unusual air. It has been thought best to omit a key-signature in this case.
This a difficult song to track down as the Roud index is disorganized. Many songs appear related such as Joanna Colcord's Sailors' Come-All-Ye (Songs of the American Sailormen, 1924). Nevertheless, the words differ significantly from: