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C, all ye jolly sailors bold, Whose hearts are cast in honour’s mould, While English glory I unfold, Huzza to the Arethusa! She is a frigate tight and brave, As ever stemm’d the dashing wave: Her men are staunch To their favourite launch, And when the foe shall meet our fire, Sooner than strike, we’ll all expire, On board of the Arethusa.

’Twas with the spring-fleet she went out, The English Channel to cruize about When four French sail, in show so stout, Bore down on the Arethusa. The fam’d Belle Poole straight a-head did lie. The Arethusa seem’d to fly, Not a sheet, or a tack, Or a brace did she slack; Tho’ the Frenchmen laugh’d, & thought it But they know not the handful of men, how tough. On board of the Arethusa.

On deck five hundred men did dance. The stoutest they could find in France;