While he was living in Van Diemen's Land John West wrote his two volume History of Tasmania. West seems to have heard at least the first line of MacNamara's ballad The Seizure of the Cyprus Brig in Recherche Bay - "Came all you sons of freedom, a chorus join with me" as the mention that the song was "sung in chorus around the fires of the interior." It would be interesting to track down the performance of the play about the Cyprus Brig "at a London Theatre."
West wrote:
The capture of the Cyprus in Recherche Bay, on the voyage to Macquarie Harbour, was a stiring episode in the history of transportation. It excited vast interest in Great Britain, and was dramatised at a London theatre. The prisoners, who wage war with society, regarded the event with exultation; and long after, a song, composed by a sympathising poet, was propagated by oral tradition, and sung in chorus around the fires in the interior. This version of the story made the capture a triumph of the oppressed over the oppressors. The stanzas set forth the suffering of the prisoners by the cruelty of their masters, who they daily attempted to please. It related their flight from torture to the woods, and drew but a dreary picture of the life of an outlaw. It passed through the details of conviction and embarkation, and then described the dashing seamanship of the pirates in managing the bark, once destined to carry them to that place of suffering; but which bore "bold Captain Swallow", to the wide ocean and liberty.
See Thomas Whitley notes about MacNamara
See also Cyprus Brig sighting: Sydney Gazette (1829)
Seizure of the "Cyprus Brig" in Recherche Bay (MacNamara's poem c1842)
Listen to Jack Davies sing the Cyprus Brig from a 1961 field recording
West wrote:
The capture of the Cyprus in Recherche Bay, on the voyage to Macquarie Harbour, was a stiring episode in the history of transportation. It excited vast interest in Great Britain, and was dramatised at a London theatre. The prisoners, who wage war with society, regarded the event with exultation; and long after, a song, composed by a sympathising poet, was propagated by oral tradition, and sung in chorus around the fires in the interior. This version of the story made the capture a triumph of the oppressed over the oppressors. The stanzas set forth the suffering of the prisoners by the cruelty of their masters, who they daily attempted to please. It related their flight from torture to the woods, and drew but a dreary picture of the life of an outlaw. It passed through the details of conviction and embarkation, and then described the dashing seamanship of the pirates in managing the bark, once destined to carry them to that place of suffering; but which bore "bold Captain Swallow", to the wide ocean and liberty.
See Thomas Whitley notes about MacNamara
See also Cyprus Brig sighting: Sydney Gazette (1829)
Seizure of the "Cyprus Brig" in Recherche Bay (MacNamara's poem c1842)
Listen to Jack Davies sing the Cyprus Brig from a 1961 field recording
