Ballad of Moreton Bay

One Sunday morning as I went walking
By Brisbane waters I chanced to stray
I heard a prisoner his fate bewailing
As on a sunny river bank he lay
I am a native Arous Island
And vanished now from my native shore
They tore me from my aged parents
And from the maiden who I adore

I've been a prisoner at Port McQuerry
At Norfolk Island and Eve Plains
At Castle Hill and at Curston Cavy
At all those settlements I've worked in chains
But of all places of condemnation
And penal stations of New South Wales
To Moreton Bay I have found no equal
Excessive tyranny each day prevails

For three long years I was cruely treated
Heavy irons on my legs I wore
My back with flogging is lacerated
When begged to stop they would offer more
And many a man from down right starvation
Lies moldering underneath the clay
And Captain Logan he had us tortured
At the billeries down at Moreton Bay

Like the Egyptians and ancient Hebrews
We were oppressed under Logan's rule
Until the native black and in ambush
Did give our tyrant is mortal stroke?
My fellow prisoners be exhilarated
That all such tyrants such death may find
And when from bundage we're liberated
Our former suffering shall from mind

One Sunday morning as I went walking
By Brisbane waters I chanced to stray
I heard a prisoner his fate bewailing
As on a sunny river bank he lay.