Moreton Bay

One Sunday morning as I was walking By Brisbane Waters I chanced to stray I heard a convict his fate bewailing As on the sunny riverbank he lay I am a native of Erin, Ireland But banished now from my native shore They stole me from my independence And from the maiden whom I do adore I've been a prisoner at Port Macquarie At Norfolk Island and Emu Plains At Castle Hill and cursed Toongabbie At all these settlements I've been in chains But of all places of condemnation And penal stations in New South Wales To Moreton Bay I have found no equal Excessive tyranny each day prevails For three long years I was beastly treated And heavy irons on my legs I wore My back from flogging was lacerated And oft times covered with my crimson gore And many a man from downright starvation Lies mouldering now beneath the clay And Captain Logan he had us mangled On the triangles of Moreton Bay Like the Egyptians and ancient Hebrews We were oppressed under Logan's yoke Till a native black lying there in ambush Did deal our tyrant with his mortal stroke My fellow prisoners be exhilarated That all such monsters like death shall find And when from bondage we're extricated Our former suffering shall will fade from mind One Sunday morning as I was walking By Brisbane Waters I chanced to stray I heard a convict his fate bewailing As on the sunny riverbank he lay