and who was able to prove that she had married Richard Parker in 1793.
Then farewell, Parker, best beloved,
That was once the Navy's pride,
And since we might not die together,
We separate henceforth abide.
His sorrows now are past and over,
Now he resteth free from pain—
Grant, O God, his soul may enter
Where one day we meet again.[1]
The melody to which the ballad of the "Death of Parker" is set is much more ancient, by two centuries at the least, than the ballad itself. It is plaintive and very beautiful, and the words are admirably fitted to the dainty and tender air.
Richard Parker was a remarkably fine man. The brilliancy and expression of his eyes were of such a nature as caused one of the witnesses, while under examination, to break down, and quail beneath his glance, and shrink abashed, incapacitated from giving further testimony.
Douglas Jerrold wrote a drama upon the theme of the "Mutiny at the Nore." But it is a mere travesty of history. The true pathos and beauty of the story of the devoted wife were completely put aside for vulgar melodramatic incidents.
For authorities, the Annual Register for 1797; The Chronicles of Crime, by Camden Pelham, London, 1840; The Mutiny at Spithead and the Nore, London, 1842; "Richard Parker, of Exeter, and the Mutiny of the Nore," by S. T. Whiteford, in Notes and Gleanings, Exeter, 1888.
- ↑ The ballad, with its melody, is given in Songs of the West, 2nd ed., 1905.
