Captain Ward and the Rainbow

Come all ye lusty gallants and listen to my song,
for there is such a robber that over the seas is come:
his name is Captain Ward, and full well it doth appear
there's not been such a robber found out these thousand years.

He has sent unto the King on the sixth of January,
asking that he might come in with all of his company,
"And if the King will let me come until my tale I've told,
then for my ransom I will give full thirty tons of gold."

"Oh no, oh no," then said the King, "this thing it can never be:
to yield to such a robber myself will not agree.
He has betrayed the Frenchman, likewise the King of Spain;
how can he be true to me what ha' been false to twain?"

At that, the King's provided a ship of worthy fame:
Rainbow she is called, if you would know her name,
and when the gallant Rainbow did come where Ward did lie,
"Where is the captain of this ship?" the Rainbow crew did cry.

"I am that," said Captain Ward, "there's none that bids me lie,
and if you are the King's fair ship, welcome unto thee!"
"I'll tell you what," says Rainbow, "our King doth find much grief
that you should lie upon the sea and play the errant thief."

"I never harmed an English ship, but Turk and King of Spain,
likewise the blackguard Dutchman as I met on the main.
If I had known your own King but two or three years before,
I could have spared Lord Essex' life, whose death doth grieve me sore.
Go tell your King of England, go tell him thus for me,
that he may rule King over good dry land, but I rule King over sea!"