It is a cautionary tale describing the fate of a man convicted of poaching and sentenced to transportation to the British penal colony in Van Diemen's Land, (modern day Tasmania).
Henry, the narrator, asks "wild and wicked youths" to listen to "the fate of our poor transports, as you shall understand, the hardships they do undergo upon Van Diemen's Land[3]".
The narrator describes his upbringing in Warwickshire, Worcestershire or Lancashire ("My parents reared me tenderly, good learning they give to me"[4]), and introduces himself, and then tells us how he and three (or five) companions were arrested while poaching, tried at the Assizes, ("We being old offenders it made our case more hard"[5]) and sentenced to 14 years transportation.
[11] There is a recording of Louis Killen singing the song in the Keith Summers collection in the British Library Sound Archive.
[12]> Recorded versions include: Ewan McColl and Peggy Seeger on their 1960 LP "Chorus from the Gallows",[4] The Young Tradition,[13] Shirley Collins and the Albion Band,[14] and The Demon Barbers on their CD "Uncut".