+The Text+ is from a broadside in the Bagford collection (i. 65); other
broadsides, very similar, are to be found in the Pepys, Roxburghe, and
other collections. The ballad has often been reprinted; and more than
one oral version has been recovered--much corrupted in transmission.
+The Story+ is apocryphal, as has been shown by research undertaken
since Child annotated the ballad; so also are other broadsides, _The
Seamen's Song of Captain Ward_ and _The Seamen's Song of Dansekar_,
which deal with Ward. He was a Kentish fisherman, born at Feversham
about 1555, who turned pirate after a short service aboard the _Lion's
Whelp_ man-of-war. The _Rainbow_ was the name of a ship then in the
navy, often mentioned in reports from 1587 onwards; but Professor Sir
J. K. Laughton has pointed out that she never fought with Ward. Possibly
_Rainbow_ is a corruption of _Tramontana_, a small cruiser which _may_
have chased him once in the Irish Channel. The fullest account of Ward
may be found in an article, unsigned, but written by Mr. John Masefield,
in the _Gentleman's Magazine_ for March, 1906, pp. 113-126.