Annotation:Down with the French

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DOWN WITH THE FRENCH. AKA - "We Will Down with the French." English, Jig. D Major (Sumner/Gibbons): G Major (Callaghan). Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. Source Gibbons originally set the tune in the key of 'C' major in his manuscript, compiled about a decade after the final defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo, and the subsequent end of centuries of conflict between England and France. It appears in other fiddlers' manuscripts of the era, however, including John Winder (Wyresdale, Lancashire, 1789), James Winder (Wyresdale, Lancashire, 1835), John Fife (Perthshire, 1770), the Browne family manuscripts (Troutbeck, Cumbria), and Joshua Jackson (near Harrogate, north Yorkshire, 1798). The melody also appears in the printed collections of Walsh's Fourth Book of the Compleat Country Dancing Master (London, 1747, pg. 111), Bride's Favourite Collection of 200 Select Country Dances, Cotillons (London, 1776, published by Longman, Lukey & Broderip), and Charles and Samuel Thompson's Compleat Collection of 200 Country Dances, vol. 4 (London, 1780, p. 9).

Source for notated version: the 1823-26 music mss of papermaker and musician Joshua Gibbons (1778-1871, of Tealby, near Market Rasen, Lincolnshire Wolds) [Sumner].

Printed sources: Callaghan (Hardcore English), 2007; p. 57. Raven (English Country Dance Tunes), 1984; p. 30. Sumner (Lincolnshire Collections, vol. 1: The Joshua Gibbons Manuscript), 1997; p. 18.

Recorded sources:




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