Annotation:Captain Morgan's March
X:1 T:Rhyfclgyrch Cadben Morgan T:Captain Morgan’s March M:C L:1/8 R:Air Q:"Maestoso" B:Edward Jones – Musical and Poetical Relicks of the Welsh Bards (1784, p. 140) Z:AK/Fiddler’s Companion K:G D2G>G G2D2|G>A B>A G4|c2 (c>d) B2G2|A2A2A2z2:| |:{D}d2d2{c}B2G2|(c>d) (cB) A3z|(G>B) (A>G) F2 (GA)|T(A3G) G4:|]
CAPTAIN MORGAN'S MARCH AKA - "Mynediad Câdpen Morgan," "Rhyfcigyrch Cadben/Cafiten Morgan." Welsh, March (whole time). The tune first appears in Edward Jones' Musical and Poetical Relicks of the Welsh Bards, 1st ed., 1784. "Captain Morgan's March" was reprinted in the 1794 edition of that work. Parry included it in his 1809 Welsh Melodies, but altered the terminal notes, which is the present form of the air. Kidson (Groves) says that, like many Welsh airs, great antiquity has been claimed for it, as, for example did Jane Williams in her History of Wales (1869) when she associated the tune with the rising of Rhys ap Morgan in Glamorganshire in 1294, and suggested the march was 'probably composed or selected by this Prince to animate the march of his followers'. Kidson himself finds no evidence of great antiquity, and on structural terms dates it the no later than the middle of the 18th century. He classifies it as one of the martial tunes that as a genre were immensely popular in the second half of the 18th century, and says that "it most likely is the composition of a regimental band-master, who has named it after some Captain Morgan associated with the regiment."
Words to the tune were printed in Jones's 1784 edition and begin:
Heard ye not the don from far?
Hurlech led th'embattled war;
Lloeger's terror, Cymry's shield,
Hurleach scour'd the routed field.
Wolves, that hear their young ones cry,
Tamer on the spoilers fly:
Harvests, to the flames a prey,
Perish flower still than they.
