Moreton Bay is an Australian Folk Song attributed to Francis MacNamara

Frank the Poet

Frank the Poet was a convict, transported to New South Wales from Ireland, who composed cheeky improvised verse expressing the convict's point of view. In 1832 he was convicted of larceny, and sentenced to seven years transportation...

, originally titled 'The Convict's Arrival' or 'The Convict's Lament on the Death of Captain Logan'. It tells of the hardship a convict has experienced at different penal settlements around Australia, in particular, the penal colony at Moreton Bay which was established to house convicts that reoffended in settlements in New South Wales

New South Wales

New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...

.

The references the brutal treatment of convicts while the Moreton Bay

Moreton Bay

Moreton Bay is a bay on the eastern coast of Australia 45 km from Brisbane, Queensland. It is one of Queensland's most important coastal resources...

 colony was under the command of the infamous Patrick Logan

Patrick Logan

Captain Patrick Logan was the commandant of the Moreton Bay penal colony from 1826 until his death in 1830. He is thought to have been killed by Aboriginal Australians who objected to him entering their lands...

. It also describes Logan's death at the hands of local Aborigines

Australian Aborigines

Australian Aborigines , also called Aboriginal Australians, from the latin ab originem , are people who are indigenous to most of the Australian continentthat is, to mainland Australia and the island of Tasmania...

 and the joy felt by the convicts upon hearing the news. The song is very old and possibly was contemporary with Logan's death.

Some lines of the Moreton Bay ballad were used by Bushranger Ned Kelly

Ned Kelly

Edward "Ned" Kelly was an Irish Australian bushranger. He is considered by some to be merely a cold-blooded cop killer — others, however, consider him to be a folk hero and symbol of Irish Australian resistance against the Anglo-Australian ruling class.Kelly was born in Victoria to an Irish...

 in his Jerilderie Letter in 1879.

Lyrics

One Sunday morning as I went walking

By Brisbane

Brisbane

Brisbane is the capital and most populous city in the Australian state of Queensland and the third most populous city in Australia. Brisbane's metropolitan area has a population of over 2 million, and the South East Queensland urban conurbation, centred around Brisbane, encompasses a population of...

 waters I chanced to stray

I heard a convict his fate bewailing

As on the sunny river bank he lay

I am a native from Erin's island

Ireland

Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

Transported

Penal transportation

Transportation or penal transportation is the deporting of convicted criminals to a penal colony. Examples include transportation by France to Devil's Island and by the UK to its colonies in the Americas, from the 1610s through the American Revolution in the 1770s, and then to Australia between...

 now from my native shore

They tore me from my aged parents

And from the maiden whom I adore
I've been a prisoner at Port Macquarie

At Norfolk Island

Norfolk Island

Norfolk Island is a small island in the Pacific Ocean located between Australia, New Zealand and New Caledonia. The island is part of the Commonwealth of Australia, but it enjoys a large degree of self-governance...

 and Emu Plains

At Castle Hill

Castle Hill

-Australia:* Castle Hill, New South Wales, a suburb of Sydney* Castle Hill, Queensland, a suburb of Townsville-United Kingdom:* Castle Hill, Birmingham, an area in the centre of Dudley...

 and cursed Toongabbie

At all those settlements I've woked in chains

But of all places of condemnation

And penal stations of New South Wales

Of Moreton Bay I have found no equal

Excessive tyranny each day prevails
For three long years I was beastly treated

And heavy irons on my legs I wore

My back from flogging was lacerated

And often slain with my crimson gore

And many a man from downright starvation

Lies mouldering underneath the clay

And Captain Logan

Patrick Logan

Captain Patrick Logan was the commandant of the Moreton Bay penal colony from 1826 until his death in 1830. He is thought to have been killed by Aboriginal Australians who objected to him entering their lands...

 he had us mangled

At the triangles in Moreton Bay
Like the Egyptians and ancient Hebrews

We were oppressed under Logan's yoke

Till a native black lying there in ambush

Did give our tyrant his mortal stroke

My fellow prisoners exhilarated

That all such monsters a death shall find

And when from bondage we’re liberated

Our former sufferings shall fade from mind