the work in the West Indies was the heaviest; it was almost unremitting. After the seamen concluded their day's labour, a gang of negroes came on board, who worked the whole night, discharging cargo or taking on board hogsheads of sugar; and their never-ceasing songs, as they walked round the capstan, or when "screwing" or "swamping" sugars in the hold, left little chance of repose to the whites, who had been at similar work during the whole of the day. The implication is that the crew, out of London, was all White. And though they participated in the loading of the cargo, it was the local (Guyanese) Black workers that sang songs as they worked. I may have missed this, but here is a reference to "Hanging Johnny", or more specifically, "Hangman Johnny". Actually it is two references to the same material. The earliest is from 1867 in an article entitled "Negro Spirituals", from THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY. The second is to a book entitled ARMY LIFE IN A BLACK REGIMENT, published in 1882, but referencing the year 1862. Both are by Thomas Wentworth Higginson. The song was being sung by a squad of men coming in from picket duty. Apparently these were freed slaves serving in the Union Army in South Carolina. The verses are: Here's a version of "Haul Away, Joe" from 1877, from a book entitled CRUMBS SWEPT UP, by Thomas De Witt Talmage, in an piece called "Fallacies About The Sea". There are some interesting verses here.