Come all ye human countrymen with pity lend an ear
And hear my feeling story you can’t but shed a tear
I’m held in close confinement bound down by iron strong
Surrounded by thick granite walls and sentenced to be hung.

Oh Charles Augustus Anderson’s my right and proper name
My father was a shipwright I might have been the same
I came of decent parents and now I die in scorn
Believe me now I do lament that I was ever born.

CC: And what it was, you see, there was a vessel called the Saladin : I don’t know whether she was registered in Pictou but Captain Mackenzie, the captain of the Saladin , came from Pictou, and they went down to Valparaiso, in Chile, and she was a very happy ship. You know, no trouble on her at all, and then, down in Valparaiso, another captain on a ship called the Fitula that was seized by the Chilean government, he came aboard, Captain Fielding and his young son. He begged Captain Mackenzie to get him out of the Chileans’ clutches. He had been in jail, I believe, and had broken out. So he sailed on the Saladin and the Saladin had a very rich cargo of gold and silver ore aboard, and when they got out to sea, he talked – Fielding talked – the crew of the Saladin into mutinying…

IN: In this case with all that gold aboard you could call it “Mutiny With the Bounty”

CC: Yes. It was piracy, really, I guess: I don’t know what you’d call it. It was actually the crew, but first they killed the mate and then I believe Charles Augustus Anderson killed the carpenter with a hammer, and after they had taken charge of the ship, then the crew thought that Fielding was double-crossing them, and so they tied his hands behind his back and two men of the Saladin’s crew, Carr and Galloway, they took him to the rail and threw him overboard. And then they threw the poor son overboard after the father and eventually they landed up: they blew ashore in Halifax or near Halifax – not far away. They were tried in Halifax, and ever since I’ve been here I’ve been having some wonderful experiences with Charles Augustus Anderson. The first thing, I went up to the Citadel and Miss Callahan, my niece, and myself, we walked around, and who should be staring at us but a skull and underneath it was the caption “Charles Augustus Anderson”. So I sang these last two verses to Miss Callahan and I was telling her, it looked as the skull actually smiled at the reception.

IN: All right. This is part of your father’s lullaby to you when you were a child

CC: Yeah. This is the last of it – these are the last two verses:

‘Twas in the town of Goteburg where I was bred and born
Now in this city of Halifax I end my days in scorn
Oh listen all you sailormen a warning take by me
To shun all evil company beware of mutiny.

They took him in the morning on the gallows he did stand
He viewed the mighty ocean likewise the pleasant land
Just then a cord slipped through a ring and quickly stopped his breath
And he ended his career of life in the awful jaws of death.

(IN = CBC interviewer)

IN: Now, do you know many Nova Scotian folk songs, Mayor?

CC: Well, you know, my father was raised here. My father came from Mechias, Maine but he came to Ragged Reef when he was a little boy, that’s up near the Joggins mines. And when I was a little boy, my mother used to get quite exasperated at my father singing me to sleep with some of those old ditties and the most typical Nova Scotian song that I know of anywhere is “The Mutiny of the Saladin ”.

IN: Er, well, he sang you to sleep using “The Mutiny of the Saladin ” as a lullaby?

CC: That’s right

IN: Well, let’s hear how you were sung to sleep

CC: Well, you know how the song starts, it’s one of these rather doleful, I imagine they were fo’c’sle songs, you know, sung in the fo’c’sle, we didn’t have radios or anything in those days, and it started out like this:

CC: That’s a lullaby for you

IN: Yes, it’s a little bit different from “Rock-a-bye-baby in the tree top”. Now did you sleep well after that song?

CC: Well, I don’t know. I used to have some pretty awful nightmares after some of my dad’s renditions, I was going to say that everywhere I’ve been I seem to run up against Charles Augustus Anderson. Yesterday I was in, I think you call it the Government House, a Miss Elliot, the librarian…

IN: Yes, Miss Shirley Elliot

CC: …I was talking to her about Charles Augustus Anderson and she said “Why, he was tried right in this room!” So I don’t seem to be able to get away from him.

IN: He was hanged a little bit further up the street towards Citadel Hill and now his skull’s in Citadel Museum.

Cates, Capt. Charles