Use features like bookmarks, note taking and highlighting while reading A Heart of Oak: An Age of Sail Novel (Catherine Cook Sea Adventure Series Book 1). Download it once and read it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. We'll fight and we'll conquer again and again. A Heart of Oak: An Age of Sail Novel (Catherine Cook Sea Adventure Series Book 1) - Kindle edition by Cook, Scott. We always are ready: Steady, boys, Steady! Heart of Oak are our ships, jolly Tars are our men, To honour we call you, as freemen not slaves,įor who are so free as the sons of the waves? To add something more to this wonderful year These lyrics are based on the version performed by the Longest Johns in their Youtube video.Ĭome, cheer up, me lads, 'tis to glory we steer, The 'wonderful year' of the first verse refers to 1759, the so-called 'Year of Victories' during the Seven Years War, which featured British victories at the battles of Minden, Quiberon Bay, and Quebec. I fancied myself to be a recruiting sea-officer-I fancied all my chorus of Corsicans aboard the British fleet. 'Cuore di querco' cried they, 'Bravo Inglese'. Never did I see men so delighted with a song as the Corsicans were with 'Hearts of Oak'. Johnson, sang the song while visiting Corsica, and commented: 2 1859 reports that James Boswell, biographer to one Dr.

Ĭhappell's Popular Music of the Olden Time vol. The title refers to the wood from which British warships were generally made during the age of sail, 'heartwood' being the strongest wood from the inner part of a tree. This song is the official march of the Royal Navy.

Heart of Oak by David Cook