Disguised sailor returns home to his parents, hoping to surprise them with his new-found wealth. They mistake him for a stranger, kill him, and steal his gold. When the mistake comes to light, both parents commit suicide and the boy's sister dies of grief.
The Broadside
Smeeton's broadside on this case is undated, but the crime it describes can be traced back to 1618. The prose account accompanying the ballad takes much of its wording from Saunderson's Annals of James I, but adds the new information that the victim's name was James Andrew Macauley.
The Ballad
All you who have children dear,
Now hear this tale of woe,
The history of this tragedy,
I now to you will show.
A happy couple at Penryn,
Had a son who went to sea,
And after fifteen years returned,
His parents for to see.
He to their cot disguised did go,
Asked shelter from the cold,
And ere he laid him down to sleep,
Showed all his wealth and gold.
The mother to the father went,
In anxious breathless haste,
And told of treasure she had seen,
Around the stranger's waist.
The father then, by Satan led,
Did take the killer's part,
He stole the cursed gold away,
And stabbed his own boy's heart.
And scarce before the parents yet,
Had seen the morrow's light,
Their daughter came with joy to ask,
Of the sailor there last night.
She said 'It is my brother James,
Who long at sea has roved,
He's come back home to share his wealth,
With those he dearly loved'.
Oh when they found the murdered youth,
Was their own darling boy,
Most frightful horrors seized their minds,
And bitterly they cried.
The guilty pair then slew themselves,
Their sin they could not hide,
And the broken-hearted daughter,
Sank to the ground and died.
The Facts
Smeeton's opening words on this Victorian sheet are "Some time since, there lived a man named Macauley." Technically, that's true enough, but it rather conceals the fact that "some time since" in this case means 200 years ago.
The 1618 pamphlet which gives us our first account of this young man's death is headed "Newes From Perin in Cornwall: of A most Bloody and un-exampled Murther very lately committed by a Father on his owne Sonne (who was lately returned from the Indyes) at the Instigation of a mercilesse Step-mother. Together with their severall most wretched endes, being all performed in the Month of September last, Anno 1618."
It does not give the family involved a name, calling its characters only "the olde man", "his wife", "the daughter" and so on. Saunderson's history doesn't name them either, saying that, although the family's name is well-known locally, the author has omitted it "in favour to some neighbour of repute and kin to that family". It's unlikely that the balladeer had access to any information outside these two sources, so we must assume that James Andrew Macauley was his own invention.
The pamphlet describes a comfortably-off Penryn family whose youngest son goes off to sea and returns, after many adventures there, 15 years later. He's a rich man now, with a pouch of jewels strapped round his waist, and when he gets back to Penryn his first port of call is his sister's house. He discovers she's now married to a humble mercer, and that his parents have fallen on hard times. Not only that, but his absence for so long without news had led his parents to assume he must be dead, his mother had died from the grief this caused her, and his father married again.
The young man tells his sister he's going to his father and step-mother's house now, but that he's not going to tell them who he is until his sister gets there with her husband next morning. He'll then reveal his true identity, clear all the family's debts and everything will be fine.
Off he goes to the father's house - now a scruffy, broken-down shack - and finds Dad is compassionate enough to offer this travelling stranger a bed for the night. He entertains the old couple with tales of his adventures at sea - pirates, shipwrecks, all that - and then prepares for bed. The step-mother shows him through to a bedroom, where he gives her a piece of gold from the pouch round his waist as thanks for their kindness, and this allows her to see the rest of his fortune.
As soon as the young man is asleep, the step-mother hurries back to her husband, and suggests they kill the stranger while he sleeps and then steal his gold. He's reluctant at first, but she eventually talks him round, and he kills the young man with his own dagger. They cover the body with clothes and blankets until they can find a way to dispose of it.