Origins: Fiddler's Wife or Jack's Gone to the Sea

Subject: Origins: Fiddler's Wife or Jack's Gone to the Sea
From: GUEST,Tania
Date: 12 Nov 03 - 12:24 AM

I learned this song many years ago from a roommate's music collection. Now thinking about putting it on an album, but I don't think it's traditional, and can't remember or find any information on the song's author. It's a long-ish ballad about a yound husband (a press-ganged fiddler) lost at sea. Starts something like this:

Oh there was a young sailor come up from the quay
   (Haul away, Jack's gone to the sea)
With a packet of letters my Jack wrote to me
   (Haul away, Jack's gone to the sea)
With a packet of letters and a fiddle in his hand
To tell me my Jack would come no more to land
   (Haul away, Jack's gone to the sea)...

Can anyone help?