"dropped on" (Non-Standard conjoined subject noun phrases)

[George Thompson]

In a message dated February 24, 2010, Robin Hamilton quotes a poaching ballad called "Hares in the Old Plantation," evidently from the late 18th C:
Me and five more went out one night into Squire Duncan's park
            To see if we could catch some game, the night it being dark
            But to our great misfortune we got dropped on with speed
            And they took us off to Warwick gaol which made our hearts to
bleed

This seems to be HDAS's 4a, "to become aware of, to discover, const. with to or on".  The earliest citation for this sense in HADS is 1812, from Vaux' Memoirs.
HDAS's various senses referring to being arrested, (under #5), all date from the very early 20th C.

GAT

George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately.

----- Original Message -----
From: Robin Hamilton <robin.hamilton2 at BTINTERNET.COM>
Date: Wednesday, February 24, 2010 10:16 pm
Subject: Non-Standard conjoined subject noun phrases
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU

> ... at least I think that's what I'm asking about.
>
> Specifically, what (if anything) can be said about the relation of five
> texts located sometime in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
> The linkage may be purely chance, but it seems possible that some sort
> of
> correspondence lies behind them.
>
> Possibly the earliest, and the one which interests me most, is "A New
> Flash
> Song" (early to mid-eighteenth century) [1], beginning:
>
>             Me and five more we all set up,
>             To rob and plunder without doubt,
>             Away to Hyde Park we did steer
>             To light on the culls and rattlers there.
>
> -- the text continues with the activities of these six young men, concluding
> with their eventual hanging at Tyburn.
>
> "Me and five more ..." seems to have survived only in a single broadside
> text.  Much more widespread, and dateable from c. 1775, is "The Lincolnshire
> Poachers":
>
>             When I was bound apprentice in famous Lincolnshire
>             Full well I served my master for nigh on seven years
>             Till I took up to poaching as you shall quickly hear
>             Oh, 'tis my delight on a shiny night in the season of the
> year.
>
>             As me and my companions was setting out a snare
>             'Twas then we spied the gamekeeper, for him we didn't care
>             For we can wrestle and fight, my boys, and jump from anywhere
>             Oh, 'tis my delight on a shiny night in the season of the
> year.
>
>             As me and my companions was setting four or five
>             And taking them all up again, we caught a hare alive
>             We caught a hare alive, my boys, and through the woods did
> steer
>             Oh, 'tis my delight on a shiny night in the season of the
> year.
>
> Here, the "me and my companions" at the beginning of the second and third
> stanzas seem to parallel the "Me and five more" of the earlier ballad.
>
> (Later versions sometimes normalise slightly to "were setting of a snare,"
> but retain "me and my companions" as subject.)
>
> Probably later, but possibly still in the eighteenth century, we have
> "The
> Gallant Poachers," in 9-line stanzas, beginning, "Now come all you
> lads of
> high renown / That like to drink strong ale that's brown ..." with the
> second verse:
>
>             Now me and five more a-poaching went
>             To get some game was our intent
>             Our goods were gone and our money all spent
>             We had nothing left to try.
>             Now the moon shone bright, not a cloud in sight,
>             Oh, the keeper heard us fire a gun,
>             To the spot he quickly run,
>             He swore, before the rising sun
>             That one of us should die.
>
> Naturally, one of them does die, to the chagrin of the keeper who killed
> him:
>
>             Now the murderous man that did him kill,
>             Caused his precious blood to spill,
>             Must wander far against his will
>             And find no resting place.
>
> Not all poachers went in groups of six -- one at least was accompanied
> only
> by his trusty dogs.  Thus "Hares in the Old Plantation," where we have
> in
> stanza two (again):
>
>             Oh me and my dogs we went out one night
>             To view a habitation
>             Up jumped one and away she run
>             Right away into my plantation.
>
> No survey of poaching ballads would be complete without someone
> trepanned or
> transported, which is of course what occurs in "Van Diemen's Land", where
> 'you gallant poachers that ramble void of care' take the wrong turning
> at
> (where else?) the beginning of stanza 2:
>
>             Me and five more went out one night into Squire Duncan's park
>             To see if we could catch some game, the night it being dark
>             But to our great misfortune we got dropped on with speed
>             And they took us off to Warwick gaol which made our hearts
> to
> bleed
>
> (Some later versions normalise the first line above to, "I and five more
> a-poaching went.")
>
> Things change -- the me and five more who went on the high pad lay in
> Hyde
> Park in the (possibly early) eighteenth century and ended up at Tyburn
> transform into the six who poach on Squire Duncan's land (possibly in
> the
> early nineteenth century) and only (only!) have to endure being
> shipped off
> to Australia.
>
> Perhaps all this is simple coincidence -- there are after all about twenty
> poaching texts from this period which are different enough to constitute
> distinct (if more or less heavily related) texts, and only four of them,
> together with the cant gallows ballad with which I began, have the specific
> nexus of words that I'm noticing.
>
> On the other hand ...  Perhaps the similar use of a particular non-standard
> set of words points to ... something.
>
> But just what?
>
> Robin
>
> [1] V. A. C. Gatrell, _The Hanging Tree: Execution and the English People
> 1770-1868_, p 154: "The illustration and the typography point to an early-
> to mid-eighteenth century provenance."
>
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