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Posted by Michael Robinson on May 20, 19100 at 03:35:24:
In Reply to: Re: The number of men on a dead man's chest posted by Tim on March 21, 19100 at 06:28:56:
From "Treasure Island" by Robert Louis Stevenson, The song is an imaginary drinking song sung by the pirate characters, and the line is actually
"Fifteen men on the dead man's chest--
Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!" (Treasure Island, Chapter 1, Page 1, US 1st Pub Date, 1894), where "The Dead Man's Chest" is the name of an island that the men were cast away on, as noted by Ripley of "Ripley's Believe It or Not".
Later in the chapter the additional lyrics
"Drink and the devil had done for the rest--
Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!" were added.
There was also a full song and score made for a musical in 1901 that took a few of the lyrics and added a bunch more made-up lyrics, but omitted Stephenson's additional lines, from Chapter 23 (XXIII) 'The Ebb-tide Runs':
"But one man of her crew alive,
What put to sea with seventy-five."
Stevenson got the name of the Dead Man's Chest from Charles Kingsley's 1871 West Indies travel novel "At Last".
It seems I have heard this corrupted to "sixteen men" as well, but I can't remember where. It's really insignificant anyway, isn't it? That's what I love about things like this.