The yellow flag I saw was flying, A signal for my love to die; The gun was fir’d, as was requir’d, To hang him on the yard-arm high. The boatswain did his best endeavour, I on the shore was put straightway, And there I tarried, watching, weeping, My husband’s corpse to bear away. On reaching the _Sandwich_ she was informed that all was over, and that the body of her husband had just been taken ashore for burial. She immediately caused herself to be rowed ashore again, and proceeded to the cemetery, but found that the ceremony was over and the gate was locked. She then went to the Admiral and sought the key, but it was refused to her. Excited almost to madness by the information given her that probably the surgeons would disinter the body that night and cut it up, she waited around the churchyard till dusk, and then clambering over the wall, readily found her husband’s grave. The shell was not buried deep, and she was not long in scraping away the loose earth that intervened between her and the object of her search. She tore off the lid with her nails and teeth, and then clasped the hand of her husband, cold in death, and no more able to return the pressure. Her determination to possess the body next forced her to quit the cemetery and seek the assistance of two women, who, in their turn, got several men to undertake the task of lifting the body. This was accomplished successfully, and at 3 a.m. the shell containing the corpse was placed in a van and conveyed to Rochester, where, for the sum of six guineas, the widow procured another wagon to carry it to London. On the road they met hundreds of people all inquiring about, and talking of, the fate of “Admiral Parker.” The rude ballad thus relates the carrying away of the body:-- At dead of night, when all was quiet, And many thousands fast asleep, I, by two female friends attended, Into the burial-ground did creep. Our trembling hands did serve as shovels With which the mold we moved away, And then the body of my husband Was carried off without delay. At 11 p.m. the van reached London, but there the poor widow had no private house or friends to go to, and was constrained to stop at the “Hoofs and Horseshoe” on Tower Hill, which was full of people. Mrs. Parker got the body into her room, and sat down beside it; but the secret could not long be kept in such a place, more particularly as the news of the exhumation had been brought by express that day to London. An immense crowd assembled about the house, anxious to see the body of Parker, but this the widow would not permit.