Lucy Locket lost her pocket,
Kitty Fisher found it;
Nothing in it, nothing in it,
But the binding 'round it.
The air came to be known as "Kitty Fisher," or "Kitty Fisher's Jig."
In 1755, when the Colonial troops were joining the British regulars in the invasion of Canada, by way of Albany, Dr. Schuckburgh, a surgeon attached to Lord Amherst's forces, is said to have derisively adopted the tune for the use of the Colonials, who apparently accepted it in good faith as an established martial air.
To attribute to Dr. Schuckburgh the words which were afterward sung to the air is to disregard the internal evidence of the words themselves—unless, as is possible, though not probable, the stanzas referring to Washington were added later.
The full set of stanzas, entitled "The Yankee's Return from Camp," appear to date from the latter part of 1775, after the battle of Bunker Hill, when the Continental army, under General Washington's command, was encamped in the vicinity of Boston.
The Tories were then singing to the old tune of "Kitty Fisher" these lines:
Yankee Doodle came to town
For to buy a firelock;
We will tar and feather him,
And so we will John Hancock.
The original Tory quatrain referred to the smuggling of muskets into the country by the patriots. The stanzas substituted by some unknown Colonial rimester run as follows:
Father and I went down to camp,
Along with Captain Gooding,
And there we seed the men and boys
As thick as hasty pudding.
Yankee Doodle, keep it up,
Yankee Doodle Dandy;
Mind the music and the step,
And with the girls be handy.
And there we seed a thousand men,
As rich as 'Squire David;
And what they wasted ev'ry day,
I wish'd it could be savéd.
Yankee Doodle, etc.