Full many a joyous moment have I sat by ye, Because I am taught (and I believe it true) The Association, &c., of the Colonies at the Grand Congress held at Philadelphia, September 1, 1774, by "Bob Jingle, Esq., Poet-Laureat to the Congress," printed in that year, is a parody in verse of the Articles of Association, which seems to have been a favorite species of wit with the Tory bards, who found in the new proceedings of legislation novel matter for their jocularity. A clever squib, in verse, A Dialogue between a Southern Delegate and his Spouse, on his return from the Grand Continental Congress, of the same year, is in a similar vein, the humor consisting in the indignant wife rating her simpleminded husband for his rashness in intermeddling with affairs of state. A single passage of the altercation will suffice: WIFE Good Lord! how magnanimous ! I fear, child, thou'rt drunk, Dost thou think thyself, deary, a Cromwell, or Monck? Dost thou think that wise nature meant thy shallow pate, To digest the important affairs of a state? Thou born! thou! the machine of an empire to wield? And thou wise in debate? Should'st feel bold in the field? If thou'st wisdom to manage tobacco, and slave, Heavens! we couldn't have bungled it so for our lives! If you had even consulted the boys of a school, Believe me, Love, you could not have played so the fool: Would it bluster, and frighten its own poor dear wife, As the Congress does England! quite out of her life? HUSBAND. This same Congress, my dear, much disturbeth thy rest, God and man ask no more than that men do their best; Tis their fate, not their crimes, if they've little pretence, To your most transcendent penetration and sense; Tis great pity, I grant, they hadn't ask'd the advice Of a judge of affairs, so profound and so nice; You're so patient, so cool, so monstrous eloquent, Next Congress, my Empress shall be made President. A mild remonstrance against a famous practice appears in Rivington's Gazette at this date. We give it with its introductory note, showing its author at least did not set an extravagant value on his contribution. MR. RIVINGTON I shall take it very kind in you, sir, if you will be so good to put the verses, wrapt up in this paper, into your next Gazetteer, for fear of some terrible mischief: I am concerned I can't afford to give you any thing for't, but I hope you will do it for nothing, for A POOR MAN. New York, Dec. 19, 1774. ON HEARING THAT THE POOR MAN WAS TARRED AND FEATHERED. Upon my word it's very hard A man can't speak his mind, God knows my heart, my neighbours dear, My pride would have such fall. I meant to serve you all, 'tis true, With heart, and strength, and might, Alas! 'twas all an idle dream, These tyrants to oppose, In vain we strive against the stream, Our noses they will grind full well, Ah, where's the man in your defence, With homely language, downright sense, Tar, feathers, haunt him day and night, But loves his wife full dear. Ah, should she view him dress'd in tar, She'd rage and rave, and storm and swear, Inspectors all, beware, beware, Come not unto our house, She'll scratch your eyes, and tear your hair, "Twould be a shame, a woman poor Your pow'r should dare oppose, Rivington's New York Gazette, Thursday, Another, but more vigorous Tory strain, appears in the same journal a little later. As these pieces show the spirit of the time, and the activity of the foe enhances the glory of the conqueror, we do not scruple to insert them. Each section of the country seems to have furnished its quota. The British bands with glory crown'd, Our martial deeds loud fame shall sound, Then faction spurn, think for yourselves, From real griefs, from factious elves, Contributed by "Agricola" to Rivington's New York Gazetteer, Thursday, Jan. 5, 1775. We find in the Pennsylvania Journal of May 31, 1775, a song, which we have not met in any other shape, and which well deserves the honor of a reprint: A SONG. To the tune of "The Echoing Horn." Hark! 'tis Freedom that calls, come, patriots, awake! II. Triumphant returning with Freedom secur'd, With our wives and our friends, we'll sport, love, and drink, And lose the fatigues of the day. 'Tis freedom alone gives a relish to mirth, But oppression all happiness sours; It will smooth life's dull passage, 'twill slope the descent, And strew the way over with flowers. A few months later in the same year, we meet the date, October, 1775, of the composition of one of the finest and most popular productions of the war, the "Why should vain mortals tremble?" of Nathaniel Niles: THE AMERICAN HERO, A Sapphic ode, written in the time of the American Revolution, at Norwich, Conn., October, 1775. Why should vain mortals tremble at the sight of Sounding with death-groans? Death will invade us by the means appointed, What shape he comes in. Infinite Goodness teaches us submission, God, our Creator. Well may we praise him: all his ways are perfect: Struck blind by lustre. Good is Jehovah in bestowing sunshine, O, then, exult that God forever reigneth; Then to the wisdom of my Lord and Master Now, Mars, I dare thee, clad in smoky pillars, Up the bleak heavens let the spreading flames rise, Lowering, like Egypt, o'er the falling city, Breaking, like Etna, through the smoky columns, Wantonly burn'd down.* While all their hearts quick palpitate for havoc, Let oceans waft on all your floating castles, From the dire caverns, made by ghostly miners, Quick to destruction. Still shall the banner of the King of Heaven Fame and dear freedom lure me on to battle, Life, for my country and the cause of freedom, Nathaniel Niles was a graduate of Princeton of 1766 and Master of Arts of Harvard 1772; be settled in Vermont, where he became District Judge of the United States. He died in West Fairlee, Vermont, in November, 1828, at the age of eighty-six. His grandfather, Samuel Niles, the minister of Braintree, Mass., was an author of note. He wrote Tristia Ecclesiarum, an account of the New England churches in 1745, and a tract in verse, God's Wonder Working Procidence for New England in the reduction of Louisburg, in 1747, also several theological publica tions, and a History of the Indian Wars published in the Massachusetts Historical Collections, dying in 1762 at the age of eighty-nine.t Niles, we learn further, preached occasionally as a Presbyterian clergyman in Norwich, Conn., during the Revolution, where he also established a wire manufactory, previous to his removal to * Charlestown, near Boston. + Mass. Hist. Coll., Third eries, vi. 154-279. Updike's Nar. Ch. 87. the Vermont District. He was an acute preacher; two sermons delivered by him at Torringford, Conn., The Perfection of God, the Fountain of God, and published at Norwich, "for a number of hearers," fully supporting a reputation in this particular. There is an improvement in one of them in an allusion to Washington which is curious. He is illustrating the providence of the Deity: "Observe the sunbeams that shoot by stealth into a darkened room. There you will see myriads of playing motes. Can there be any importance in these? Indeed there can, indeed there is: too much for any except God to manage. One of these may overthrow an empire, give the world a shock, and extend its influence into eternity. It may fall on the lungs of some monarch, and occasion great revolutions in his dominions. It may light on the eye of a David, a Solomon, a Cyrus, an Alexander, bring on an inflammation which may spread to the other; produce a mortification, first of those parts, and then of the whole body. Should this be the case with the Commander-inChief of the present American forces, what dreadful consequences might not follow. Our strength might give way; our country be subdued; our religious privileges be wrested from us; superstition and idolatry be introduced, and, by and by, spread from us throughout this continent; and then spread over the other quarters of the world, in an heavier cloud than they now lie under." He also published several other discourses, but he will be mainly remembered by his American Hero, a sapphic ode, sung vigorously in Norwich in the olden time, and still revived, we understand, on certain occasions in New Haven.* The bombardment of Bristol occurred on the 7th of October, 1775, and the ballad on the subject was written not long after. We extract the lines from Mrs. Williams's Biography of Barton. Wallace was the commander of the English squadron off Newport: THE BOMBARDMENT OF BRISTOL. The incident which occasioned the following ballad is thus described by an eye-witness (whose name is not given) in a letter to Mrs. Williams. October 7, 1775, the day when Wallace fired upon the town of Bristol, I was something over ten years old, and all the circumstances relating to that event are fresh in my memory. It was on a pleasant afternoon, with a gentle breeze from the south, that the ships at Newport got under weigh, and stood up towards Bristol (appearing to us a pretty sight). The wind being light they did not arrive till sunset. Wallace, in the Rose, led the way, run up and anchored within a cable's length of the wharf. I think the other ships' names were the Gaspee and Eskew. The next followed, and anchored one cable's length to the south. The other one, in endeavouring to go further south, grounded on the middle ground. Besides these, I think there was a bomb brig and a schooner. The schooner run up opposite the bridge, and anchored. I was on the wharf, with hundreds of others, viewing the same, and suspecting no evil. At eight o'clock the Commodore fired a gun. Even then the people felt no alarm, but in a very short time they began to fire * History of Norwich, Conn., from its first settlement in 1660, to January, 1845, by Miss F. M. Caulkins, p. 298. Dodd's Revolutionary Memorials, p. 66. all along the line, and continued to fire for an hour. The bomb brig threw carcasses, machines made of iron hoops, and filled with all manner of combustibles, to set fire to the town. They threw them up nearly perpendicular, with a tremendous tail to them, and when they fell on the ground they blazed up many yards high, several of which were put out. *The cowardly rascal, after firing for an hour or so, being hailed by one of our citizens, ceased firing, and a committee from the town went on board, and his demand on them was a number of sheep and cattle. I believe they collected a few; and the next day, being Sunday, he got under way, and left us, with a name not yet forgotten. It is marvellous that there were not more people killed, as the bridge was crowded with people all the time of the firing, and the schooner lay within pistol shot of the bridge, and kept up a constant fire. The rest of the ships fired grape, round and double head shot, which were plentifully found after the firing. * The following verses were made on the occasion:- October 't was the seventh day, At eight o'clock, by signal given, With all their firing and their skill In relation to the following, we find the schooner True American, twelve guns, Captain Daniel Hawthorne, spoken of as in service in 1777 in a list of Salem Privateers, in Joseph B. Felt's Annals of Salem (Salem, 1849), vol. ii. 268. The ballad is given in McCarty's Songs, vol. ii. 250, from R. W. Griswold's manuscript col lection of American Historical Ballads, and is said to have been taken down "from the mouths of the surviving shipmates of Hawthorne, who were accustomed to meet at the office of the Marine Insurance Company in Salem." BOLD HAWTHORNE; OR THE CRUISE OF THE FAIR AMERICAN, COMMANDED BY CAPT. DANIEL HAWTHORNE, Written by the Surgeon of the Vessel. The twenty-second of August, All hands on board of our privateer, Then our departure took for sea, From the isle of Mauhegan shore. She, with relentless fury, Was plundering all our coast, And thought, because her strength was great, Yet boast not, haughty Britons, Thy matchless strength at sea; With valour can equip their stand, Farewell our friends and wives; And to preserve our dearest friends The wind it being leading, Where we fell in with a British ship, We hauled up our courses, And so prepared for fight; The contest held four glasses, Until the dusk of night; Then having sprung our mainmast, We dropp'd astern and left our chase Next morn we fish'd our mainmast, We cruised to the eastward, Near the coast of Portugal, In longitude of twenty-seven We saw a lofty sail; We gave her chase, and soon perceived She was prepared with nettings, And bore directly for us, And put us close on board; When the cannon roar'd like thunder, But soon we were alongside And grappled to her chain. And now the scene it alter'd, The cannon ceased to roar, We fought with swords and boarding pikes One glass or something more, Till British pride and glory No longer dared to stay, But cut the Yankee grapplings, And met a watery grave. And our good privateer! Joseph Warren contributed by his voice and pen, as well as his sword, to the progress of the American cause. He delivered in 1772 and 1775 orations on the Boston Massacre, the second of which was pronounced in defiance of the threats of the soldiery of the garrison, who lined the pulpit stairs. Warren, to avoid confusion, entered by the window in the rear. The address was an animated and vigorous performance. The interest it excited out of Boston may be gathered from the abusive account of its delivery in Rivington's Gazette, March 16, 1775, an amusing specimen of the style of writing in that periodical.t On Monday, the 5th instant, the Old South Meeting-house being crowded with mobility and fame, the selectmen, with Adams, Church and Hancock, Cooper and others, assembled in the pulpit, which was covered with black, and we all sat gaping at one another, above an hour, expecting! At last, a single horse chair stopped at the apothecary's, opposite the meeting, from which descended the orator (Warren) of the day, and, entering the shop, was followed by a servant with a bundle, in which were the Ciceronian toga, etc Having robed himself, he proceeded across the Hawthorne was wounded in the head by a musket ball + Quoted in Loring's Hundred Boston Orators, p. 60. street to the meeting, and, being received into the pulpit, he was announced by one of his fraternity to be the person appointed to declaim on the occasion. He then put himself into a Demosthenian posture, with a white handkerchief in his right hand, and his left in his breeches,-began and ended without action. He was applauded by the mob, but groaned at by people of understanding. One of the pulpiteers (Adams) then got up and proposed the nomination of another to speak next year on the bloody massacre,-the first time that expression was made to the audience,-when some officers cried, O fie, fie! The gallerians, apprehending fire, bounded out of the windows, and swarmed down the gutters like rats, into the street. The 434 regiment, returning accidentally from exercise, with drums beating, threw the whole body into the greatest consternation. There were neither pageantry, exhibitions, processions, or bells tolling, as usual, but the night was remarked for being the quietest these many months past. Warren wrote for the newspapers in favor of freedom, and turned his poetical abilities in the same direction. His Free America, written probably not long before his lamented death, shows that he possessed facility as a versifier. FREE AMERICA. Tune" British Grenadiers." That seat of science, Athens, And earth's proud mistress, Rome; Where now are all their glories? We scarce can find a tomb. Then guard your rights, Americans, Nor stoop to lawless sway; Oppose, oppose, oppose, oppose, For North America. We led fair Freedom hither, And lo, the desert smiled! A paradise of pleasure Was opened in the wild! Your harvest, bold Americans, For free America. Torn from a world of tyrants, Beneath this western sky, We formed a new dominion, A land of liberty: The world shall own we're masters here; Then hasten on the day: Huzza, huzza, huzza, huzza, Proud Albion bow'd to Cesar, And numerous lords before; God bless this maiden climate, Lift up your hands, ye heroes, The wretch that would ensnare you, And fight and shout, and shout and fight Some future day shall crown us, The masters of the main, The sons, the sons, the sons, the sons Of brave America. 443 A pamphlet collection of Poems upon Several Occasions, printed in Boston, 1799, opens with a ballad of a simple earnest feeling, which, in reviewing the early incidents of the war, gives an account of the death of Warren, of value as a probably contemporary testimony.* A POEM, CONTAINING SOME REMARKS ON THE PRESENT WAR, ETC. Britons grown big with pride And wanton ease, And tyranny beside, They sought to please Their craving appetite; They strove with all their might, To make us bow. The plan they laid was deep, With sympathy I weep, Of that base murderous brood, Who came to spill our blood In our own land. They bid their armies sail They cross'd the Atlantic sea To tyranny. They felt proud tyrants' rage And cruelty, A monster of a Gage There passing by, With every trap and snare, Whose oaths did taint the air; The illustrious city fair Was in distress. No pen can fully write, Of that army so base; Poems upon Several Occasions, viz.:-1. A Poem on the Enemy's first coming to Boston; the Burning of Charlestown; the fight at Bunker-Hill, &c. 2. The Widow's Lamentation. 8. Nebuchadnezzar's Dream. 4. Against Oppression. 5. An Heroic Poem on the taking of General Burgoyne, &c. Shall every sense of Virtue sleep, and every talent lie buried in the Earth, when subjects of such importance call for them to be improved? Boston: Printed for the Author. 1799. |