AN ADDRESS TO THE FREEMEN OF CANADA
Canadians! will you join the band—
The factious band—who dare oppose
The regal power of that bless'd land
From whence your boasted freedom flows?
Brave children of a noble race,
Guard well the altar and the hearth;
And never by your deeds disgrace
The British sires who gave you birth.
What though your bones may never lie
Beneath dear Albion's hallow'd sod,
Spurn the base wretch who dare defy,
In arms, his country and his God!
Whose callous bosom cannot feel
That he who acts a traitor's part,
Remorselessly uplifts the steel
To plunge it in a parent's heart.
Canadians! will you see the flag,
Beneath whose folds your fathers bled,
Supplanted by the vilest rag(1)
That ever host to rapine led?
Thou emblem of a tyrant's sway,
Thy triple hues are dyed in gore;
Like his, thy power has pass'd away—
Like his, thy short-lived triumph's o'er.
Ay! Let the trampled despot's fate
Forewarn the rash, misguided band
To sue for mercy, ere too late,
Nor scatter ruin o'er the land.
The baffled traitor, doomed to bear
A people's hate, his colleagues' scorn,
Defeated by his own despair,
Will curse the hour that he was born!
By all the blood for Britain shed
On many a glorious battle-field,
To the free winds her standard spread,
Nor to these base insurgents yield.
With loyal bosoms beating high,
In your good cause securely trust;
“God and Victoria!” be your cry,
And crush the traitors to the dust.
(1) The tri-coloured flag assumed by the rebels.
This outpouring of a national enthusiasm, which I found it impossible to restrain, was followed by