And, as he sunk beneath the tide,
A hellish shout arose;
Exultingly the demons cried,
"So fare all Albion's REBEL foes!"
The power of music and of song, on such occasions, has been witnessed in all ages of the world, especially in the youthful, or chivalric period of a nation's existence, which is the present time, in the history of the United States. We all have felt and witnessed the animating effects of the simple national tune of Yankee Doodle. Our New England boys cannot stand still when it is played. To that tune our regiments march with an energy that no other music inspires. At its sound, the sentinel on his post slaps his musket, and marches his limits with a smartness, that shows that his brave heart pulsates to the warlike drum. Such a people, thus animated and united, is absolutely invincible, by all the powers of Europe combined.
Time, situation, and circumstances, will give us national songs. Many ages passed away, before England was animated by a national hymn. The Americans have parodied this hymn, substituting, "God save great Washington!" &c.
Our orator, considering where he was, and that he had an hundred British hearers, used pretty harsh language. He apostrophised the English thus: "Haughty nation! with one hand thou art deluding and dividing thy victims in New England, and with the other, thou bearest the weapon of vengeance; and while employing the ruthful savage, with his tomahawk and scalping knife, thou art boasting of thy humanity, thy magnanimity, and thy religion! Bloody villains! detestable associates! linked together by fear, and leagued with savages by necessity, to murder a Christian people, for the alledged crime of fighting over again the battle of independence. Beware, bloody nations of Britons and savage Indians, of the recoiling vengeance of a brave people. For shame—talk no more of your Christianity, of your bible and missionary societies, when your only aim is to direct the scalping knife, and give force to the arm of the savage. No longer express the smile of pleasure, on hearing a stupid Governor proclaim you to be 'The Bulwark of our Religion!' You have filled India with blood and ashes; you have murdered the Irish for contending for liberty of conscience; you continue the scourge of war in Spain; you pay Russia, Sweden, Germany, and Holland, the price of blood; and to crown all, decorate your colors, and your seats of legislation, with scalps, torn from Americans, male and female; and you are sowing discord, and diffusing a jacobinical spirit through a protestant country, which you cannot conquer by force. But," continued the orator, waving his sinewy arm, and hard and heavy hand, "the time is not far distant, when your guilty nation will be duly appreciated, and justly punished;" and saying this, he drove his iron fist into the palm of his left hand, and stamped with his foot on the capstan, where he stood, while his admiring countrymen rewarded the herculean orator with three cheers.
There is no disguising it—these Englishmen not only respect us, but fear us. They perceive a mighty difference between us, and the cringing, gambling Frenchmen. If they are tolerably well informed, and think at all, they must conclude that we Yankees, are filled with, and keep up that bold and daring spirit of liberty, which made England what she is; and the loss of which is now perceived by their surrendered ships, and beaten armies in America. All these things will hereafter be detailed by some future Gibbon, in the History of the Decline and Fall of the British Empire.
We closed the day, on this memorable Fourth of July, pretty much as we began it; we struck our flag at sun-set, and saluted the other ships with three hearty cheers.—Throughout the whole, the prisoners, even to the boys, behaved with becoming decorum; and the whole was concluded without any disagreeable accident, or any thing like a quarrel; and in saying this, we desire to acknowledge the extraordinary good behaviour of all the British officers and men on board the Crown Prince.
Excepting the apprehensions of being sent off to Dartmoor prison, of which we entertained horrid ideas, we were tolerably happy. After the measles ceased, we were all very healthy; and there exists a good understanding between the prisoners and our commander, Osmore; which they say, is owing to the influence of his amiable wife.—This worthy woman has discovered that we are not a gang of vagabonds, but that many of the American prisoners are not only men of solid understanding, and correct principles, but men whose minds have been improved by good education. The manner and style in which we celebrated our national independence, have created a respect for us. The officers extend a better course of treatment towards us; and this has occasioned our treating them with more respect. Politeness generates politeness, and insult, insult.—They find that coaxing and fair words is the only way to manage Americans.
There is a set of busy-idlers amongst us, a sort of newsmongers, fault-finders, and predictors, who are continually bothering[L] us with unsubstantial rumors. The newspapers we take, are enough to confound any man; but these creatures are worse than the London news-writers. Sometimes we are told that Baltimore is burnt; and then that New York is taken; and we have been positively assured that old New England has declared for the British; and that the governor of Massachusetts and his council had dined on board a British man of war in Boston harbor; and that President Madison had been hanged in effigy in Boston, Newburyport and Portsmouth. At other times we were told positively, and circumstantially, that three frigates sent their boats into Marblehead, and after driving out all the women and children, set fire to the town, and reduced the whole to ashes; and this was for some time credited. We have a number of fine Marblehead men here in captivity, all staunch friends of their country's cause. I well remember since that period, that it was told us, that peace between America and England was concluded; and that one of its conditions was giving up the fisheries on the banks of Newfoundland. This alarmed the Marblehead men more than the report of burning their town; they raved and swore like mad men. "If that be the case," said they, "I am damned—Marblehead is forever damned—and we are all damned; and damnation seize the peace-makers, who have consented to this condition." On this subject they worked themselves into a fever; and were very unhappy all the time the story was believed. Such like stories were told to as, oft times, so circumstantially, that we all believed them. When discovered to be false, they were called galley news, or galley packets. These mischievous characters are continually sporting with our feelings; and secretly laughing at the uneasiness they occasion. There is one man who has got the name of lying Bob; who is remarkable for the fertility of his invention; there is so much apparent correctness in all he advances, that we too often believe his sly quizzing rodomontades. He mentions and describes the man who informed him, states little particulars, and relates circumstances, so closely connected with acknowledged facets, that the most cautious and incredulous are often taken in by him. He is a constitutional liar; and the fellow has such a plausible mode of lying, and wears throughout such a fixed and solemn phiz, that his news has been circulated by us all, with all our wise reasons, and explanations, and conjectures, that although we are sometimes angry enough to knock his brains out, we cannot help laughing at the hoax. To the name of lying Bob, we have added that of "Printer to Prince Belzebub's Royal Gazette."
This little community of ours, crowded within the planks of a single ship, is but the prototype of the great communities on the land. Here we see working, all those passions, hopes, fears, emulations, envies, and even contentions for distinction, which, like the winds and tides of the ocean, keep the human mind healthy, vigorous, and progressing to general benefit. Amidst it all, we could discover "the ruling passion," the love of country, and a firm belief that our countrymen understood rational liberty better, and could defend it longer, than any nation now in existence.
Many people are beguiled with an idea, that sailors have no serious thoughts of religion; because they use swearing, and, too often, a profane phraseology, without any meaning. But seamen generally have as serious ideas of religion, as landsmen; and are, in my opinion, full as good. Hypocrisy is not among their vices. They never pretend to more religion than their conduct proclaims. You see and hear the worst of them; and that cannot always be said of our brethren on shore. We have had a methodist preacher exhorting us twice a week, until lately; but he has discontinued his visits; for he found the hearts of some of our fellows as hard as their faces, and he relinquished the hope of their conversion to methodism. There was, at one time, on board our ship, a little, ugly French surgeon's mate, who had lived several years in London, and in the southern part of America. He could speak, and read the English language equally well with his own. He ridiculed all religion, and talked in such an irreverent style of the bible, of Jesus Christ, and of the Virgin Mary, that our sailors would not associate with him, nor, at times, eat with him. On one occasion, his profanity was so shocking, that he ran some risk of being thrown overboard. He was a witty, comical fellow, and they would listen and laugh at his drollery; but they finally stopped his mouth from uttering things, for which he would be severely punished in England and in America; and skinned, or fried, or slowly roasted, in Spain.