[A] Alexander the Great.—Freneau's note.
[B] A real event of that day: See Remembrancer of 1777.—Freneau's note.
[C] Miss M'Crea. See histories of the revolutionary war.—Freneau's note.
"A most pathetic story was told of one Jenny M'Rea, murdered by Indians near Fort Edward. Her family were Loyalists; she herself was engaged to be married to a Loyalist officer. She was dressed to receive her lover when a party of Indians burst into the house, carried off the whole family to the woods, and there murdered, scalped, and mangled them in a most horrible manner."—Hildreth's United States. See also Irving's Life of Washington. Barlow, in the sixth book of the Columbiad, has given a poetic version of the story.
[162] From the edition of 1809. The poem was written, according to the edition of 1786, in August, 1778. It was first published in conjunction with a work entitled "Travels of the Imagination," by Robert Bell of Philadelphia, and reissued twice by him during the same year. In this edition it bore the title, "American Independence an Everlasting Deliverance from British Tyranny. A Poem." Later were added the words. "By Philip F——u."
"Nor shall these upstarts of their loss complain,
Since all the debt we owe to Britain's throne
Was mere idea, and the rest our own."—Ed. 1786.
[164] "In this dark day of peril to the cause and to himself (at the close of 1776) Washington remained firm and undaunted. In casting about for some stronghold where he might make a desperate stand for the liberties of his country, his thoughts reverted to the mountain regions of his early campaigns. General Mercer was at hand, who had shared his perils among those mountains, and his presence may have contributed to bring them to his mind. 'What think you.' said Washington, 'if we should retreat to the back parts of Pennsylvania, would the Pennsylvanians support us?' 'If the lower counties give up, the back counties will do the same,' was the discouraging reply. 'We must then retire to Augusta County, in Virginia,' said Washington. 'Numbers will repair to us for safety, and we will try a predatory war. If overpowered, we must cross the Alleghanies.' Such was the indomitable spirit, rising under difficulties and buoyant in the darkest moment, that kept our tempest-tossed cause from foundering."—Irving's Washington, II, 448.
[165] "To herd with North, or Bute, or Mansfield there,"—Ed. 1786.