Freneau placed upon the title-page the ringing challenge:
"Then England come!—a sense of wrong requires
To meet with thirteen stars your thousand fires:
Through these stern times the conflict to maintain,
Or drown them, with your commerce, in the main."
He introduced the work as follows:
"The poetical pieces contained in these volumes were composed at different periods, and on a variety of occasions, between the years 1797 and 1815, and are now presented to the public, printed from the author's original and corrected manuscripts, and, it is hoped, in such a style of typography, as will not be unacceptable to the reader.—Several of the performances, comprised in this collection, and chiefly those on political subjects, and other events of the times, have heretofore appeared in several periodical publications of this and other States of the union. It is presumed, however, that the poems of this description will not be the less acceptable to the friends of the muses, now they are collected in these volumes; with the advantage of having at one view what were before scattered in those bulky vehicles of information, whose principal object can be little more than to record the common events and business of the day, and soon descend into comparative oblivion.—Whatever may be the fate of the work, they are respectfully offered to the world, in hopes it may obtain a share of their attention, and particularly, from the friends of poetical composition; and in a country where it may be expected, the fine arts in general will, with the return of peace, find that share of encouragement, which they seem entitled to demand, in every nation that makes any pretensions to refinement and civilization.—It is only necessary to add, that care has been taken to execute the typographical part as correctly as possible."
The poems were reviewed for the Analectic Magazine by Mr. Gulian C. Verplanck, who said in part:
"He depicts land battles and naval fights with much animation and gay coloring; and being himself a son of old Neptune, he is never at a loss ... when the scene lies at sea. His martial and political ballads are free from bombast and affectation, and often have an arch simplicity in their manner that renders them very poignant and striking. If the ballads and songs of Dibdin have cheered the spirits and incited the valor of the British tars, the strains of Freneau, in like manner, are calculated to impart patriotic impulses to the hearts of his countrymen, and their effect in this way should be taken as the test of their merit, without entering into a very nice examination of the rhyme or the reason. For our own part, we have no inclination to dwell on his defects; we had much rather—
"'With full applause, in honor to his age,
Dismiss the veteran poet from the stage,
Crown his last exit with distinguished praise,
And kindly hide his baldness with the bays.'"
The last lines used by Verplanck are from "American Bards," a poem published in Philadelphia in 1820. The reference to Freneau is not without interest:
"Let Freneau live, though Flattery's baleful tongue,
Too early tuned his youthful lyre to song,
And ripe old age, in ill directed zeal,
Has made an enervated last appeal;
His song could fire the sailor on the wave,
Raise up the coward,—animate the brave,
While wit and satire cast their darts around,
And fools and cowards tremble at the sound.
Although ambition never soared to claim
The meed of polished verse, or classic fame,
And caustic critics honor but condemn,
A strain of feeling, but a style too tame.
Let the old bard whose patient voice has fanned
The fire of freedom that redeemed our land,
Live on the scroll with kindred names that swell
The page of history, where their honors dwell;
With full applause, in honor to his age,
Dismiss the veteran poet from the stage,
Crown his last exit with distinguished praise,
And kindly hide his baldness with the bays."
The last years of Freneau's life were eventless, passed quietly at Mount Pleasant, and varied only with frequent visits to New York. Shortly after the issue of the 1815 edition of his poems, the ancestral home was completely destroyed by fire, together with most of the poet's papers, manuscript poems, valuable letters and books—the collection of a lifetime. During his last years he contemplated a complete and final edition of his poetical works. He wrote Dr. Mease of Philadelphia whether there was "enough of the old spirit of patriotism abroad to insure the safety of such an adventure;" and it was the testimony of Alexander Anderson, the once celebrated engraver on wood, that Freneau once consulted with him as to the cost of an illustrated volume of his poems, and departed sadly remarking that his purse was not equal to the venture.