The more I reflect, the more plain it appears,
If I stay, I must stay at the risque of my ears,
I have so be-peppered the foes of our throne,
Be-rebelled, be-deviled, and told them their own,
That if we give up to these rebels at last,[210]
'Tis a chance if my ears will atone for the past.
'Tis always the best to provide for the worst—
So evacuation I'll mention the first:
If Carleton should sail for our dear native shore
(As Clinton, Cornwallis, and Howe did before)
And take off the soldiers that serve for our guard,
(A step that the Tories would think rather hard)
Yet still I surmise, for aught I can see,
No Congress or Senates would meddle with me.
For what have I done, when we come to consider,
But sold my commodities to the best bidder?
If I offered to lie for the sake of a post,
Was I to be blamed if the king offered most?
The King's Royal Printer!—Five hundred a year!
Between you and me, 'twas a handsome affair:
Who would not for that give matters a stretch,
And lie back and forward, and carry and fetch,
May have some pretensions to honour and fame—
But what are they both but the sound of a name,
Mere words to deceive us, as I have found long since,
Live on them a week, and you'll find them but nonsense.
The late news from Charleston my mind has perplext,
If that is abandoned,—I know what goes next:
This city of York is a place of great note,
And that we should hold it I now give my vote;
But what are our votes against Shelburne's[211] decrees?
These people at helm steer us just where they please,
So often they've had us all hands on the brink,
They'll steer us at last to the devil, I think:
And though in the danger themselves have a share,
It will do us small good that they also go there.
It is true that the Tories, their children, and wives
Have offered to stay at the risque of their lives,
And gain to themselves an immortal renown
By all turning soldiers, and keeping the town:
Whoe'er was the Tory that struck out the plan,
In my humble conceit, was a very good man;
But our words on this subject need be very few—
Already I see that it never will do:
For, suppose a few ships should be left us by Britain,
With Tories to man them, and other things fitting,
In truth we should be in a very fine box,
As well they might guard us with ships on the stocks,
And when I beheld them aboard and afloat,
I am sure I should think of the bear in the boat.[A]
On the faith of a printer, things look very black—
And what shall we do, alas! and alack!
Shall we quit our young princes and full blooded peers,
And bow down to viscounts and French chevaliers?
Perhaps you may say, "As the very last shift
"We'll go to New-Scotland, and take the king's gift."
Good folks, do your will—but I vow and I swear,
I'll be boil'd into soup before I'll live there:
Is it thus that our monarch his subjects degrades?—
Let him go and be damned, with his axes and spades,
Of all the vile countries that ever were known
In the frigid, or torrid, or temperate zone,
(From accounts that I've had) there is not such another;
It neither belongs to this world or the other:
A favor they think to send us there gratis
To sing like the Jews at the river Euphrates,
And, after surmounting the rage of the billows,
Hang ourselves up at last with our harps on the willows;
Ere I sail for that shore, may I take my last nap—
Why, it gives me the palsy to look on its map!
And he that goes there (though I mean to be civil)
May fairly be said to have gone to the devil.
Shall I push for Old England, and whine at the throne?
Indeed! they have Jemmies enough of their own!
Besides, such a name I have got from my trade,
They would think I was lying, whatever I said;
Thus scheme as I will, or contrive as I may,
Continual difficulties rise in the way:
In short, if they let me remain in this realm,
What is it to Jemmy who stands at the helm?
I'll petition the rebels (if York is forsaken)
For a place in their Zion which ne'er shall be shaken
I am sure they'll be clever: it seems their whole study:
They hung not young Asgill for old captain Huddy,[212]
And it must be a truth that admits no denying,
If they spare us for Murder they'll spare us for Lying.
[A] See Gay's Fables.—Freneau's note, Ed. 1786.
II.
Folks may think as they please, but to me it would seem,
That our great men at home have done nothing but dream:
Such trimming and twisting and shifting about,
And some getting in, and others turned out;
And yet, with their bragging and looking so big,
All they did was to dance a theatrical jig.
Seven years now, and more, we have tried every plan,
And are just as near conquering as when we began,
Great things were expected from Clinton and Howe,
But what have they done, or where are they now?
Sir Guy was sent over to kick up a dust,
Who already prepares to return in disgust—
The object delusive we wish to attain
Has been in our reach, and may be so again—
But so oddly does heaven its bounties dispense,
And has granted our king such a small share of sense
That, let Fortune favour or smile as she will,
We are doomed to drive on, like a horse in a mill,
And though we may seem to advance on our rout,
'Tis but to return to where we sate out.
From hence I infer (by way of improvement)
That nothing is got by this circular movement;
And I plainly perceive, from this fatal delay,
We are going to ruin the round-about way!
Some nations, like ships, give up to the gale,
And are hurried ashore with a full flowing sail;
So Sweden submitted to absolute power,
And freemen were changed to be slaves in an hour;
Thus Theodore soon from his grandeur came down,
Forsaking his subjects and Corsican crown;
But we—'tis our fate, without ally or friend,
To go to perdition, close hauled to the wind.
The case is too plain, that if I stay here
I have something to hope and something to fear:
In regard to my carcase, I shouldn't mind that—
I can say "I have lived," and have grown very fat;
Have been in my day remarkable shifty,
And soon, very soon, will be verging on fifty.
'Tis time for the state of the dead to prepare,
'Tis time to consider how things will go there;
Some few are admitted to Jupiter's hall,
But the dungeons of Pluto are open to all—
The day is approaching as fast as it can
When Jemmy will be a mere moderate man,
Will sleep under ground both summer and winter,
The hulk of a man, and the shell of a printer,
And care not a farthing for George, or his line,
What empires start up, or what kingdoms decline.
Our parson last Sunday brought tears from my eyes,
When he told us of heaven, I thought of my lies—
To his flock he described it, and laid it before 'em,
(As if he had been in its Sanctum Sanctorum)
Recounted its beauties that never shall fade,
And quoted John Bunyan to prove what he said;
Debarred from the gate who the Truth should deny,
Or "whosoe'er loveth or maketh a lie."
Through the course of my life it has still been my lot
In spite of myself, to say "things that are not."
And therefore suspect that upon my decease
Not a poet will leave me to slumber in peace,
But at least once a week be-scribble the stone
Where Jemmy, poor Jemmy, lies sleeping alone!
Howe'er in the long run these matters may be,
If the scripture is true, it has bad news for me—
And yet, when I come to examine the text,
And the learned annotations that Poole has annexed,
Throughout the black list of the people that sin
I cannot once find that I'm mention'd therein;
Whoremongers, idolators, all are left out,
And wizards and dogs (which is proper, no doubt)
But he who says, I'm there, mistakes or forgets—
It mentions no Printers of Royal Gazettes!
In truth, I have need of a mansion of rest,
And here to remain might suit me the best—
Philadelphia in some things would answer as well,
(Some Tories are there, and my papers might sell)
But then I should live amongst wrangling and strife,
And be forced to say credo the rest of my life:
For their sudden conversion I'm much at a loss—
I am told that they bow to the wood of the cross,
And worship the reliques transported from Rome,
St. Peter's toe-nails, and St. Anthony's comb.—
If thus the true faith they no longer defend
I scarcely can think where the madness will end—
If the greatest among them submit to the Pope,
What reason have I for indulgence to hope?
If the Congress themselves to the Chapel did pass,[B]
Ye may swear that poor Jemmy would have to sing mass.
[B] "On the 4th of November last, the clergy and select men of Boston paraded through the streets after a crucifix, and joined in a procession in praying for a departed soul out of Purgatory; and for this they gave the example of Congress, and other American leaders, on a former occasion at Philadelphia, some of whom, in the height of their zeal, even went so far as to sprinkle themselves with what they call Holy water."—Royal Gazette, of December 11 inst.—Freneau's note.
[209] Published in the Freeman's Journal, December, 1782, in two installments and inserted without change in the edition of 1786. The first installment bore the motto "Inclusus pœnam expectat.—Virg.," and the second the motto "Incertus quo fata ferant, quo sistere detur.—Virg." Almost no change was made in the text for the later editions. Rivington bore this attack with coolness; he calmly inserted the first installment of the poem in his Royal Gazette for December 14, and gave to it the following introduction: "Mr. Rivington, having been applied to by many gentlemen for a pleasant publication respecting himself, exhibited in the Philadelphia Freeman's Journal, of December 4th, takes leave to copy it into this Day's Gazette, and assures the Author that a Column shall at any time be most cheerfully reserved to convey that Gentleman's lively Lucubrations to the Public."
[210] "Rivington, in his Gazette, fought the Rebels, a term of which he made very frequent use while he entertained the opinion that the Americans would be subjected by the British arms."—Thomas's History of Printing.
[211] Shelburne was at the head of the British ministry but seven months, yet in that time, by his firmness and zeal, he accomplished a final settlement of the quarrel with the colonies. "The treaty," says Bancroft, "which ruled the fate of a hemisphere was mainly due to Lord Shelburne."
[212] The Freeman's Journal of April 24 and May 1, 1782, gives full details of the Huddy affair. I can do no better than to quote Freneau's own version of the episode contributed to the Journal for June 12:
"Capt. Huddy, of the Jersey militia, was attacked in a small fort on Tom's river, by a party of refugees in the British pay and service, was made prisoner, together with his company, carried to New York, and lodged in the provost of that city; about three weeks after which, he was taken out of the provost down to the water side, put into a boat and brought again to the Jersey shore, and there, contrary to the practice of all nations but savages, was hung up on a tree [April 8, 1782] and left hanging until found by our people, who took him down and buried him.