Old Bute and North, twin sons of hell,
If you advised him to retreat
Before our vanquished thousands fell,
Prostrate, submissive at his feet:
Awake once more his latent flame,
And bid us yield you all you claim.[235]
The Macedonian wept and sighed
Because no other world was found
Where he might glut his rage and pride,
And by its ruin be renowned;
The world that Sawney wished to view
George fairly had—and lost it too!
Let jarring powers make war or peace,
Monster!—no peace can greet your breast:
Our murdered friends can never cease
To hover round and break your rest!
The Furies will your bosom tear,
Remorse, distraction, and despair
And hell, with all its fiends, be there!
Cursed be the ship that e'er sets sail
Hence, freighted for your odious shore;
May tempests o'er her strength prevail,
Destruction round her roar!
May Nature all her aids deny,
The sun refuse his light,
The needle from its object fly,
No star appear by night:
'Till the base pilot, conscious of his crime,
Directs the prow to some more Christian[236] clime.
Genius! that first our race designed,
To other kings impart
The finer feelings of the mind,
The virtues of the heart;
Whene'er the honours of a throne
Fall to the bloody and the base,
Like Britain's tyrant, pull them down,
Like his, be their disgrace!
Hibernia, seize each native right!
Neptune, exclude him from the main;
Like her that sunk with all her freight,
The Royal George,[237] take all his fleet,
And never let them rise again:
Confine him to his gloomy isle,
Let Scotland rule her half,
Spare him to curse his fate awhile,
And Whitehead,[A] thou to write his epitaph.
[A] William Whitehead, Poet Laureat to his Majesty—author of the execrable birth-day Odes.—Freneau's note, Ed. 1786.
[234] First published in the Freeman's Journal, March 12, 1783. "King George of England was mastered by a consuming grief for the loss of America, and knew no ease of mind by day or by night. When on the fifth of December [1782], in his speech at the opening of Parliament, he came to read that he had offered to declare the colonies of America free and independent States, his manner was constrained and his voice full."—Bancroft.
[235] "And feed with hope his heart's desire."—Ed. 1786.
[236] "Grateful."—Ed. 1786.