Poor souls! for the love of the king and his nation
They have had their full quota of mortification;
Wherever they fought, or whatever they won
The dream's at an end—the delusion is done.
The Temple you rais'd was so wonderful large
Not one of them thought you could answer the charge,
It seem'd a mere castle constructed of vapour,
Surrounded with gibbets and founded on Paper.
On the basis of freedom you built it too strong!
And Clinton[259] confess'd, when you held it so long,
That if any thing human the fabric could shatter
The Royal Gazette must accomplish the matter.[A]
An engine like that, in such hands as my own
Had shaken king Codjoe[B] himself from his throne,
In another rebellion had ruin'd the Scot,
While the Pope and Pretender had both gone to pot.
If you stood my attacks, I have nothing to say—
I fought, like the Swiss, for the sake of my pay;
But while I was proving your fabric unsound
Our vessel miss'd stay, and we all went aground.
Thus ended in ruin what madness begun,
And thus was our nation disgrac'd and undone,
Renown'd as we were, and the lords of the deep,
If our outset was folly, our exit was sleep.
A dominion like this, that some millions had cost!—
The king might have wept when he saw it was lost;—
This jewel—whose value I cannot describe;
This pearl—that was richer than all his Dutch tribe.
When the war came upon us, you very well knew
My income was small and my riches were few—
If your money was scarce, and your prospects were bad,
Why hinder me printing for people that had?
'Twould have pleas'd you, no doubt, had I gone with a few setts
Of books, to exist in your cold Massachusetts;
Or to wander at Newark, like ill fated Hugh,
Not a shirt to my back, nor a soal to my shoe.
Now, if we mistook (as we did, it is plain)
Our error was owing to wicked Hugh Gaine,
For he gave us such scenes of your starving and strife
As prov'd that his pictures were drawn from the life.