"To you (the fat pot-valiant Swine
To Digby said) dear friend of mine,
"To you I trust my boy.
"The rebel tribes shall quake with fears,
"Rebellion die when he appears;
"My Tories leap with joy."
So said, so done—the boy was sent,
But never reach'd the continent,
An Island held him fast—
Yet there his friends danc'd rigadoons,
The Hessians sung in High Dutch tunes,
"Prince William's come at last."
"Prince William comes!"—the Briton cry'd—
"The glory of our empire wide
"Shall now be soon restor'd—
"Our monarch is in William seen,
"He is the image of our queen,
"Let William be ador'd!"
The Tories came with long address,
With poems groan'd the Royal press,
And all in William's praise—
The boy astonish'd look'd about
To find their vast dominions out,
Then answer'd in amaze,
"Where all your empire wide can be,
"Friends, for my soul I cannot see:
"'Tis but an empty name;
"Three wasted islands and a town
"In rubbish bury'd—half burnt down,
"Is all that we can claim:
"I am of royal birth, 'tis true,
"But what, alas! can princes do,
"No armies to command?
"Cornwallis conquer'd and distrest,
"Sir Henry Clinton grown a jest,
"I curse and leave the land."
[123] Published in the Freeman's Journal, January 30, 1782. "Prince William Henry, third son of George III, afterwards William IV, entered the navy as midshipman at the age of fourteen in 1779. He sailed in the Prince George of 98 guns to Gibralter, in the course of which cruise he saw some service under Rodney in conflict with the Spanish fleet; and it was in this ship, accompanied by Admiral Digby, that he arrived at New York in September, 1781."—Duyckinck. He was received with great enthusiasm and ceremony. In the Freeman's Journal of January 25, 1782, was the following, doubtless from the pen of Freneau: "It is observable that the arrival of Prince William Henry in New York filled the British with 'joy ineffable and universal.' The very chimney sweeps, smitten with the poetic flame, composed odes in his praise, some of which were inserted in The Royal Gazette." The 1809 edition was given a long French motto from Mirabeau, which Freneau translates as follows: "The favourites of a throne bask in its sunshine, like butterflies in a fine day. Their very slaves at the foot of royalty partake of the delusion. They keep a nation under their feet, and their every folly influences and is followed by the multitude. They care not if their fathers and their nearest relatives are trampled into the dust, provided they can figure away in the circles of a court, etc."
LORD DUNMORE'S PETITION TO THE
LEGISLATURE OF VIRGINIA[124]
Humbly Sheweth—