ON THE BRITISH INVASION
1814[204]
From France, desponding and betray'd,
From liberty in ruins laid,
Exulting Britain has display'd
Her flag, again to invade us.
Her myrmidons, with murdering eye,
Across the broad Atlantic fly
Prepared again their strength to try,
And strike our country's standard.
Lord Wellington's ten thousand slaves,[A]
And thrice ten thousand, on the waves,
And thousands more of brags and braves
Are under sail, and coming
[A] Lord Wellington's army embarked on the river Garonne, in France, in several divisions, for the invasion of the United States, amounting, it was said, to sixty or seventy thousand men.—Freneau's note.
To burn our towns, to seize our soil,
To change our laws, our country spoil,
And Madison to Elba's isle
To send without redemption.
In Boston state they hope to find
A yankee host of kindred mind
To aid their arms, to rise and bind
Their countrymen in shackles: