Driving fatigue away.
Now, brothers of the patriot bands,
Let’s sing deliverance from the hands
Of arbitrary sway.
And as our life is but a span,
Let’s touch the tankard while we can,
In memory of that day.
Burgoyne, more frequently than other British officer, was the butt of the continental wits. His verses were parodied, his amours celebrated in songs of the mess-table, and his boasts and the weaker points in his nature caricatured in ballads and petite comedies. We obtained a manuscript copy of the song from which the following verses are quoted, from an octogenarian Vermonter who, with the feeble frame, shrill voice and silvered locks of eighty-seven, would give the echoing chorus with as much enthusiasm as when he joined in it with his camp-companions more than half a century ago.
THE PROGRESS OF SIR JACK BRAG.
Said Burgoyne to his men, as they passed in review,