PROPOSED POPISH INVASION.
Every thing which occurred in England, or elsewhere, in fact, having any reference to Popery, however remote, was sure to interest the Puritans, and demand their attention; and, it would seem, was sometimes provocative of poetry. So when the “happy discovery of a cursed plot against the church of God, Great Britain and her King,” was announced by the King, on the 15th of February, 1743 (i.e., 1744), a large hand-bill was issued from the Boston press, to which the printer did not put his name, headed, “Good news from London, to the rejoicing of every christian heart.” This was the discovery of the plot “for bringing in a young Popish pretender.” The news was received by an arrival at Portsmouth, N.H., in twenty-six days from England, and included the message of the King to Parliament. The hand-bill contained the message in which the King declares that “having received undoubted intelligence that the eldest son of the pretender to his crown is arrived in France, and that preparations are making there to invade this kingdom, in concert with disaffected persons here,” &c., his Majesty acquaints the House of the matter in order that measures may be taken, &c.
This is followed by a long anonymous poem, beginning,—
“Behold the French and Spaniards rage,
And people with accord
Combine, to take away the life
Of George, our sovereign lord.
······
“When George the first came to the throne,
Their rage began to burn,
And now they fain would execute
The same upon his son.
“Their hellish breast being set on fire,
Even with the fire of Hell,
Nor Love, nor charms, nor clemency,
Can their base malice quell.”
······
And so on through three columns, and then comes the
CONCLUSION.
“Let all that openly profess,
The ways of Christ our Lord,
Not spare to tell how much such things
Are by their souls abhor’d.
“Let every child of God now cry,
To the eternal one,
That George our sovereign lord and king
May ne’er be overcome.
“That all his Foes may lick the Dust,
And melt like Wax away,
That joy and peace and righteousness
May flourish in his day.”
The proposed expedition, it is well known, never landed in England. The combined fleet escaped an engagement, and the transports were wrecked and scattered by a storm in the English Channel.
THE SCOTTISH REBELLION.