PART II

But as to the Tories that yet may remain, They scarcely need give you a moment of pain: What dare they attempt when their masters are fled;-- When the soul is departed who wars with the dead?

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]

[A] "Si Pergama dextra Defendi possent, etiam hac defensa fuissent."--_Virg._ --_Freneau's note._

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.

[B] The Negro king in Jamaica, whom the English declared independent in 1739. See our _Freeman's Journal_, No. 37, for the treaty.--_Freneau's note in 1783._

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.

On the waves of the Styx had he rode quarantine, He could not have look'd more infernally lean Than the day, when returning dismay'd and distrest, Like the doves to their windows, he flew to his nest.[260]

The part that he[261] acted, by some men of sense Was wrongfully held to be malice propense, When to all the world it was perfectly plain, One principle rul'd him[262]--a passion for gain.

You pretend I have suffer'd no loss in the cause, And have, therefore, no right to partake of your laws: Some people love talking--I find to my cost, I too am a loser--my character's lost![263]

Nay, did not your printers repeatedly stoop To descant and reflect on my Portable Soup? At me have your porcupines darted the quill, You have plunder'd my Office,[C] and publish'd my Will.[264]

[C] November, 1775.--_Freneau's note._ On November 27, 1775, a band of armed men, under Sears of Connecticut, entered the city on horseback, destroyed his press and scattered his types.

Resolv'd upon mischief, you held it no crime To steal my _Reflections_,[265] and print them in rhyme, When all the world knew, or at least they might guess, That the time to reflect was no time to confess;[266]

You never consider'd my children and wife,[267] That my lot was to toil and to struggle[268] through life; My windows you broke--they are all on a jar, And my house you have made a mere old man of war.

And still you insist I've no right to complain!-- Indeed if I do, I'm afraid it's in vain-- Yet am willing to hope you're too learnedly read To hang up a printer for being misled.

If this be your aim, I must think of a flight-- In less than a month I must bid you good-night, And hurry away to that whelp ridden shore Where Clinton and Carleton retreated before.

From signs in the sky, and from tokens on land I'm inclin'd to suspect my departure's at hand: The man in the moon is unusually big, And Inglis, they tell me, has grown a good Whig.[269]

For many days past, as the town can attest, The tail of the weather-cock hung to the west--[270] My shop, the last evening, seem'd all in a blaze, And a hen crow'd at midnight, my waiting man says;

Even then, as I lay with strange whims in my head, A ghost hove in sight, not a yard from my bed, It seem'd Gen'ral Robertson,[271] brawly array'd, But I grasp'd at the substance, and found him a shade!

He appear'd as of old, when, head of the throng, And loaded with laurels, he waddled along-- He seem'd at the foot of my bedstead to stand And cry'd--"Jemmy Rivington, reach me your hand;

"And Jemmy, (said he) I am sorry to find "Some demon advis'd you to loiter behind; "The country is hostile--you had better get off it, "Here's nothing but squabbles, all plague and no profit!

"Since the day that Sir William came here with his throng "He manag'd things so that they always went wrong, "And tho' for his knighthood, he kept Meschianza, "I think he was nothing but mere Sancho Panca.

"That famous conductor of moon-light retreats, "Sir Harry, came next with his armies and fleets, "But, finding the rebels were dying and dead, "He grounded his arms and retreated to bed.

"Other luck we had once at the battle of Boyne! "But here they have ruin'd Earl Charles and Burgoyne, "Here brave col'nel Monckton was thrown on his back, "And here lies poor Andre! the best of the pack."

So saying, he flitted away in a trice, Just adding, "he hop'd I would take his advice"-- Which I surely shall do if you push me too hard-- And so I remain, with eternal regard,

JAMES RIVINGTON, printer, of late, to the king, But now a republican--under your wing-- Let him stand where he is--don't push him down hill, And he'll turn a true Blue-Skin, or just what you will.

[251] First published in the _Freeman's Journal_, December 31, 1783. The text follows the 1786 version.

[252] A New York printer, publisher of _The New York Packet_ during the Revolutionary period. From 1776 until 1783 he published the paper at Fishkill.

[253] Shepard Kollock, soldier-editor of the Revolution. Established the _New Jersey Journal_ at Chatham, N. J., in 1779. Removed in 1783 to New York, where he undertook the _New York Gazetteer_. Later, in 1787, he moved to Elizabeth-Town, N. J., and revived his first journal, which he successfully edited for thirty-one years. Kollock died in Philadelphia, July 28, 1839.

[254] John Holt, printer, born in Williamsburg, Virginia, in 1721, died in New York City, January 30, 1784. Holt founded in 1776 the _New York Journal_, which during the Revolution bore the famous device of a snake cut into parts, with the motto "Unite or Die."

[255] After the war Rivington removed from the head-line of his paper the arms of Great Britain and changed the title to _Rivington's New York Gazette and Universal Advertiser_.

[256] "His prudence and caution."--_Ed. 1795._

[257] The edition of 1809 added at this point the following six lines not in the earlier editions:

"The gods for that hero did trouble prepare, But gave him a mind that could feed upon care, They gave him a spirit, serene but severe, Above all disorder, confusion, and fear; In him it was fortune where others would fail: He was born for the tempest, and weathered the gale."

[258] "A cloud, or a stream."--_Ed. 1795._

[259] "CARLETON."--_Ed. 1795._

[260] In the later editions this stanza was inserted after stanza 1,