When Colonel Nesbit, thro' the town,
In triumph bore the country-clown?
Oh what a glorious work to sing
The veteran troops of Britain's king,
Adventuring for th' heroic laurel
With bag of feathers and tar-barrel !
To paint the cart where culprits ride,
And Nesbitt marching at its side,
Great executioner and proud,
Like hangman high on Holborn road ;
And o'er the slow-drawn rumbling car,
The waving ensigns of the war!
As when a triumph Rome decreed
For great Caligula's valiant deed,
Who had subdued the British seas,
By gath'ring cockles from their base
In pompous car the conq'ror bore
His captive scallops from the shore,
Ovations gain'd his crabs for fetching,
And mighty feats of oyster-catching :
ing the Rogue's March, headed by Nesbitt with a drawn
'Gainst Yankies thus the war begun,
They tarr'd, and triumph'd over, one;
And fought and boasted through the season,
With force as great and equal reason.
"Yet thus though skill'd in vict'ry's toils,
They boast, not unexpert, in wiles.
For gain'd they not an equal fame in
The arts of secrecy and scheming;
In stratagem show'd wondrous force,
And modernized the Trojan horse,
Play'd o'er again the tricks Ulyssean,
In their famed Salem expedition?
For as that horse, the poets tell ye,
Bore Grecian armies in its belly,
Till their full reckoning run, with joy
Shrewd Sinon midwived them in Troy :
So in one ship was Leslie bold
Cramm'd with three hundred men in hold, Equipp'd for enterprize and sail,
Like Jonas stow'd in womb of whale.
To Marblehead in depth of night
The cautious vessel wing'd her flight.
And now the sabbath's silent day
Call'd all your Yankies off to pray;
Safe from each prying jealous neighbour,
The scheme and vessel fell in labor.
Forth from its hollow womb pour'd hast❜ly
The Myrmidons of Colonel Leslie.
Not thicker o'er the blacken'd strand,
The frogs detachment,* rush'd to land,
Furious by onset and surprize
To storm th' entrenchment of the mice.
Through Salem straight, without delay,
The bold battalion took its way,
March'd o'er a bridge,† in open sight
Of several Yankies arm'd for fight;
* See Homer's Battle of the Frogs and Mice.
The object of this expedition was to seize some provincial artillery and stores, placed at a short distance from Salem. Notwithstanding his stratagem, when he came to a small river which lay between, Leslie found the bridge taken up, the stores removed, and the people alarmed and rapidly collecting in his front, as well as rear. He then opened a parley, and promised that if they would lay down the bridge and suffer him to march over it, he would immediately return from whence he came, without doing harm to any person or thing. The treaty was concluded; Leslie marched with his party over the bridge, wheeled about instantly and returned to Boston; having performed every article on his part, with the greatest honor and safety.
Then without loss of time or men,
Veer'd round for Boston back again,
And found so well their projects thrive,
That every soul got home alive.
"Thus Gage's arms did fortune bless
With triumph, safety and success.
is without dispute
His first and darling attribute;
So great, it far outwent and conquer'd
His military skill at Concord.
There, when the war he chose to wage,
Shone the benevolence of Gage;
Sent troops to that ill-omen'd place,
On errands mere of special grace ;
And all the work, he chose them for,
Was to prevent a civil war ;*
For which kind purpose he projected
The only certain way t' effect it,
To seize your powder, shot and arms,
And all your means of doing harms;
*This Gage solemnly declared in a letter to Governor Trumbull of Connecticut, soon after the expedition. The correspondence was immediately published.
As prudent folks take knives away,
Lest children cut themselves at play.
And yet, when this was all his scheme,
The war you still will charge on him;
And tho' he oft has swore and said it,
Stick close to facts, and give no credit. [him?
Think you, he wish'd you'd brave and beard
Why, 'twas the very thing, that scared him.
He'd rather you should all have run,
Than staid to fire a single gun.
So, for the civil war you lament,
Faith, you yourselves must take the blame in't;
For had you then, as he intended,
Given up your arms, it must have ended:
Since that's no war, each mortal knows,
Where one side only gives the blows,*
* Si rixa est, ubi tu pulsas, ego vapulo tantum.-Juvenal. It was deemed both by the British and Americans, a matter of the utmost importance to determine which party began the Some hundreds of depositions were taken in the dispute, and it was fully proved that hostilities were first commenced at Lexington by the British troops, who fired on a company of militia, assembling under arms, killed eight on
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