The Midnight Consultations; or, a Trip to Boston

Small bliss is theirs whom Fate's too heavy handConfines through life to some small square of land;More wretched they whom heaven inspires to roam,Yet languish out their lives and die at home.Heaven gave to man this wide extended round,No climes confine him and no oceans bound;Heaven gave him forest, mountain, vale, and plain,And bade him vanquish, if he could, the main;But sordid cares our short-lived race confine,Some toil at trades, some labour in the mine,The miser hoards, and guards his shining store,The sun still rises where he rose before--No happier scenes his earth-born fancy fillThan one dark valley, or one well-known hill.To other shores his mind, untaught to stray,Dull and inactive, slumbers life away.But by the aid of yonder glimmering beamThe pole star, faithful to my vagrant dream,Wild regent of my heart! in dreams conveyWhere the herded Britons their bold ranks display;So late the pride of England's fertile soil,(Her grandeur heightened by successive toil)See how they sicken in these hostile climes,Themes for the stage, and subjects for our rhimes.What modern poet have the muses ledTo draw the curtain that conceals the dead?What bolder bard to Boston shall repair,To view the peevish, half-starved spectres there?O thou wronged country! why sustain these ills?Why rest thy navies on their native hills?See, endless forests shade the uncultured plain,Descend, ye forests, and command the main:A leafy verdure shades the mighty mast,And the tall oak bends idly to the blast,Earth's entrails teem with stores for your defence,Descend and drag the stores of war from thence:Your fertile soil the flowing sail supplies,And Europe's arts in every village rise--No want is yours--Disdain unmanly fear,And swear no tyrant shall reign master here;Know your own strength--in rocky desarts bred,Shall the fierce tiger by the dog be led,And bear all insults from that snarling raceWhose courage lies in impudence of face?--No--rather bid the wood's wild native turn,And from his side the unfaithful guardian spurn.Now, pleased I wander to the dome of stateWhere Gage resides, our western potentate--Chief of ten thousand, all a race of slaves,Sent to be shrouded in untimely graves;Sent by our angry Jove, sent sword in handTo murder, burn, and ravage through the land.--You dream of conquest--tell me how or whence--Act like a man, and get you gone from hence;A madman sent you to this hostile shoreTo vanquish nations, that shall spill your gore.--Go, fiends, and in a social league combinedDestroy, distress, and triumph o'er mankind!--Tis not our peace this murdering hand restrains,The want of power is made the monster's chains;Compassion is a stranger to his heart,Or if it came, he bade the guest depart;The melting tear, the sympathising groanWere never yet to Gage or Jefferies known;The seas of blood his heart fore-dooms to spillIs but a dying serpent's rage to kill.What power shall drive these vipers from our shore,These monsters swoln with carnage, death, and gore!Twelve was the hour--congenial darkness reigned,And no bright star a mimic day-light feigned--First, Gage we saw--a crimson chair of stateReceived the honour of his Honour's weight;This man of straw the regal purple bound,But dullness, deepest dullness, hovered round.Next Graves, who wields the trident of the brine,The tall arch-captain of the embattled line,All gloomy sate--mumbling of flame and fire,Balls, cannon, ships, and all their damned attire;Well pleased to live in never-ending hum,But empty as the interior of his drum.Hard by, Burgoyne assumes an ample space,And seemed to meditate with studious face,As if again he wished our world to seeLong, dull, dry letters, writ to General Lee--Huge scrawls of words through endless circuits drawnUnmeaning as the errand he's upon.--Is he to conquer--he subdue our land?--This buckram hero, with his lady's hand?By Cesars to be vanquished is a curse,But by a scribbling fop--by heaven, is worse!Lord Piercy seemed to snore--but may the MuseThis ill-timed snoring to the peer excuse;Tired was the long boy of his toilsome day,Full fifteen miles he fled--a tedious way;How could he then the dews of Somnus shun,Perhaps not used to walk--much less to run.Red-faced as suns, when sinking to repose,Reclined the infernal captain of the Rose,In fame's proud temple aiming for a niche,With those who find her at the cannon's breech;Skilled to direct the cannonading shot,No Turkish rover half so murdering hot,Pleased with base vengeance on defenceless towns,His heart was malice--but his words were, Zounds!Howe, vexed to see his starving army's doom,In prayer, besought the skies for elbow room--Small was his stock, and theirs, of heavenly grace,Yet just enough to ask a larger place.--He cursed the brainless minister that plannedHis bootless errand to this hostile land,But, awed by Gage, his bursting wrath recoiled,And in his inmost bosom doubly boiled.These, chief of all the tyrant-serving train,Exalted sate--the rest (a pensioned clan),A sample of the multitude that wait,Pale sons of famine, at perdition's gate,North's friends down swarming (so our monarch wills),Hungry as death, from Caledonian hills;Whose endless numbers if you bid me tell,I'll count the atoms of this globe as well,--Knights, captains, 'squires--a wonder-working band,Held at small wages 'till they gain the land,Flocked pensive round--black spleen assailed their hearts,(The sport of plough-boys, with their arms and arts)And made them doubt (howe'er for vengeance hot)Whether they were invincible or not.Now Gage upstarting from his cushioned seatSwore thrice, and cried--"'Tis nonsense to be beat!Thus to be drubbed! pray, warriors, let me knowWhich be in fault, myself, the fates, or you--Henceforth let Britain deem her men mere toys--Gods! to be frightened thus by country boys;Why, if your men had had a mind to sup,They might have eat that scare-crow army up--Three thousand to twelve hundred thus to yield,And twice five hundred stretched upon the field!--O shame to Britain, and the British name,Shame damps my heart, and I must die with shame--Thus to be worsted, thus disgraced and beat!--You have the knack, Lord Piercy, to retreat,The death you escaped my warmest blood congeals,Heaven grant me, too, so swift a pair of heels--In Chevy-Chace, as, doubtless, you have read,Lord Piercy would have sooner died than fled--Behold the virtues of your house decay--Ah! how unlike the Piercy of that day!"Thus spoke the great man in disdainful toneTo the gay peer--not meant for him alone--But ere the tumults of his bosom riseThus from his bench the intrepid peer replies:"When once the soul has reached the Stygian shore,My prayer book says, it shall return no more--When once old Charon hoists his tar-blacked sail,And his boat swims before the infernal gale,Farewell to all that pleased the man above,Farewell to feats of arms, and joys of love!Farewell the trade that father Cain began,Farewell to wine, that cheers the heart of man;All, all farewell!--the pensive shade must goWhere cold Medusa turns to stone below,Where Belus' maids eternal labours plyTo drench the cask that stays forever dry,And Sysiphus, with many a weary groan,Heaves up the mount the still recoiling stone!"Since, then, this truth no mortal dares deny,That heroes, kings--and lords, themselves, must die,And yield to him who dreads no hostile sword,But treats alike the peasant and the lord;Since even great George must in his turn give placeAnd leave his crown, his Scotchmen, and his lace,--How blest is he, how prudent is the manWho keeps aloof from fate--while yet he can;One well-aimed ball can make us all no moreThan shipwrecked scoundrels on that leeward shore."But why, my friends, these hard reflections stillOn Lexington affairs--'tis Bunker's hill--O fatal hill!--one glance at thee restrainsMy once warm blood, and chills it in my veins--May no sweet grass adorn thy hateful crestThat saw Britannia's bravest troops distrest--Or if it does--may some destructive galeThe green leaf wither, and the grass turn pale--All moisture to your brow may heaven deny,And God and man detest you, just as I;--'Tis Bunker's hill, this night has brought us here,Pray question him who led your armies there,Nor dare my courage into question call,Or blame Lord Piercy for the fault of all."Howe chanced to nod while heathenish Piercy spoke,But as his Lordship ceased, his Honour awoke,(Like those whom sermons into sleep betray)Then rubbed his eyes, and thus was heard to say:"Shall those who never ventured from the town,Or their ships' sides, now pull our glory down?We fought our best--so God my honour save!--No British soldiers ever fought so brave--Resolved I led them to the hostile lines,(From this day famed where'er great Phoebus shines)Firm at their head I took my dangerous stand,Marching to death and slaughter, sword in hand,But wonted Fortune halted on her way,We fought with madmen, and we lost the day--Putnam's brave troops, your honours would have sworeHad robbed the clouds of half their nitrous store,With my bold veterans strewed the astonished plain,For not one musquet was discharged in vain.--But, honoured Gage, why droops thy laurelled head?--Five hundred foes we packed off to the dead.--Now captains, generals, hear me and attend!Say, shall we home for other succours send?Shall other navies cross the stormy main?--They may, but what shall awe the pride of Spain?Still for dominion haughty Louis pants--Ah! how I tremble at the thoughts of France.--Shall mighty George, to enforce his injured laws,Transport all Russia to support the cause?--That allied empire countless shoals may pourNumerous as sands that strew the Atlantic shore;But policy inclines my heart to fearThey'll turn their arms against us when they're here--Come, let's agree--for something must be doneEre autumn flies, and winter hastens on--When pinching cold our navy binds in ice,You'll find 'tis then too late to take advice."The clock strikes two!--Gage smote upon his breast,And cried,--"What fate determines, must be best--But now attend--a counsel I impartThat long has laid the heaviest at my heart--Three weeks--ye gods!--nay, three long years it seemsSince roast-beef I have touched except in dreams.In sleep, choice dishes to my view repair,Waking, I gape and champ the empty air.--Say, is it just that I, who rule these bands,Should live on husks, like rakes in foreign lands?--Come, let us plan some project ere we sleep,And drink destruction to the rebel sheep."On neighbouring isles uncounted cattle stray,Fat beeves and swine, an ill-defended prey--These are fit visions for my noon day dish,These, if my soldiers act as I would wish,In one short week should glad your maws and mine;On mutton we will sup--on roast beef dine."Shouts of applause re-echoed through the hall,And what pleased one as surely pleased them all;Wallace was named to execute the plan,And thus sheep-stealing pleased them to a man.Now slumbers stole upon the great man's eye,His powdered foretop nodded from on high,His lids just opened to find how matters were,Dissolve, he said, and so dissolved ye are,Then downward sunk to slumbers dark and deep,--Each nerve relaxed--and even his guts asleep.