Philip Freneau: Patriot, Poet, and Privateer

Philip Freneau was born in New York City in 1752 and his family summered in Monmouth County. In 1770, the family moved to Mount Pleasant (in Middletown Township). He was among the few privileged children in Monmouth County to receive a formal education, studying under Reverend William Tennent at the Matisonia Grammar School near Freehold before attending the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University), which he graduated in 1775.

After briefly preparing to be a minister, Freneau became interested in politics and went to New York. There, he wrote a half-dozen long poems protesting British policies and the treatment of the people of Boston. He wrote two poems in a pretended-voice of General Thomas Gage (the British commander in that city) and then wrote “On a Hessian Debarkation” about an imagined landing of German mercenaries in Manhattan. One verse reads:

In the slow breeze I hear their funeral song;

The dance of ghosts the infernal tribes prepare;

To hell's mansions haste, ye abandoned throng;

Drinking from German sculls old Odin's beer.

In February 1776, Freneau went to the West Indies (perhaps to avoid arrest by Royal authorities in New York). He stayed there into 1778.

There are several antiquarian and biographic narratives of Freneau’s activity between 1778 and the end of the war—few of which include citations. These narratives agree that Freneau returned home in 1778, served in the Monmouth militia, and served on privateers. They note that he was captured and jailed on a British prison ship (at least once) and wrote several polemic poems about British and Loyalist cruelties. However, these narratives sharply diverge in the specifics about events, dates, and his role in other events. It is impossible to offer a narrative on Freneau that fully reconciles all of these narratives. What follows is the author’s good faith attempt to write a consensus narrative of Freneau during the war—but another compiler could reach different conclusions about some of the “facts” below.

Freneau returned home in June 1778. One account claims he came home on a Philadelphia privateer commanded by a Captain Hansen. The vessel was captured by the British, but they released Freneau because he was (as yet) a non-combatant. According to another source, he came home on the day of the Battle of the Monmouth—which was fought close enough to his house to hear the cannon fire. Another source claims Freneau rode to the cannon fire to witness the Battle of the Monmouth.

Freneau’s Wartime Activities

Several narratives agree that Freneau served in the Middletown militia in the summer of 1778, though one narrative claims that he first sailed from Shrewsbury to the Caribbean and back during that time. One source claims that Freneau served as a militia sergeant under Captain Barnes Smock of Middletown. This is plausible but cannot be proven from the scattering of surviving militia documents--they reveal nothing of his service in the Monmouth militia. One narrative claims that Freneau’s first service on a privateer was October 1778, aboard the Indian Delaware, a small privateer owned and captained by Daniel Hendrickson, Colonel of the Shrewsbury militia. This dovetails with what is known about Hendrickson and that vessel.

Narratives diverge on what happened next, but Freneau was in Philadelphia in May 1779 and was apparently serving on the privateer Aurora. The Aurora captured "a small sloop… laden with corn" off Cape Henlopen and sent it back to Philadelphia before heading into open water. Off the coast of southern New Jersey, Aurora was chased by the larger British vessel Iris which was "carrying the guns double the size of theirs." Aurora steered for safety at Little Egg Harbor, but trapped itself in the shallows of the unmarked bay. Iris fired upon and incapacitated the smaller ship, and then boarded it with marines. The privateer’s crew, including Freneau, was carried to New York and put aboard the horrible prison ship, Scorpion. [Note: Some narratives suggest these events occurred in 1780.]

Freneau was jailed in New York for six weeks. He caught the dreaded “jail fever” and was then paroled home—where he gradually recovered his health. The parole was an act of grace granted to a young man from a “good” family; hundreds of comparably sick men were left to die aboard the prison ships.

One source claims that Freneau returned home and served again in the militia, where he was slightly wounded in a skirmish with Loyalist raiders. It is probable that he was in or was witness to a skirmish with Loyalist raiders in August or early September 1779. Freneau penned his only poem about Monmouth County's civil war, curiously titled, “The Jewish Lamentation at Euphrates” signed from "Monmouth, September 10, 1779." Freneau responded to the raid with this curse on the raiders:

Thou, Babel's offspring, hated race; May some avenging monster seize,

And dash your venom in your face; For crimes and cruelties like these:

And, deaf to pity's melting moan; With infant blood stain every stone.

Interestingly, there is no specific documentation of a raid against Middletown in August or early September 1779—many smaller raids went undocumented and are forever lost to the historical record.

One source suggests Freneau sailed from Shrewsbury on the privateer brig Rebecca (under a Captain Chatham) for the Canary Islands in October. This likely occurred because Freneau wrote a poem about the famous songbirds of those islands. If Freneau enlisted on a privateer after being released from a prison ship, he broke the terms of his parole. Other sources put Freneau on a Philadelphia privateer in June 1780, where he was captured and jailed again in narratives that mirror his capture and imprisonment in 1779. It is possible that Freneau was taken twice, but equally possible that accounts simply disagree on dates.

A number of Freneau’s poems (or excerpts of poems) were published in quick succession starting in late 1779. The most famous was the memoir-like, "The British Prison Ship," his most-often quoted and cited poem. In that poem, Freneau narrated the capture of the Aurora and his time as prisoner on the prison ship, Scorpion. He wrote of Aurora’s inability to battle the larger British vessel, Iris:

Along her decks dispos'd in close array

Each at its port, the grim artillery lay,

Soon on the foe with brazen throat to roar;

But, small was their size, as was their bore;

Who now must bend to steer a homeward course

And trust her swiftness rather than her force,

Unfit to combat with a powerful foe;

Her decks too open, and her waist too low.

Freneau described the prison ship, Scorpion, this way:

No masts or sails these crowded ships adorn,

Dismal to view, neglected and forlorn!

Here, mighty ills oppress the imprison'd throng,

Dull were our slumbers, and our nights too long—

From morn to eve along the decks we lay

Scorch'd into fevers by the solar ray;

No friendly awning cast a welcome shade,

Once was it promis'd, and was never made.

And Freneau had this to say of the Loyalist guards and teamsters who brought their meager provisions:

Some miscreant Tory, puff'd with upstart pride,

Led on by hell to take the royal side;

Dispensing death triumphantly they stand,

Their musquets ready to obey command;

Wounds are their sport, as ruin is their aim;

On their dark souls compassion has no claim,

And discord only can their spirits please:

Such were all tyrants, and such were these.

The excerpts above are abridged; the unabridged poem is in the appendix of this article. Excerpts of this and other poems were published in the New Jersey Gazette and magazines in Philadelphia over the next year. These publications earned Freneau a following.

Freneau also wrote about his time on the prison ship in prose. He wrote about 35 prisoners escaping the Scorpion shortly after he came on board. This greatly increased the cruelty of the guards:

They posted themselves at each hatchway and most basely and cowardly fired fore and aft among us, pistols and muskets, for a full quarter of an hour without intermission. By the mercy of God they touched but four, one mortally… We had water given us to drink that a dog could scarcely relish, it was thick and clammy and had a dismal smell. They withdrew the allowance of rum and drove us down every night strictly at sunset, where we suffered unexpressibly till seven o'clock in the morning, the gratings being barely opened at that time.

Freneau returned home and served again in the militia in December 1779. He was present at the capture of the stranded Loyalist vessel, Britannia, and received a share of the prize money. By 1781, Freneau was in Philadelphia, working for the Freeman’s Journal, a weekly newspaper. He became known for his sharp-tongued anti-British verse. For example, he wrote in the voice of King George about the scandalous hanging of Monmouth County’s Joshua Huddy and Congress’s inaction in hanging British Captain Charles Asgill in retaliation:

I'll petition the rebels if York is forsaken;

For a place in their Zion which ne'er shall be shaken;

I'm sure they'll be clever, it seems their whole body study;

They hung not young Asgill for old Captain Huddy.

And it must be a truth that admits no denying;

If they spare us for murder, they'll spare us for lying.

Freneau’s poems earned him renown and he was later nicknamed "The Poet of the American Revolution" by admirers. Historians have noted his importance in stoking American patriotism after the initial “Spirit of ‘76” had faded. Don Higginbotham, for example, called Freneau "a propagandist of the highest order."

Freneau’s Life after the War

After the war, Freneau split time between Monmouth County, Philadelphia and New York. He married into the prominent Forman family in 1790 and attempted to establish a Monmouth County newspaper in 1791. When that did not work out, he returned to New York where he worked for the newspaper, The National Gazette.

Freneau was an early supporter of the party of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison (his Princeton classmate) when most New York and New Jersey leaders supported the party of John Adams and Alexander Hamilton. Freneau was critical of George Washington’s administration and it was said that Washington disliked him, calling him a “rascal.” When Jefferson became President in 1800, Freneau was hired into the State Department while continuing to write partisan pieces in pro-Jefferson newspapers—a cause of controversy. After that, Freneau returned to Mount Pleasant where he died in 1832 at age 80.

Freneau was not a typical Monmouth Countian, but his wartime experiences as a militiaman, a privateer, and as a prisoner were similar to those of hundreds of men in Monmouth County. While those men did not write their views with Freneau’s bite and acclaim, many had the same views.

Caption: Philip Freneau was a young patriot who served in the Middletown militia and on American privateers. He wrote several anti-British poems and was especially acerbic when writing about Loyalists.

Related Historic Site: The Prison Ship Martyrs’ Monument (Brooklyn, New York)

Appendix

The unabridged version of “The British Prison Ship”

Assist me, Clio! while in verse I tell

The dire misfortunes that a ship befell,

Which outward bound, to St. Eustatia's shore,

Death and disaster through the billows bore.

From Philadelphia's crowded port she came;

For there the builder plann'd her lofty frame,

With wond'rous skill, and excellence of art

He form'd, dispos'd, and order'd every part,

With joy beheld the stately fabric rise

To a stout bulwark of stupendous size,

'Till launch'd at last, capacious of the freight,

He left her to the Pilots, and her fate.

First from her depths the tapering masts ascend,

On whose firm bulk the transverse yards depend,

By shrouds and stays secur'd from side to side

Trees grew on trees, suspended o'er the tide,

Firm to the yards extended, broad and vast

They hung the sails susceptive of the blast,

Far o'er the prow the lengthy bowsprit lay,

Supporting on the extreme the taught Gib-stay,

Twice ten six pounders at their port holes plac'd

And rang'd in rows, stood hostile in the waist:

Thus all prepar'd, impatient for the seas,

She left her station with an adverse breeze,

This her first outset from her native shore,

To seas a stranger, and untry'd before.

From the bright radiance that his glories spread

Ere from the east gay Phœbus lifts his head,

From the sweet morn, a kindred name she won,

Aurora call'd, the offspring of the sun,

Whose form projecting, the broad prow displays,

Far glittering o'er the wave, a mimic blaze.

The gay ship now, in all her pomp and pride,

With sails expanded, flew along the tide;

'Twas thy deep stream, O Delaware, that bore

This pile intended for a southern shore,

Bound to those isles where endless summer reigns,

Fair fruits, gay blossoms, and enamell'd plains;

Where sloping lawns the roving swain invite,

And the cool morn succeeds the breezy night,

Where each glad day a heaven unclouded brings

And sky-topt mountains teem with golden springs.

From Cape Henlopen, urg'd by favouring gales,

When morn emerg'd, we sea-ward spread our sails,

Then east-south-east explor'd the briny way,

Close to the wind, departing from the bay;

No longer seen the hoarse resounding strand,

With hearts elate we hurried from the land,

Escap'd the dangers of that shelvy ground,

To sailors fatal, and for wrecks renown'd.—

The gale increases as we stem the main,

Now scarce the hills their sky-blue mist retain,

At last they sink beneath the rolling wave

That seems their summits, as they sink, to lave;

Abaft the beam the freshening breezes play,

No mists advancing to deform the day,

No tempests rising o'er the splendid scene,

A sea unruffled, and a heaven serene.

Now Sol's bright lamp, the heav'n born source of light,

Had pass'd the line of his meridian height,

And westward hung—retreating from the view

Shores disappear'd, and every hill withdrew,

When, still suspicious of some neighbouring foe,

Aloft the Master bade a Seaman go,

To mark if, from the mast's aspiring height

Through all the round a vessel came in sight.

Too soon the Seaman's glance, extending wide,

Far distant in the east a ship espy'd,

Her lofty masts stood bending to the gale,

Close to the wind was brac'd each shivering sail;

Next from the deck we saw the approaching foe,

Her spangled bottom seem'd in flames to glow

When to the winds she bow'd in dreadful haste

And her lee-guns lay delug'd in the waste:

From her top-gallant flow'd an English Jack;

With all her might she strove to gain our track,

Nor strove in vain—with pride and power elate,

Wing'd on by hell, she drove us to our fate;

No stop no stay her bloody crew intends,

(So flies a comet with its host of fiends)

Nor oaths, nor prayers arrest her swift career,

Death in her front, and ruin in her rear.

Struck at the sight, the Master gave command

To change our course, and steer toward the land—

Swift to the task the ready sailors run,

And while the word was utter'd, half was done:

As from the south the fiercer breezes rise

Swift from her foe alarm'd Aurora flies,

With every sail extended to the wind

She fled the unequal foe that chac'd behind;

Along her decks dispos'd in close array

Each at its port, the grim artillery lay,

Soon on the foe with brazen throat to roar;

But, small their size, and narrow was their bore;

Yet faithful they their destin'd station keep

To guard the barque that wafts them o'er the deep,

Who now must bend to steer a homeward course

And trust her swiftness rather than her force,

Unfit to combat with a powerful foe;

Her decks too open, and her waist too low.

While o'er the wave with foaming prow she flies,

Once more emerging, distant landscapes rise;

High in the air the starry streamer plays,

And every sail its various tribute pays:

To gain the land we bore the weighty blast;

And now the wish'd for cape appear'd at last;

But the vext foe, impatient of delay,

Prepar'd for ruin, press'd upon her prey;

Near, and more near, in aweful grandeur came

The frigate Iris, not unknown to fame;

Iris her name, but Hancock once she bore,

Fram'd and completed on New Albion's shore,

By Manly lost, the swiftest of the train

That fly with wings of canvas o'er the main.

Now, while for combat some with zeal prepare,

Thus to the heavens the Boatswain sent his prayer:

"List, all ye powers that rule the skies and seas!

"Shower down perdition on such thieves as these,

"Fate, strike their hearts with terror and dismay,

"And sprinkle on their powder salt-sea spray!

"May bursting cannon, while his aim he tries,

"Destroy the Gunner, and be-damn his eyes—

"The chief who awes the quarter-deck, may he,

"Tripp'd from his stand, be tumbled in the sea.

"May they who rule the round-top's giddy height

"Be canted headlong to perpetual night;

"May fiends torment them on a leeward coast,

"And help forsake them when they want it most—

"From their wheel'd engines torn be every gun—

"And now, to sum up every curse in one,

"May latent flames, to save us, intervene,

"And hell-ward drive them from their magazine!"—

The Frigate now had every sail unfurl'd,

And rush'd tremendous o'er the wat'ry world;

Thus fierce Pelides, eager to destroy,

Chac'd the proud Trojan to the gates of Troy—

Swift o'er the waves while hostile they pursue

As swiftly from their fangs Aurora flew,

At length Henlopen's cape we gain'd once more,

And vainly strove to force the ship ashore;

Stern fate forbade the barren shore to gain,

Denial sad, and source of future pain!

For then the inspiring breezes ceas'd to blow,

Lost were they all, and smooth the seas below;

By the broad cape becalm'd, our lifeless sails

No longer swell'd their bosoms to the gales;

The ship, unable to pursue her way,

Tumbling about, at her own guidance lay,

No more the helm its wonted influence lends,

No oars assist us, and no breeze befriends;

Meantime the foe, advancing from the sea,

Rang'd her black cannon, pointed on our lee,

Then up she luff'd, and blaz'd her entrails dire,

Bearing destruction, terror, death and fire.

Vext at our fate, we prim'd a piece, and then

Return'd the shot, to shew them we were men.

Dull night at length her dusky pinions spread,

And every hope to 'scape the foe was fled;

Close to thy cape, Henlopen, though we press'd,

We could not gain thy desert, dreary breast;

Though ruin'd trees beshroud thy barren shore

With mounds of sand half hid, or cover'd o'er,

Though ruffian winds disturb thy summit bare,

Yet every hope and every wish was there;

In vain we sought to reach the joyless strand,

Fate stood between, and barr'd us from the land.

All dead becalm'd, and helpless as we lay,

The ebbing current forc'd us back to sea,

While vengeful Iris, thirsting for our blood,

Flash'd her red lightnings o'er the trembling flood,

At every flash a storm of ruin came

'Till our shock'd vessel shook through all her frame—

Mad for revenge, our breasts with fury glow

To wreak returns of vengeance on the foe;

Full at his hull our pointed guns we rais'd,

His hull resounded as the cannon blaz'd;

Through his main top-sail one a passage tore,

His sides re-echo'd to the dreadful roar,

Alternate fires dispell'd the shades of night—

But how unequal was this daring fight!

Our stoutest guns threw but a six-pound ball,

Twelve pounders from the foe our sides did maul,

And, while no power to save him intervenes,

A bullet struck our captain of Marines;

Fierce, though he bid defiance to the foe

He felt his death and ruin in the blow,

Headlong he fell, distracted with the wound,

The deck distain'd, and heart blood streaming round.

Another blast, as fatal in its aim,

Wing'd by destruction, through our rigging came,

And, whistling tunes from hell upon its way,

Shrouds, stays, and braces tore at once away,

Sails, blocks, and oars in scatter'd fragments fly—

Their softest language was—submit, or die!

Repeated cries throughout the ship resound;

Now every bullet brought a different wound;

'Twixt wind and water, one assail'd the side,

Through this aperture rush'd the briny tide—

'Twas then the Master trembled for his crew,

And bade thy shores, O Delaware, adieu!—

And must we yield to yon' destructive ball,

And must our colours to these ruffians fall!—

They fall!—his thunders forc'd our pride to bend,

The lofty topsails with their yards descend,

And the proud foe, such leagues of ocean pass'd,

His wish completed in our woe at last.

Convey'd to York, we found, at length, too late,

That Death was better than the prisoner's fate;

There doom'd to famine, shackles and despair,

Condemn'd to breathe a foul, infected air

In sickly hulks, devoted while we lay,

Successive funerals gloom'd each dismal day—

But what on captives British rage can do,

Another Canto, friend, shall let you know.

Canto II.—The Prison Ship

The various horrors of these hulks to tell,

These Prison Ships where pain and horror dwell,

Where death in tenfold vengeance holds his reign,

And injur'd ghosts, yet unaveng'd, complain;

This be my task—ungenerous Britons, you

Conspire to murder those you can't subdue.—

Weak as I am, I'll try my strength to-day

And my best arrows at these hell-hounds play,

To future years one scene of death prolong,

And hang them up to infamy, in song.

That Britain's rage should dye our plains with gore,

And desolation spread through every shore,

None e'er could doubt, that her ambition knew,

This was to rage and disappointment due;

But that those monsters whom our soil maintain'd,

Who first drew breath in this devoted land,

Like famish'd wolves, should on their country prey,

Assist its foes, and wrest our lives away,

This shocks belief—and bids our soil disown

Such friends, subservient to a bankrupt crown,

By them the widow mourns her partner dead,

Her mangled sons to darksome prisons led,

By them—and hence my keenest sorrows rise,

My friend, my guardian, my Orestes dies;

Still for that loss must wretched I complain,

And sad Ophelia mourn her favourite swain.

Ah! come the day when from this bloody shore

Fate shall remove them to return no more—

To scorch'd Bahama shall the traitors go

With grief and rage, and unremitting woe,

On burning sands to walk their painful round,

And sigh through all the solitary ground,

Where no gay flower their haggard eyes shall see,

And find no shade but from the cypress tree.

So much we suffer'd from the tribe I hate,

So near they shov'd me to the brink of fate,

When two long months in these dark hulks we lay,

Barr'd down by night, and fainting all the day

In the fierce fervours of the solar beam,

Cool'd by no breeze on Hudson's mountain-stream;

That not unsung these threescore days shall fall

To black oblivion that would cover all!—

No masts or sails these crowded ships adorn,

Dismal to view, neglected and forlorn!

Here, mighty ills oppress the imprison'd throng,

Dull were our slumbers, and our nights too long—

From morn to eve along the decks we lay

Scorch'd into fevers by the solar ray;

No friendly awning cast a welcome shade,

Once was it promis'd, and was never made;

No favours could these sons of death bestow,

'Twas endless cursing, and continual woe:

Immortal hatred doth their breasts engage,

And this lost empire swells their souls with rage.

Two hulks on Hudson's stormy bosom lie,

Two, farther south, affront the pitying eye—

There, the black Scorpion at her mooring rides,

There, Strombolo swings, yielding to the tides;

Here, bulky Jersey fills a larger space,

And Hunter, to all hospitals disgrace—

Thou, Scorpion, fatal to thy crowded throng,

Dire theme of horror and Plutonian song,

Requir'st my lay—thy sultry decks I know,

And all the torments that exist below!

The briny wave that Hudson's bosom fills

Drain'd through her bottom in a thousand rills,

Rotten and old, replete with sighs and groans,

Scarce on the waters she sustain'd her bones;

Here, doom'd to toil, or founder in the tide,

At the moist pumps incessantly we ply'd,

Here, doom'd to starve, like famish'd dogs we tore

The scant allowance, that our tyrants bore.

Remembrance shudders at this scene of fears—

Still in my view some English brute appears,

Some base-born Hessian slave walks threat'ning by,

Some servile Scot with murder in his eye

Still haunts my sight, as vainly they bemoan

Rebellions manag'd so unlike their own!

O may I never feel the poignant pain

To live subjected to such fiends again,

Stewards and Mates that hostile Britain bore,

Cut from the gallows on their native shore;

Their ghastly looks and vengeance-beaming eyes

Still to my view in dismal colours rise—

O may I ne'er review these dire abodes,

These piles for slaughter, floating on the floods,—

And you, that o'er the troubled ocean go,

Strike not your standards to this miscreant foe,

Better the greedy wave should swallow all,

Better to meet the death-conducted ball,

Better to sleep on ocean's deepest bed,

At once destroy'd and number'd with the dead,

Than thus to perish in the face of day

Where twice ten thousand deaths one death delay.

When to the ocean dives the western sun,

And the scorch'd Tories fire their evening gun,

"Down, rebels, down!" the angry Scotchmen cry,

"Damn'd dogs, descend, or by our broad swords die!"

Hail, dark abode! what can with thee compare—

Heat, sickness, famine, death, and stagnant air—

Pandora's box, from whence all mischief flew,

Here real found, torments mankind anew!—

Swift from the guarded decks we rush'd along,

And vainly sought repose, so vast our throng:

Three hundred wretches here, denied all light,

In crowded mansions pass the infernal night,

Some for a bed their tatter'd vestments join,

And some on chests, and some on floors recline;

Shut from the blessings of the evening air,

Pensive we lay with mingled corpses there,

Meagre and wan, and scorch'd with heat below,

We loom'd like ghosts, ere death had made us so—

How could we else, where heat and hunger join'd

Thus to debase the body and the mind,

Where cruel thirst the parching throat invades,

Dries up the man, and fits him for the shades.

No waters laded from the bubbling spring

To these dire ships the British monsters bring—

By planks and ponderous beams completely wall'd

In vain for water, and in vain, I call'd—

No drop was granted to the midnight prayer,

To Dives in these regions of despair!—

The loathsome cask a deadly dose contains,

Its poison circling through the languid veins;

"Here, generous Britain, generous, as you say,

"To my parch'd tongue one cooling drop convey,

"Hell has no mischief like a thirsty throat,

"Nor one tormentor like your David Sproat."

Dull flew the hours, till, from the East display'd,

Sweet morn dispells the horrors of the shade;

On every side dire objects meet the sight,

And pallid forms, and murders of the night,

The dead were past their pain, the living groan,

Nor dare to hope another morn their own;

But what to them is morn's delightful ray,

Sad and distressful as the close of day,

O'er distant streams appears the dewy green,

And leafy trees on mountain tops are seen,

But they no groves nor grassy mountains tread,

Mark'd for a longer journey to the dead.

Black as the clouds that shade St. Kilda's shore,

Wild as the winds that round her mountains roar,

At every post some surly vagrant stands,

Pick'd from the British or the Irish bands,

Some slave from Hesse, some hangman's son at least

Sold and transported, like his brother beast—

Some miscreant Tory, puff'd with upstart pride,

Led on by hell to take the royal side;

Dispensing death triumphantly they stand,

Their musquets ready to obey command;

Wounds are their sport, as ruin is their aim;

On their dark souls compassion has no claim,

And discord only can their spirits please:

Such were our tyrants here, and such were these.

Ingratitude! no curse like thee is found

Throughout this jarring world's extended round,

Their hearts with malice to our country swell

Because in former days we us'd them well!—

This pierces deep, too deeply wounds the breast;

We help'd them naked, friendless, and distrest,

Receiv'd their vagrants with an open hand,

Bestow'd them buildings, privilege, and land—

Behold the change!—when angry Britain rose,

These thankless tribes became our fiercest foes,

By them devoted, plunder'd, and accurst,

Stung by the serpents whom ourselves had nurs'd.

But such a train of endless woes abound,

So many mischiefs in these hulks are found,

That on them all a poem to prolong

Would swell too high the horrors of my song—

Hunger and thirst to work our woe combine,

And mouldy bread, and flesh of rotten swine,

The mangled carcase, and the batter'd brain,

The doctor's poison, and the captain's cane,

The soldier's musquet, and the steward's debt,

The evening shackle, and the noon-day threat.

That juice destructive to the pangs of care

Which Rome of old, nor Athens could prepare,

Which gains the day for many a modern chief

When cool reflection yields a faint relief,

That charm, whose virtue warms the world beside,

Was by these tyrants to our use denied,

While yet they deign'd that healthy juice to lade

The putrid water felt its powerful aid;

But when refus'd—to aggravate our pains—

Then fevers rag'd and revel'd through our veins;

Throughout my frame I felt its deadly heat,

I felt my pulse with quicker motions beat:

A pallid hue o'er every face was spread,

Unusual pains attack'd the fainting head,

No physic here, no doctor to assist,

My name was enter'd on the sick man's list;

Twelve wretches more the same dark symptoms took,

And these were enter'd on the doctor's book;

The loathsome Hunter was our destin'd place,

The Hunter, to all hospitals disgrace;

With soldiers sent to guard us on our road,

Joyful we left the Scorpion's dire abode;

Some tears we shed for the remaining crew,

Then curs'd the hulk, and from her sides withdrew.

Canto III.—The Hospital Prison Ship

Now tow'rd the Hunter's gloomy sides we came,

A slaughter-house, yet hospital in name;

For none came there (to pass through all degrees)

'Till half consum'd, and dying with disease;—

But when too near with labouring oars we ply'd,

The Mate with curses drove us from the side;

That wretch who, banish'd from the navy crew,

Grown old in blood, did here his trade renew;

His serpent's tongue, when on his charge let loose,

Utter'd reproaches, scandal, and abuse,

Gave all to hell who dar'd his king disown,

And swore mankind were made for George alone:

Ten thousand times, to irritate our woe,

He wish'd us founder'd in the gulph below;

Ten thousand times he brandish'd high his stick,

And swore as often that we were not sick—

And yet so pale!—that we were thought by some

A freight of ghosts from Death's dominions come—

But calm'd at length—for who can always rage,

Or the fierce war of endless passion wage,

He pointed to the stairs that led below

To damps, disease, and varied shapes of woe—

Down to the gloom I took my pensive way,

Along the decks the dying captives lay;

Some struck with madness, some with scurvy pain'd,

But still of putrid fevers most complain'd!

On the hard floors these wasted objects laid,

There toss'd and tumbled in the dismal shade,

There no soft voice their bitter fate bemoan'd,

And Death strode stately, while the victims groan'd;

Of leaky decks I heard them long complain,

Drown'd as they were in deluges of rain,

Deny'd the comforts of a dying bed,

And not a pillow to support the head—

How could they else but pine, and grieve, and sigh,

Detest a wretched life—and wish to die?

Scarce had I mingled with this dismal band

When a thin spectre seiz'd me by the hand—

"And art thou come, (death heavy on his eyes)

"And art thou come to these abodes," he cries;

"Why didst thou leave the Scorpion's dark retreat,

"And hither haste a surer death to meet?

"Why didst thou leave thy damp infected cell?

"If that was purgatory, this is hell—

"We, too, grown weary of that horrid shade,

"Petitioned early for the doctor's aid;

"His aid denied, more deadly symptoms came,

"Weak, and yet weaker, glow'd the vital flame;

"And when disease had worn us down so low

"That few could tell if we were ghosts or no,

"And all asserted, death would be our fate—

"Then to the doctor we were sent—too late.

"Here wastes away Autolycus the brave,

"Here young Orestes finds a wat'ry grave,

"Here gay Alcander, gay, alas! no more,

"Dies far sequester'd from his native shore;

"He late, perhaps, too eager for the fray,

"Chac'd the vile Briton o'er the wat'ry way

"'Till fortune jealous, bade her clouds appear,

"Turn'd hostile to his fame, and brought him here.

"Thus do our warriors, thus our heroes fall,

"Imprison'd here, base ruin meets them all,

"Or, sent afar to Britain's barbarous shore,

"There die neglected, and return no more:

"Ah! rest in peace, poor, injur'd, parted shade,

"By cruel hands in death's dark weeds array'd,

"But happier climes, where suns unclouded shine,

"Light undisturb'd, and endless peace are thine."—

From Brookland groves a Hessian doctor came,

Not great his skill, nor greater much his fame;

Fair Science never call'd the wretch her son,

And Art disdain'd the stupid man to own;—

Can you admire that Science was so coy,

Or Art refus'd his genius to employ!—

Do men with brutes an equal dullness share,

Or cuts yon' grovelling mole the midway air?

In polar worlds can Eden's blossoms blow?

Do trees of God in barren desarts grow?

Are loaded vines to Etna's summit known,

Or swells the peach beneath the torrid zone?—

Yet still he doom'd his genius to the rack,

And, as you may suppose, was own'd a quack.

He on his charge the healing work begun

With antimonial mixtures, by the tun,

Ten minutes was the time he deign'd to stay,

The time of grace allotted once a day—

He drencht us well with bitter draughts, 'tis true,

Nostrums from hell, and cortex from Peru—

Some with his pills he sent to Pluto's reign,

And some he blister'd with his flies of Spain;

His cream of Tartar walk'd its deadly round,

Till the lean patient at the potion frown'd,

And swore that hemlock, death, or what you will,

Were nonsense to the drugs that stuff'd his bill.—

On those refusing he bestow'd a kick,

Or menac'd vengeance with his walking stick;

Here uncontroul'd he exercis'd his trade,

And grew experienced by the deaths he made;

By frequent blows we from his cane endur'd

He kill'd at least as many as he cur'd;

On our lost comrades built his future fame,

And scatter'd fate, where'er his footsteps came.

Some did not seem obedient to his will,

And swore he mingled poison with his pill,

But I acquit him by a fair confession,

He was no Englishman—he was a Hessian,—

Although a dunce, he had some sense of sin,

Or else the Lord knows where we now had been;

Perhaps in that far country sent to range

Where never prisoner meets with an exchange—

Then had we all been banish'd out of time

Nor I return'd to plague the world with rhyme.

Fool though he was, yet candour must confess

Not chief Physician was this dog of Hesse—

One master o'er the murdering tribe was plac'd,

By him the rest were honour'd or disgrac'd;—

Once, and but once, by some strange fortune led

He came to see the dying and the dead—

He came—but anger so deform'd his eye,

And such a faulchion glitter'd on his thigh,

And such a gloom his visage darken'd o'er,

And two such pistols in his hands he bore!

That, by the gods!—with such a load of steel

He came, we thought, to murder, not to heal—

Hell in his heart, and mischief in his head,

He gloom'd destruction, and had smote us dead,

Had he so dar'd—but fate with-held his hand—

He came—blasphem'd—and turn'd again to land.

From this poor vessel, and her sickly crew

An English ruffian all his titles drew,

Captain, esquire, commander, too, in chief,

And hence he gain'd his bread, and hence his beef,

But, sir, you might have search'd creation round

Ere such another miscreant could be found—

Though unprovok'd, an angry face he bore,

We stood astonish'd at the oaths he swore;

He swore, till every prisoner stood aghast,

And thought him Satan in a brimstone blast;

He wish'd us banish'd from the public light,

He wish'd us shrouded in perpetual night!

That were he king, no mercy would he show,

But drive all rebels to the world below;

That if we scoundrels did not scrub the decks

His staff should break our damn'd rebellious necks;

He swore, besides, that if the ship took fire

We too should in the pitchy flame expire;

And meant it so—this tyrant, I engage,

Had lost his breath to gratify his rage.—

If where he walk'd a captive carcase lay,

Still dreadful was the language of the day—

He call'd us dogs, and would have us'd us so,

But vengeance check'd the meditated blow,

The vengeance from our injur'd nation due

To him, and all the base, unmanly crew.

Such food they sent, to make complete our woes,

It look'd like carrion torn from hungry crows,

Such vermin vile on every joint were seen,

So black, corrupted, mortified, and lean

That once we try'd to move our flinty chief,

And thus address'd him, holding up the beef:

"See, captain, see! what rotten bones we pick,

"What kills the healthy cannot cure the sick:

"Not dogs on such by Christian men are fed,

"And see, good master, see, what lousy bread!"

"Your meat or bread (this man of flint replied)

"Is not my care to manage or provide—

"But this, damn'd rebel dogs, I'd have you know,

"That better than you merit we bestow;

"Out of my sight!"——nor more he deign'd to say,

But whisk'd about, and frowning, strode away.

Each day, at least three carcases we bore,

And scratch'd them graves along the sandy shore;

By feeble hands the shallow graves were made,

No stone memorial o'er the corpses laid;

In barren sands, and far from home, they lie,

No friend to shed a tear, when passing by;

O'er the mean tombs insulting Britons tread,

Spurn at the sand, and curse the rebel dead.

When to your arms these fatal islands fall,

(For first or last they must be conquer'd all)

Americans! to rites sepulchral just,

With gentlest footstep press this kindred dust,

And o'er the tombs, if tombs can then be found,

Place the green turf, and plant the myrtle round.

Americans! a just resentment shew,

And glut revenge on this detested foe;

While the warm blood exults the glowing vein

Still shall resentment in your bosoms reign,

Can you forget the greedy Briton's ire,

Your fields in ruin, and your domes on fire,

No age, no sex from lust and murder free,

And, black as night, the hell born refugee!

Must York forever your best blood entomb,

And these gorg'd monsters triumph in their doom,

Who leave no art of cruelty untry'd;

Such heavy vengeance, and such hellish pride!

Death has no charms—his realms dejected lie

In the dull climate of a clouded sky;

Death has no charms, except in British eyes,

See, arm'd for death, the infernal miscreants rise;

See how they pant to stain the world with gore,

And millions murder'd, still would murder more;

This selfish race, from all the world disjoin'd,

Perpetual discord spread throughout mankind,

Aim to extend their empire o'er the ball,

Subject, destroy, absorb, and conquer all,

As if the power that form'd us did condemn

All other nations to be slaves to them—

Rouse from your sleep, and crush the thievish band,

Defeat, destroy, and sweep them from the land,

Ally'd like you, what madness to despair,

Attack the ruffians while they linger there;

There Tryon sits, a monster all complete,

See Clinton there with vile Knyphausen meet,

And every wretch whom honour should detest

There finds a home—and Arnold with the rest.

Ah! traitors, lost to every sense of shame,

Unjust supporters of a tyrant's claim;

Foes to the rights of freedom and of men,

Flush'd with the blood of thousands you have slain,

To the just doom the righteous skies decree

We leave you, toiling still in cruelty,

Or on dark plans in future herds to meet,

Plans form'd in hell, and projects half complete:

The years approach that shall to ruin bring

Your lords, your chiefs, your miscreant of a king,

Whose murderous acts shall stamp his name accurs'd,

And his last triumphs more than damn the first.

Sources: Lewis Leary, That Rascal Freneau: A Study in Literary Failure (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1941); Philip Marsh, Works of Philip Freneau (New York: Scarecrow Press, 1968) p 33; Philip Marsh, Works of Philip Freneau (New York: Scarecrow Press, 1968) p 33; Mary Austin, Philip Freneau: The Poet of the Revolution; a History of His Life and Times (New York: A. Wessels, 1901) pp. 108-11; Philip Freneau, "The Log of the Brig Rebecca, October 15-November 7, 1779," Jour. Rutgers Univ. Lib., vol. 5 (1942), pp. 65-6; Don Higginbotham, The War for American Independence, (New York: North Eastern Universities Press, 1983), p 261; Philip Marsh, Works of Philip Freneau (New York: Scarecrow Press, 1968) pp. 7-8; Richard Harrison, Princetonians: 1769-1775: A Biographical Dictionary (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014) vol. 2, 149-56; Philip Marsh, "Philip Freneau's Poetry in the New Jersey Gazette," New Jersey History, vol. 77, 1959, p 240-3; Edward Eckert, "Philip Freneau: Poet as Propagandist," New Jersey History, vol. 88, 1970, p 25; Monmouth, Page in History (Freehold: Monmouth County Bicenntenial Commission, 1976) p 15; plus entry 5160; Philip Freneau, "Some Account of the Capture of the Ship Aurora", (New York: J. Miles, 1899), pp. 7-15; Princetonia Museum, Freneau, Philip, Class of 1771, (https://www.princetonianamuseum.org/artifact/b3a7858e-3a87-4fe0-b9ca-1fe1de52029a); Adelberg, Michael, Biographical File, on file at the Monmouth County Historical Association.