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.
[A] Commissary of Prisoners at New-York.--Freneau's note. [Pg 32]
Canto III.--The Hospital Prison Ship
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Now tow'rd the Hunter's gloomy sides we came, A slaughter-house, yet hospital in name;[31]
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--[Pg 33] 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;[Pg 34] "He late, perhaps, too eager for the fray,
"Chac'd the vile Briton o'er the wat'ry way
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"'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;[Pg 35]
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,[32]-- 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;--[Pg 36]
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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