Page images
PDF
EPUB

WASHINGTON,

OR

LIBERTY RESTORED:

A POEM, IN TEN BOOKS,

BY THOMAS NORTHMORE, ESQ.

neada in ferrum pro libertate ruebant.

En. viii. 648.

Baltimore:

PUBLISHED BY JOHN VANCE AND CO.

178, MARKET-STREET,

[ocr errors]

Gentlemen have been too liberal in dealing out reflections against me; in any question where England is right, I will support her; where she is wrong, I will oppose her injustice; and in advocating the just cause of America, or of any other power against the injustice of England, I say I am advocating the cause of my country. I am not the advocate of America-I am not the advocate of France, but the advocate of my country, because I am the advocate of justice." Whitbread's speech upon the orders in Council, March 6, 1809. Morning Chronicle.

I feel a sort of enthusiasm in favour of America, not only on account of the origin of the people, but also on account of the noble stand they made for their Independence." Lord Erskine, February 15, 1808. Debate upon the Orders in Council. Cobbett's Iteb. x. 473.

PRINTED BY HUNTER & ROBINSON,

BALTIMORE.

PREFACE.

E295 No872

IT is an observation of professor Schütz, that the objects which Æschylus appears to have had in view when he wrote his patriotick tragedy of Prometheus, were to confirm the Athenians in the ardent love of that liberty which they so enviably enjoyed, and to inspire them with an utter detestation of despotism, and a determined resistance to oppression. In the voluptuous monarchy of Persia the poet saw enough to disgust him with tyranny; and the contrast exhibited between the miseries attendant upon such a form of government, and the happiness arising from Athenian freedom, was a cause sufficiently powerful to raise to an exertion almost more than human the genius of the Shakespear of Greece. Such too is the object of the author of the present work. Born and educated in a land of liberty; descended from ancestors who, in the senates of their country, have with invariable

M310266

uniformity given their voices* in defence of its rights, and for the preservation of its liberties, he could not but feel, in common with every British patriot, his whole indignation roused at the attempt of a weak and wicked administration to subjugate his free brethren in America, and thus not only to destroy one of the first principles of the British constitution, but to pave the way to the introduction of despotick power at home. If enthusiasm has any where influenced my pen, let the reader reflect that it is an enthusiasm if not caused, yet aggravated by the proclaimed increase of the influence of the crown, and the gigantick strides of modern corruption. Let him reflect too that it is directed to the best of objects, the recovery of the past, the preservation of the present, and the security of our future liberties. That my work will in these times escape censure and abuse, is neither to be unexpected, nor regretted; for abuse is nothing more than the malignant effusion of that corruption, against which my pen has been uniformly, I wish I could add, efficaciously employed. If some

See the divisions at the end of Chandler's Debates volviii. and xii.

passages of the poem should seem not imme. diately to relate to the period' in which they meet the publick eye, let it be remembered that those passages were written some years ago amid suspensions of the Habeas Corpus act, amid treason and sedition bills, amidst the imprisonments of learned and patriotick men, and above all under a system of spies and informers, that tended, among other evils, to diminish the chief source of human happiness, the endearments of domestick life.

In respect to the plan and nature of the poem, I have but little to observe. It will probably be remarked, as it has been of the Pharsalia, that its subject is too near my own times; be it so; the enlightened reader will perceive an endeavour to remedy that defect; and let him remember that human life is short, and had the validity of this objection been allowed, the poem would never have been written. Some criticks will perhaps object to the length of the episodes; but the same objection has been made to the best of poets in the best of times. If malice, or ignorance should suggest that the Americans were the enemies of my country, I positively deny the assertion. The American

« PreviousContinue »