Gazette Of The United States

FROM THE SAME.

THE LONDON GAZETTE.

LONDON is the world in miniature! thrice happy Cockney! who can'st safely see those horrid monsters, which erst prowled the dreary deserts of remotest regions, led captive to thy Tower; there, thou may'st approach, fearless of their dire fangs, and dreadful rage, and equally secure from the more baneful influence of those barbarous climes, which them engendered: There, dry-shod, thou may'st see trophies of bloody fields, and all the glittering implements of war, in brilliant order ranged: There, thou can'st view a Crown, decked with the richest spoils of distant shores:—Thou too once more can'st boast a native King; but here description fails: Crimes lose their color when applied to Kings: A King can do no wrong: MURDER IS ROYAL SPORT: Great GEORGE the Third! (a) let the ghosts of murdered (b) Millions, whose putrid carcasses have stained pure Ganges' sacred stream; or fed the Vultures, on the desert plains of the once fertile Asia, speak to thy feeling mind, paternal praise: Let RAVAGED AMERICA preserve her monumental bones, Sacred to Thee, and Kings: Let the loss of an immense Empire, and the price of Kingdoms lavished in vain, to obtain a Pepper-Corn, proclaim thy wisdom: Let the brave and virtuous surviving sons of victorious, independent America, declare thy Power.

Stupendous London! where brutes are taught to act like men, and men like brutes; where the learned Pig (c) gives wholesome lessons to the unlettered Lord; and the staunch Dog (d) upbraids the bashful Soldier; and shews the stall-fed, pamper'd Cit, how hardly earned, and dearly bought, the bread and laurels of the brave.

Thou too, blest Cockney! hast a magazine of wonders ycleped Museum! There thou may'st see the harmless native coats of beasts, and birds, and quondam, noxious, frightful, creeping things, of multifarious kinds! rare insects too! fossils, and other strange, and curious things! and thou exulting, can'st behold, towering o'er thy lofty spires, the "cloud-capt" Dome of thy St. Paul's, as Rome her great St. Peter's: Thy pretty modern Obelisks peep forth humble epitomes of the aspiring pyramids of Egypt! And thou can'st boast, at thy Vauxhall, of thy little, curious, gently-murmuring, glittering, tin Cascade; sweet, modest emblem, of the roaring, thundering, deafening, cataracts of Niagara, in the savage wilds of America; there allay thy temperate thirst, and thus, without toil, or peril, dost thou possess all that the world affords of rich and rare—pleased with the flattering, fond idea, that thy Mother's lap contains them all.

NOTES.

(a) This piece was written some time before His Britannic Majesty's Physicians declared him insane; but years after the Americans thought him so.

(b) Three millions of poor innocent people were said to be starved to death in the kingdom of Bengal, by the monopoly of Rice, contrived by the servants of the East-India company, for the purpose of gain: Their bodies stopped the great river Ganges; and others were strewed over the fields and roads of their native country: And yet, at such a time of horror and distress, if the farmers failed to bring in their taxes to the Company, they were taken without any form of trial, tied fast round the middle, and suspended from a hook in a post—the circulation being thereby totally stopped from all communication with the lower parts of the body, in the course of a few days they rotted off in that climate, while the remainder of the body still retained life!

(c) At some of the Theatres in London, a Hog, called the learned Pig, is introduced on the stage, and required to spell any polysyllable proposed by any one of the company—the letters of the alphabet are written in capitals on separate pieces of paper, and thrown promiscuously on the stage—from these the Hog picks out the letters that compose the word, in regular order, and carries them in his mouth, one by one, to his master.

(d) Dogs are introduced to storm a fort—they are dressed in a military uniform, and scale the walls through a very hot fire.