Randolph Enterprise

Philip Freneau Author of the First American Poem of Independence

Now the two great English-speaking nations, the United States and Great Britain, happily are on terms of amity, but in the days of the "differences" there was a feeling against the mother country intensely violent, as is shown by the appended verses. Philip Freneau, author of the poem, was the first American poet of any note. He was born in 1752 in New York, was graduated from Princeton in 1771, and in 1775, at the age of twenty-three, he wrote this bitterly satirical poem, entitled "Emancipation From British Dependence." The next year independence was declared by the Continental congress.

Freneau lived to the age of eighty, dying near Freehold, N. J., late in 1832.

From a junta that labor for absolute power,

Whose schemes, disappointed, have made them look sour:

From the lords of the council, who fight against freedom,

Who still follow on where delusion shall lead 'em;

From groups at St. James' who slight our petitions

And fools that are waiting for further submissions;

From a nation whose manners are rough and abrupt.

From scoundrels and rascals whom gold can corrupt;

From pirates sent out by command of the king

To murder and plunder, but never to swing:

From Wallace and Graves and vipers and roses

Whom, if heaven pleases, we'll give bloody noses;

From the valiant Dunmore, with his crew of banditti,

Who plunder Virginians at Williamsburg city:

From hot-headed Montague, mighty to swear,

The little fat man with his pretty white hair:

From bishops in Britain, who butchers are grown:

From slaves that would die for a smile from the throne:

From assemblies that vote against congress' proceedings,

Who now see the fruit of their stupid misleadings:

From Tryon, the mighty, who flies from our city

And, swelled with importance, disdains the committee

(But since he is pleased to proclaim us his foes

What the devil care we where the devil he goes!):

From the caitiff Lord North, who would bind us in chains:

From our noble King Log, with his toothful of brains,

Who dreams and is certain when taking a nap

He has conquered our lands as they lay on his lap;

From a kingdom that bullies and hectors and swears,

I send up to heaven my wishes and prayers

That we, disunited, may freemen be still,

And Britain go on to be d—d if she will.