The Virginia Gazette

ON GENERAL ARNOLD.

At freedom's call see Arnold take the field,
With honour blazon'd on his patriot shield;
His gallant deeds a dazzling lustre read,
And circling glories beam'd around his head,
His virtuous praies were consign'd to fame,
And fate decreed him an immortal name.
But when estrang'd from freedom's glorious cause,
Neglecting honour, and it's sacred laws,
Impell'd by motives of the basest kind,
Which mark the vicious, mean, degenerate mind,
To virtue lost, and callous to disgrace,
The traitor hiding, with the hero's face,
His canker'd heart,,to sordid views a slave,
To Mammon yielding all that freedom gave,
Enleagu'd with fiends of that detested tribe.
Whose God is gold, whose Saviour is a bribe,
Could basely join his country to betray,
And thus restore a ruthleis tyrant's sway,
On freedom's sons impose the galling yoke,
And crush each foe to vice beneath the stroke;
Not all his laurels in the field obtain'd,
Not allthat Phillip's on by conquest gain'd
Not all that once adorn'd great Caesar's brow,
To WASHINGTON, transferr'd by freedom, now
Not e'en those glories which around Him shine,
Nor yet the virtues of His patriot mind,
(If hell itself such virtue can controul
And warp the steady purpose of His soul)
Shall save a wretch, whom crimes like thee debase
So far below the rank of human race.
But, stung with keen remorse, his abject soul
In vain shall seek repose from pole to pole,
Perpetual anguish shall torment his breast,
And hellish Damons haunt his troubled rest:
Not even death shall shield his hated name,
But till the caitiff Shall survive to shame,
By fates decree; who thus pronounc'd his lot:
"Too bad to live,too base to be forgot,
" Thy crimes succeeding ages shall proclaim,
"And Judas be forgot, in Arnold's name."