Gazette Of The United States

THE
NEWS-BOY'S ADDRESS TO HIS
CUSTOMERS.

BEHOLD, another year is past,
Full as important as the last ;
For TIME, like hares, our papers say,
Conceives, and brings forth every day
Pregnant at once with dire distempers,
Conventions, Congress, and young Empires.
Four years employed th' American nation,
In nursing up the Confederation ;
A child of frame so weak and slender,
No Doctor's skill could cure or mend her ;
Doom'd to decay, in hectic sleep,
And leave all good old whigs to weep.
But soon a general States' Convention,
With much lov'd WASHINGTON the President
Proposed a federal government,
To all the States for their consent.
How did its foes with jealous strife,
Attempt to take the infant's life ;
Predict a tyrant's reign, and bawl,
That Freedom by the brat must fall !
Like Herod, who, to keep command,
Destroy'd all children in the land,
Lest a good Prince should fill the throne,
And scourge all knaveries with his own :
But Wisdom, which prevails o'er bawling,
Has sav'd the child from tory mauling ;
Given him a GUARDIAN and PROTECTOR,
As wise as Solon, strong as Hector:
And Congress too, with powers extending,
Farther than patching work and mending ;
Have now begun, in Freedom's cause,
A code of energetic laws.
Have not our papers every week,
Told you what Congress think and speak ?
That words and dogmas, fall like hammers,
When raging — now spouts and stammers:
How bawls in southern cause,
And tiresome — hems and haws ?
How Old Dominion in a passion,
Swears she'll separate from the nation—
If government should not reside,
On Alleghany's rocky side ?
Such patriotism was never known,
From times of Brutus to our own :
For how can Congress rule the State,
With vast Kentucky's added weight ;
Unless in center borne alone
By huge American back bone ?*
North Carolinians too appear,
With State of Franklin in the rear,
Demanding Congress now should settle,
In woods, with Gougers, Creeks, and cattle :
For know you not, the time will come,
When Yankees, starv'd at home, will roam
To southern climes, to find good fare,
And then-your Congress' ready there ?
Have you not seen our CHIEF caressed,
In panegyric strains addressed ?
In praise gently told t' his eyes,
He's greatest, best, most just, most wise ?
On stage high rais'd, like puppet show,
T' amuse the gaping crowd below ?
Now States, 'tis clearly prov'd at Boston,
Their sovereignty should make the most on ;
Each State, in governor's opinion,
At home should rank before the Union ;
And should our President but doubt,
We'll try the reasoning, force of gout.†
Have not our friends, across the Atlantic,
Found Freedom growing wild and antic ?
At haughty nobles rais'd her heel,
And made all foes her vengeance feel ?
Open'd the Bastile's dark recess,
Releas'd the victims from distress?
Made tyrants fly before her arms,
And throughout Europe spread alarms?
All this, and more, we printers tell,
And hope this year to do as well.—
You'll hear, each week, what duty's laid,
To pay our debts, and help our trade ;
And if you'll pay the boy, he'll try,
Against th' Excise to raise a cry ;
That fraudful tax, which makes you wear,
To save your money, when you dare.
But this, all this, cannot be done,
Without a fee to help us run ;
For boys, like wheels, in constant toil,
Will lag and creak without the OIL.

NOTES.

* The Alleghany mountains, so called.

† Alluding to a recent fact.