So much we suffered from the tribe I hate, So near they shoved us to the brink of fate, When two long months in these dark hulks we lay, Barred down by night, and fainting all the day, In the fierce fervors of the solar beam Cooled by no breeze on Hudson’s mountain stream, That not unsung these threescore days shall fall To black oblivion that would cover all. No masts or sails these crowded ships adorn, Dismal to view, neglected and forlorn; Here mighty ills oppressed the imprisoned throng; Dull were our slumbers, and our nights were long. From morn to eve along the decks we lay, Scorched into fevers by the solar ray; No friendly awning cast a welcome shade, Once was it promised, and was never made; No favors could these sons of Death bestow, ‘Twas endless vengeance, and unceasing woe. Immortal hatred doth their breasts engage, And this lost empire swells their souls with rage. Two hulks on Hudson’s stormy bosom lie, Two, on the east, alarm the pitying eye, There, the black Scorpion at her mooring rides, And there Strombolo, swinging, yields the tides; Here bulky Jersey fills a larger space, And Hunter, to all hospitals disgrace. Thou Scorpion, fatal to thy crowded throng, Dire theme of horror to Plutonian song, Requir’st my lay,--thy sultry decks I know, And all the torments that exist below! The briny wave that Hudson’s bosom fills Drained through her bottom in a thousand rills; Rotten and old, replete with sighs and groans, Scarce on the water she sustained her bones: Here, doomed to toil, or founder in the tide, At the moist pumps incessantly we plied; Here, doomed to starve, like famished dogs we tore The scant allowance that our tyrants bore. Remembrance shudders at this scene of fears, Still in my view, some tyrant chief appears, Some base-born Hessian slave walks threatening by, Some servile Scot with murder in his eye, Still haunts my sight, as vainly they bemoan Rebellions managed so unlike their own. O may I never feel the poignant pain To live subjected to such fiends again! Stewards and mates that hostile Britain bore, Cut from the gallows on their native shore; Their ghastly looks and vengeance beaming eyes Still to my view in dismal visions rise,-- O may I ne’er review these dire abodes, These piles for slaughter floating on the floods! And you that o’er the troubled ocean go Strike not your standards to this venomed foe, Better the greedy wave should swallow all, Better to meet the death-conducting ball, Better to sleep on ocean’s oozy bed, At once destroyed and numbered with the dead, Than thus to perish in the face of day Where twice ten thousand deaths one death delay. When to the ocean sinks the western sun, And the scorched tories fire their evening gun, “Down, rebels, down!” the angry Scotchmen cry, “Base dogs, descend, or by our broadswords die!”