On them gleam’d the moon’s wan lustre, When the shade of HOSIER brave His pale bands was seen to muster, Rising from their wat’ry grave: O’er the glimmering wave he hied him, Where the Burford rear’d her sail, With three thousand ghosts beside him, And in groans did VERNON hail. Heed, O heed, our fatal story, I am HOSIER’S injured ghost. You who now have purchas’d glory, At this place where I was lost; Though in Porto-Bello’s ruin You now triumph free from fears, When you think on our undoing, You will mix your joy with tears. See these mournful spectres sweeping Ghastly o’er this hated wave, Whose wan cheeks are stain’d with weeping, These were English Captains brave. Mark those numbers pale and horrid, Those were once my sailors bold, See each hangs his drooping forehead, While his dismal tale is told. I by twenty sail attended Did this Spanish town affright, Nothing then its wealth defended But my orders not to fight. O! that in this rolling ocean I had cast them with disdain, And obey’d my heart’s warm motion To have quell’d the pride of Spain. For resistance I could fear none, But with twenty ships had done What thou, brave and happy VERNON, Hast achiev’d with six alone. Then the Bastimentos never Had our foul dishonour seen, Nor the sea the sad receiver Of this gallant train had been. Thus, like thee, proud Spain dismaying, And her galleons leading home, Though condemned for disobeying, I had met a traitor’s doom: To have fallen, my country crying He has play’d an English part, Had been better far than dying Of a griev’d and broken heart. Unrepining at thy glory, Thy successful arms we hail; But remember our sad story, And let HOSIER’S wrongs prevail. Sent in this foul clime to languish, Think what thousands fell in vain, Wasted with disease and anguish, Not in glorious battle slain.