Marching by Sandtown, and Quaker Bridge crossing, We passed Stony Creek a full hour before dawn, Leaving there Mercer with one scant battalion Our foes to amuse, should they find we were gone; Then the main force pushed its way into Princeton, All ready to strike those who dreamed of no blow; Only a chance that we lost not our labor, And slipped through our fingers, unknowing, the foe. Mawhood’s brigade, never feeling its danger, Had started for Trenton at dawn of the day, Crossed Stony Creek, after we had gone over, When Mercer’s weak force they beheld on its way; Turning contemptuously back to attack it, They drove it with ease, in disorder ahead— Firelocks alone were no match for their cannon— A fight, and then flight, and brave Mercer lay dead. Murdered, some said, while imploring for quarter— A dastardly deed, if the thing had been true— Cruel our foes, but in that thing we wronged them, And let us in all give the demon his due. Gallant Hugh Mercer fell sturdily fighting, So long as his right arm his sabre could wield, Stretching his enemies bleeding around him, And then, overpowered, fell prone on the field. Hearing the firing, we turned and we met them, Our cannon replying to theirs with a will; Fiercely with grape and with canister swept them, And chased them in wrath from the brow of the hill. Racing and chasing it was into Princeton, Where, seeking the lore to be taught in that hall, Red-coats by scores entered college, but stayed not— We rudely expelled them with powder and ball. [Illustration: BATTLE OF PRINCETON.] Only a skirmish, you see, though a sharp one— It did not last over the fourth of an hour; But ’twas a battle that did us this service— No more, from that day, had we fear of their power. Trenton revived us, Assunpink encouraged, But Princeton gave hope that we held to the last; Flood-tide had come on the black, sullen water, And ebb-tide for ever and ever had passed. Yes! ’twas the turn of the tide in our favor— A turn of the tide to a haven that bore. Had Lord Cornwallis crossed over Assunpink That day we repelled him, our fighting were o’er. Had he o’ertaken us ere we smote Mawhood, All torn as we were, it seems certain to me, I would not chatter to you about battles, And you and your children would not have been free. DONALD M’DONALD.