Each day the decimated ranks forgo Their dying comrades to repulse the foe, And each damp night, along the slippery trench, Breathe at their post the suffocating stench; They sink by hundreds on the vapory soil, Till a new fight relieves their deadlier toil. At last from fruitless combat, sore defeat, To Croton hills they lead a long retreat; Pale, curbed, exanimate, in dull despair, Train the scant relics of the twofold war: The sword, the pestilence press hard behind; The body both assail, and one beats down the mind. Book VI. Argument. British cruelty to American prisoners. Prison Ship. Retreat of Washington with the relics of his army, pursued by Howe. Washington recrossing the Delaware in the night, to surprise the British van, is opposed by uncommon obstacles. His success in this audacious enterprise lays the foundation of the American empire. A monument to be ere on the bank of the Delaware. Approach of Burgoyne, sailing up the St. Laurence with an army of Britons and various other nations. Indignant energy of the colonies, compared to that of Greece in opposing the invasion of Xerxes. Formation of an army of citizens, under the command of Gates. Review of the American and British armies, and of the savage tribes who join the British standard. Battle of Saratoga. Story of Lucinda. Second battle, and capture of Burgoyne and his army. But of all tales that war's black annals hold, The darkest, foulest still remains untold; New modes of torture wait the shameful strife, And Britain wantons in the waste of life. Cold-blooded Cruelty, first fiend of hell, Ah think no more with savage hordes to dwell; Quit the Caribian tribes who eat their slain, Fly that grim gang, the Inquisitors of Spain, Boast not thy deeds in Moloch's shrines of old, Leave Barbary's pirates to their blood-bought gold, Let Holland steal her victims, force them o'er To toils and death on Java's morbid shore; Some cloak, some color all these crimes may plead; Tis avarice, passion, blind religion's deed; But Britons here, in this fraternal broil, Grave, cool, deliberate in thy service toil. Far from the nation's eye, whose nobler soul Their wars would humanize, their pride control, They lose the lessons that her laws impart, And change the British for the brutal heart. Fired by no passion, madden'd by no zeal, No priest, no Plutus bids them not to feel; Unpaid, gratuitous, on torture bent, Their sport is death, their pastime to torment; All other gods they scorn, but bow the knee, And curb, well pleased, O Cruelty, to thee.