'Tis done! and Britain for her madness sighs-- Take warning, tyrants, and henceforth be wise, If o'er mankind man gives you regal sway, Take not the rights of human kind away. When God from chaos gave this world to be, Man then he formed, and formed him to be free, In his own image stampt the favourite race-- How darest thou, tyrant, the fair stamp deface! When on mankind you fix your abject chains, No more the image of that God remains; O'er a dark scene a darker shade is drawn, His work dishonoured, and our glory gone! When first Britannia sent her hostile crew To these far shores, to ravage and subdue, We thought them gods, and almost seemed to say No ball could pierce them, and no dagger slay-- Heavens! what a blunder--half our fears were vain; These hostile gods at length have quit the plain, On neighbouring isles the storm of war they shun, Happy, thrice happy, if not quite undone. Yet soon, in dread of some impending woe, Even from these islands shall these ruffians go-- This be their doom, in vengeance for the slain, To pass their days in poverty and pain; For such base triumphs, be it still their lot To triumph only o'er the rebel Scot, And to their insect isle henceforth confined No longer lord it o'er the human kind.-- But, by the fates, who still prolong their stay, And gather vengeance to conclude their day, Yet, ere they go, the angry Muse shall tell The treasured woes that in her bosom swell:-- Proud, fierce, and bold, O Jove! who would not laugh To see these bullies worshipping a calf: But they are slaves who spurn at Reason's rules; And men, once slaves, are soon transformed to fools.-- To recommend what monarchies have done, They bring, for witness, David and his son; How one was brave, the other just and wise, And hence our plain Republics they despise; But mark how oft, to gratify their pride, The people suffered, and the people died; Though one was wise, and one Goliah slew, _Kings are the choicest curse that man e'er knew!_ Hail, worthy Briton!--how enlarged your fame; How great your glory, terrible your name; "Queen of the isles, and empress of the main,"-- Heaven grant you all these mighty things again; But first insure the gaping crowd below That you less cruel, and more just may grow: If fate, vindictive for the sins of man, Had favour shown to your infernal plan, How would your nation have exulted here, And scorned the widow's sigh, the orphan's tear! How had your prince, of all bad men the worst, Laid worth and virtue prostrate in the dust! A second Sawney[A] had he shone to-day, A world subdued, and murder but his play; How had that prince, contemning right or law, Glutted with blood his foul, voracious maw: In him we see the depths of baseness joined, Whate'er disgraced the dregs of human kind; Cain, Nimrod, Nero--fiends in human guise,