Freneau placed upon the title-page the ringing challenge: "Then England come!--a sense of wrong requires To meet with thirteen stars your thousand fires: Through these stern times the conflict to maintain, Or drown them, with your commerce, in the main." He introduced the work as follows: "The poetical pieces contained in these volumes were composed at different periods, and on a variety of occasions, between the years 1797 and 1815, and are now presented to the public, printed from the author's original and corrected manuscripts, and, it is hoped, in such a style of typography, as will not be unacceptable to the reader.--Several of the performances, comprised in this collection, and chiefly those on political subjects, and other events of the times, have heretofore appeared in several periodical publications of _this_ and other STATES of the union. It is presumed, however, that the poems of this description will not be the less acceptable to the friends of the muses, now they are collected in these volumes; with the advantage of having at one view what were before scattered in those bulky vehicles of information, whose principal object can be little more than to record the common events and business of the day, and soon descend into comparative oblivion.--Whatever may be the fate of the work, they are respectfully offered to the world, in hopes it may obtain a share of their attention, and particularly, from the friends of poetical composition; and in a country where it may be expected, the fine arts in general will, with the return of peace, find that share of encouragement, which they seem entitled to demand, in every nation that makes any pretensions to refinement and civilization.--It is only necessary to add, that care has been taken to execute the typographical part as _correctly_ as possible." The poems were reviewed for the _Analectic Magazine_ by Mr. Gulian C. Verplanck, who said in part: "He depicts land battles and naval fights with much animation and gay coloring; and being himself a son of old Neptune, he is never at a loss ... when the scene lies at sea. His martial and political ballads are free from bombast and affectation, and often have an arch simplicity in their manner that renders them very poignant and striking. If the ballads and songs of Dibdin have cheered the spirits and incited the valor of the British tars, the strains of Freneau, in like manner, are calculated to impart patriotic impulses to the hearts of his countrymen, and their effect in this way should be taken as the test of their merit, without entering into a very nice examination of the rhyme or the reason. For our own part, we have no inclination to dwell on his defects; we had much rather--