When the war came upon us, you very well knew My income was small and my riches were few-- If your money was scarce, and your prospects were bad, Why hinder me printing for people that had? 'Twould have pleas'd you, no doubt, had I gone with a few setts Of books, to exist in your cold Massachusetts; Or to wander at Newark, like ill fated Hugh, Not a shirt to my back, nor a soal to my shoe. Now, if we mistook (as we did, it is plain) Our error was owing to wicked Hugh Gaine, For he gave us such scenes of your starving and strife As prov'd that his pictures were drawn from the life. On the waves of the Styx had he rode quarantine, He could not have look'd more infernally lean Than the day, when returning dismay'd and distrest, Like the doves to their windows, he flew to his nest.[260] The part that he[261] acted, by some men of sense Was wrongfully held to be malice propense, When to all the world it was perfectly plain, One principle rul'd him[262]--a passion for gain. You pretend I have suffer'd no loss in the cause, And have, therefore, no right to partake of your laws: Some people love talking--I find to my cost, I too am a loser--my character's lost![263] Nay, did not your printers repeatedly stoop To descant and reflect on my Portable Soup? At me have your porcupines darted the quill, You have plunder'd my Office,[C] and publish'd my Will.[264] [C] November, 1775.--_Freneau's note._ On November 27, 1775, a band of armed men, under Sears of Connecticut, entered the city on horseback, destroyed his press and scattered his types. Resolv'd upon mischief, you held it no crime To steal my _Reflections_,[265] and print them in rhyme, When all the world knew, or at least they might guess, That the time to reflect was no time to confess;[266] You never consider'd my children and wife,[267] That my lot was to toil and to struggle[268] through life; My windows you broke--they are all on a jar, And my house you have made a mere old man of war. And still you insist I've no right to complain!-- Indeed if I do, I'm afraid it's in vain-- Yet am willing to hope you're too learnedly read To hang up a printer for being misled. If this be your aim, I must think of a flight-- In less than a month I must bid you good-night, And hurry away to that whelp ridden shore Where Clinton and Carleton retreated before. From signs in the sky, and from tokens on land I'm inclin'd to suspect my departure's at hand: The man in the moon is unusually big, And Inglis, they tell me, has grown a good Whig.[269] For many days past, as the town can attest, The tail of the weather-cock hung to the west--[270] My shop, the last evening, seem'd all in a blaze, And a hen crow'd at midnight, my waiting man says;