Your conquests ended, and your battles done! But that to live is better than to die, And life you chose, though life with infamy, You should have climb'd your loftiest vessel's deck,[84] And hung a millstone round your halter'd neck--[85] Then plung'd forever to the wat'ry bed, Hell in your heart, and vengeance on your head.[86] All must confess, that in regard to you,[87] 'Twas wrong to rob the devil of his due-- For Hayne, for Hayne![88] no death but thine atones; For thee, Cornwallis, how the gallows groans! That injur'd man's, and all the blood you've shed, That blood shall rest on your devoted head; Asham'd to live, and yet afraid to die, Your courage slacken'd as the foe drew nigh-- Ungrateful wretch, to yield your favourite band To chains and prisons in a hostile land: To the wide world your Negro friends to cast, And leave your Tories to be hang'd at last!-- You should have fought with horror and amaze, 'Till scorch'd to cinders in the cannon blaze, 'Till all your host of Beelzebubs[89] was slain, Doom'd to disgrace no human shape again-- As if from hell this horned host he drew,[90] Swift from the South the embodied ruffians[91] flew; Destruction follow'd at their cloven feet, 'Till you, Fayette, constrain'd them to retreat, And held them close, 'till thy fam'd squadron came, De Grasse, completing their eternal shame. When the loud cannon's unremitting glare And red hot balls compell'd you to despair, How could you stand to meet your generous foe? Did not the sight confound your soul with woe?-- In thy great soul what god-like virtues shine, What inborn greatness, Washington, is thine!-- Else had no prisoner trod these lands to-day, All, with his lordship, had been swept away, All doom'd alike death's vermin to regale, Nor one been left to tell the dreadful tale! But his own terms the vanquish'd murderer[92] nam'd-- He nobly gave the miscreant[93] all he claim'd, And bade Cornwallis, conquer'd and distress'd, Bear all his torments in his tortur'd breast. Now curs'd with life, a foe to man and God, Like Cain, I drive you to the land of Nod. He with a brother's blood his hands did stain, One brother he, you have a thousand slain. And, O! may heaven affix some public mark[94] To know Cornwallis--may he howl and bark!-- On eagle's wings explore your downward flight[95] To the deep horrors of the darkest night,[96] Where, rapt in shade on ocean's utmost bound,[97] No longer sun, nor moon, nor stars are found; Where never light her kindling radiance shed, But the dark comets rove with all their dead,[C] Doom'd through the tracks of endless space to run No more revolving to confound the sun. Such horrid deeds your spotted soul[98] defame We grieve to think your shape and ours the same! Enjoy what comfort in this life you can,[99] The form you have, not feelings of a man;