"O la! what a blunder "To provoke this French thunder! "We think with the devil he deals-- "But since we dislike "To surrender and strike, "Let us try the success of our heels: "We may save the king's frigate by running away, "The Frenchman will have us--all hands--if we stay!" So squaring their yards, On all Captain Bompard's, A volley of curses they shed-- Having got their Discharge, They bore away large, While the Frenchman pursued, as they fled. But vain was his haste--while his sails he repaired, He ended the fray in a chace-- The Gaul got the best of the fight, 'tis declared; The Briton--the best of the race! [73] Published in the _National Gazette_, Aug. 17, 1793. The frigate _L'Ambuscade_, which had borne Citizen Genet from France to Charleston, where he arrived April 8, 1792, and which was soon after stationed at Philadelphia, caused much trouble to the federal government by making American ports her basis for operations upon English shipping. She captured several British ships, among them the _Grange_ and the _Little Sarah_. Text from the 1809 edition. TO SHYLOCK AP-SHENKIN[74] [In Reply to Big Looks and Menaces] Because some pumpkin-shells and lobster claws, Thrown o'er his garden walls by Crab-tree's duke, Have chanc'd to light within your meagre jaws, (A dose, at which all honest men would puke:) Because some treasury-luncheons you have gnaw'd, Like rats, that prey upon the public store: Must you, for that, your crude stuff belch abroad, And vomit lies on all that pass your door! To knavery's tribe my verse still fatal found, Alike to kings and coblers gives their due: Spruce tho' you be, your heels may drum the ground, And make rare pass-time for the sportive crew. Why all these hints of menace, dark and sad, What is my crime, that thus Ap-Shenkin raves? No secret-service-money have I had For waging two years' war with fools and knaves. Abus'd at court, unwelcome to the Great-- This page of mine no well-born aspect wears: On honest yeomen I repose its fate, Clodhopper's dollar is as good as theirs. Why wouldst thou then with ruffian hand destroy A wight, that wastes his ink in Freedom's cause: Who, to the last, his arrows will employ To publish Freedom's rights, and guard her laws! O thou! that hast a heart so flinty hard Thus oft, too oft, a poet to rebuke, From those that rhyme you ne'er shall meet regard; Of Crab-tree's dutchy--you shall be no Duke. [74] Called forth by Hamilton's letters in Fenno's _Gazette_, charging Freneau with being a mere hired tool of Jefferson. Published in the 1795 edition, but omitted from the 1809 collection. PESTILENCE[75] Hot, dry winds forever blowing, Dead men to the grave-yards going: Constant hearses, Funeral verses; Oh! what plagues--there is no knowing!