We pay, we fight, you profit at your ease.
Do you not claim the country as your own?
Do you not call the venison of the forest,
The birds of heaven your own?-prohibiting us,
Even though in want of food, to seize the prey
Which nature offers. King! is all this just?
Think you, we do not feel the wrongs we suffer?
The hour of retribution is at hand,

And tyrants tremble mark me, King of England.
Walworth-(comes behind him, and stabs him.)
Insolent rebel, threatening the King!

Piers. Vengeance! Vengeance !
Hob.

Seize the King.

John Ball. Is not punishment revenge?
The momentary violence of anger

May be excused; the indignant heart will throb
Against oppression, and the outstretch'd arm
Resent its injured feelings. The Collector
Insulted Alice, and roused the keen emotions
Of a fond father. Tyler murder'd him.
Piers. Murder'd! - a most harsh word.
John Ball.
Yes, murder'd him:
His mangled feelings prompted the bad act,
And Nature will almost commend the deed
That Justice blames: but will the awakened feelings
Plead with the heart-emoving eloquence

For the calm deliberate murder of Revenge?
Would you, Piers, in your calmer hour of reason,
Condemn an erring brother to be slain?
Cut him at once from all the joys of life,
All hopes of reformation to revenge
The deed his punishment cannot recall ?
My blood boil'd in me at the fate of Tyler,
Yet I revenged not.

Enter Mob and Herald.

Tom Miller. Read it out-read it out.
Hob. Ay, ay, let's hear the Charter.

Herald. Richard Plantagenet, by the grace of God, King of England, Ireland, France, Scotland, and the town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, to all whom it may concern, — These presents: Whereas our loving subjects have complained to us of the heavy | burdens they endure, particularly from our late enacted poll-tax; and whereas they have risen in arms against our officers, and demanded the abolition of personal slavery, vassalage and manorial rights; we, ever ready in our sovereign mercy to listen to the petitions of our loving subjects, do annul all these grievances.

Mob. Huzza long live the King.

Herald (continues). And do of our royal mercy grant a free pardon to all who may have been anyways concerned in the late insurrections. All this shall be faithfully performed on our royal word, so help us God. God save the King.

[Loud and repeated shouts. Herald. Now then depart in quiet to your homes. John Ball. Nay, my good friend, the people will remain

Embodied peaceably, till parliament

Confirm the royal Charter: tell your King so:
We will await the Charter's confirmation,
Meanwhile comporting ourselves orderly,
As peaceful citizens, not risen in tumult,
But to redress their evils.
Hob.

That I have err'd. Thou gavest my ardent mind
To pierce the mists of superstitious falsehood;
Gavest me to know the truth. I should have urged it
Through every opposition; now, perhaps,
The seemly voice of pity has deceived me,
And all this mighty movement ends in ruin.
I fear me I have been like the weak leech,
Who, sparing to cut deep, with cruel mercy
Mangles his patient without curing him.

[Great tumult.
What means this tumult? hark! the clang of arms.
God of eternal justice— the false monarch
Has broke his plighted vow.

[Enter PIERS wounded. Piers. Fly, fly, my father-the perjured King, fly, fly.

John Ball. Nay, nay, my child; I dare abide my fate.

Let me bind up thy wounds.

{Exit Herald, &c. 'Twas well ordered.

(Mob fly across the stage.

I place but little trust in courtly faith.

John Ball. We must remain embodied; else the

Will plunge again in royal luxury,

And when the storm of danger is past over,

Forget his promises.

Hob.

[King

Ay, like an aguish sinner,
He'll promise to repent, when the fit's on him,
When well recover'd, laugh at his own terrors.
Piers. Oh I am grieved that we must gain so little.
Why are not all these empty ranks abolish'd,
King, slave, and lord, ennobled into MAN.

Are we not equal all? - have you not told me
Equality is the sacred right of man,
Inalienable, though by force withheld?

-

[Leading him off.

the Troops pursue them· tumult increases - loud cries and shouts.

SCENE II.

Westminster Hall.

KING, WALWORTH, PHILTOT, SIR JOHN

TRESILIAN, &c.

With the rebels' blood! your troops fought loyally.
There's not a man of them will lend an ear
To pity.

Walworth. Is John Ball secured?

Messenger.

The poor deluded people to rebellion;

Not having the fear of God and of the King

Before your eyes; of preaching up strange notions, Heretical and treasonous; such as saying

That kings have not a right from Heaven to govern; That all mankind are equal; and that rank,

And the distinctions of society,

Ay, and the sacred rights of property,

Are evil and oppressive; plead you guilty
To this most heavy charge?

That all mankind are equal, is most true:
Ye came as helepless infants to the world;
Ye feel alike the infirmities of nature;
And at last moulder into common clay. [earth
Why then these vain distinctions? - bears not the
Food in abundance?—must your granaries
O'erflow with plenty, while the poor man starves?
Sir Judge, why sit you there, clad in your furs;
Why are your cellars stored with choicest wines?
Your larders hung with dainties, while your vassal,
As virtuous, and as able too by nature,
Though by your selfish tyranny deprived
Of mind's improvement, shivers in his rags,
And starves amid the plenty he creates.
I have said this is wrong, and I repeat it-

Would he be warring even unto death

With his French neighbours? Charles and Richard

The patience of the court has been insulted —
Condemn the foul-mouth'd contumacious rebel.

Sir John Tr. John Ball, whereas you are accused before us

Of stirring up the people to rebellion,

And preaching to them strange and dangerous doc

trines;

And whereas your behaviour to the court
Has been most insolent and contumacious;
Insulting Majesty. and since you have pleaded
Guilty to all these charges; I condemn you
To death: you shall be hanged by the neck,
But not till you are dead-your bowels open'd—
Your heart torn out, and burnt before your face.
Your traitorous head be severed from your body-
Your body quarter'd, and exposed upon

The city gates - -a terrible example

And the Lord God have mercy on your soul.
John Ball. Why, be it so. I can smile at your

vengeance,

For I am arm'd with rectitude of soul.
The truth, which all my life I have divulged,
And am now doom'd in torments to expire for,
Shall still survive. The destined hour must come,
When it shall blaze with sun-surpassing splendour,
And the dark mists of prejudice and falsehood
Fade in its strong effulgence. Flattery's incense
No more shall shadow round the gore-dyed throne;
That altar of oppression, fed with rites

More savage than the priests of Moloch taught,
Shall be consumed amid the fire of Justice;

The rays of truth shall emanate around,
And the whole world be lighted.

SONNET I.

HOLD your mad hands! for ever on your plain Must the gorged vulture clog his beak with blood? For ever must your Niger's tainted flood,

Roll to the ravenous shark his banquet slain?

Hold your mad hands! and learn at length to know,
And turn your vengeance on the common foe,
Yon treacherous vessel and her godless crew!
Let never traders with false pretext fair
Set on your shores again their wicked feet:
With interdict and indignation meet
Repel them, and with fire and sword pursue!
Avarice, the white cadaverous fiend, is there,
Who spreads his toils accursed wide and far,
And for his purveyor calls the demon War.

SONNET IV.

'Tis night: the unrelenting owners sleep
As undisturb'd as Justice; but no more
The o'erwearied slave, as on his native shore,
Rests on his reedy couch: he wakes to weep.
Though through the toil and anguish of the day
No tear escaped him, not one suffering groan
Beneath the twisted thong, he weeps alone
In bitterness; thinking that far away
While happy Negroes join the midnight song,
And merriment resounds on Niger's shore,
She whom he loves, far from the cheerful throng
Stands sad, and gazes from her lowly door
With dim-grown eyes, silent and woe-begone,
And weeps for him who will return no more.

SONNET II.

WHY dost thou beat thy breast and rend thine hair,
And to the deaf sea pour thy frantic cries?
Before the gale the laden vessel flies;

The Heavens all-favouring smile, the breeze is fair;
Hark to the clamours of the exulting crew!
Hark how their cannon mock the patient skies!
Why dost thou shriek, and strain thy red-swoln eyes,
As the white sail is lessening from thy view?
Go pine in want and anguish and despair,
There is no mercy found in human-kind!
Go, Widow, to thy grave, and rest thee there!
But may the God of Justice bid the wind
Whelm that curst bark beneath the mountain wave,
And bless with liberty and death the Slave!

SONNET V.

DID then the Negro rear at last the sword
Of vengeance? Did he plunge its thirsty blade
In the hard heart of his inhuman lord?
Oh! who shall blame him? in the midnight shade
There came on him the intolerable thought
Of every past delight; his native grove,
Friendship's best joys, and liberty and love,
For ever lost. Such recollections wrought
His brain to madness. Wherefore should he live
Longer with abject patience to endure

His wrongs and wretchedness, when hope can give
No consolation, time can bring no cure?
But justice for himself he yet could take,
And life is then well given for vengeance' sake.

SONNET III.

On, he is worn with toil! the big drops run

SONNET VI.

HIGH in the air exposed the slave is hung,

Pale tyrant! for beneath thy hard command
O'erwearied nature sinks. The scorching sun,
As pitiless as proud Prosperity,

Darts on him his full beams; gasping he lies
Arraigning with his looks the patient skies,
While that inhuman driver lifts on high
The mangling scourge. O ye who at your ease
Sip the blood-sweetened beverage, thoughts like these
Haply ye scorn: I thank thee, gracious God,
That I do feel upon my cheek the glow
Of indignation, when beneath the rod

A sable brother writhes in silent woe.

He groans not, though awaked by that fierce sun
New torturers live to drink their parent blood;
He groans not, though the gorging vulture tear
The quivering fibre. Hither look, O ye
Who tore this man from peace and liberty!
Look hither, ye who weigh with politic care
The gain against the guilt! Beyond the grave
There is another world!.. bear ye in mind,
Ere your decree proclaims to all mankind
The gain is worth the guilt, that there the Slave
Before the Eternal, "thunder-tongued shall plead
Against the deep damnation of your deed."

Bristol, 1794.