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HAWKE
(1759)

Hawke was admiral in command of the fleet blockading Brest during the Seven Years' War. When the French fleet came out he drove it towards Quiberon. Shoals and quicksands made it dangerous to attack; but Hawke refused to listen to the warning of his pilot and gave battle. The result was a great victory for England which staved off all risk of a French invasion.

IN seventeen hundred and fifty-nine,

When Hawke came swooping from the West, The French King's Admiral with twenty of the line Was sailing forth to sack us, out of Brest.

The ports of France were crowded, the quays of France a-hum

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With thirty thousand soldiers marching to the drum, For bragging time was over and fighting time was

come

When Hawke came swooping from the West.

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'Twas long past noon of a wild November day
When Hawke came swooping from the West;
He heard the breakers thundering in Quiberon Bay,
But he flew the flag for battle, line abreast.
Down upon the quicksands roaring out of sight
Fiercely beat the storm-wind, darkly fell the night,
But they took the foe for pilot and the cannon's
glare for light

When Hawke came swooping from the West.

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The Frenchmen turned like a covey down the wind
When Hawke came swooping from the West;
One he sank with all hands, one he caught and

pinned,

And the shallows and the storm took the rest. 20

The guns that should have conquered us they rusted on the shore,

The men that would have mastered us they drummed and marched no more,

For England was England, and a mighty brood she bore

When Hawke came swooping from the West.

H. NEWBOLT.

A BALLAD OF THE BOSTON TEA PARTY

(1773)

Boston in Massachusetts was always strongly Puritan in tone, and generally at variance with the Home government. It took the lead in resisting the taxation imposed upon the Colonies after the Seven Years' War. In 1773 the inhabitants of Boston destroyed a cargo of tea worth £18,000 sooner than pay the duty.

As a punishment, Lord North in 1774 carried through the Boston Port Bill, which declared it illegal to load or unload any ship at Boston. This meant ruin to the town; intense indignation arose throughout America and war became inevitable.

No! ne'er was mingled such a draught
In palace, hall, or arbour,

As freemen brewed and tyrants quaffed
That night in Boston Harbour!
It kept King George so long awake
His brain at last got addled,
It made the nerves of Britain shake,
With sevenscore millions saddled;
Before that bitter cup was drained,
Amid the roar of cannon,

The Western war-cloud's crimson stained
The Thames, the Clyde, the Shannon;

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Full many a six-foot grenadier
The flattened grass had measured,
And many a mother many a year
Her tearful memories treasured;
Fast spread the tempest's darkening pall,
The mighty realms were troubled,
The storm broke loose, but first of all
The Boston teapot bubbled!

An evening party,-only that,
No formal invitation,

No gold-laced coat, no stiff cravat,
No feast in contemplation,

No silk-robed dames, no fiddling band
No flowers, no songs, no dancing,-

A tribe of red men, axe in hand,-
Behold the guests advancing!

How fast the stragglers join the throng,
From stall and workshop gathered!

The lively barber skips along

And leaves a chin half-lathered ;

The smith has flung his hammer down,

The horseshoe still is glowing;

The truant tapster at the Crown

Has left a beer-cask flowing;

The cooper's boys have dropped the adze,
And trot behind their master;

Up run the tarry ship-yard lads,-
The crowd is hurrying faster,-

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And down their slippery alleys rush
The lusty young Fort-Hillers,

Out from the Millpond's purlieus gush
The streams of white-faced millers,

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The ropewalk lends its prentice crew,-
The Tories seize the omen:

'Ay, boys, you'll soon have work to do
For England's rebel foemen,

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"King Hancock", Adams, and their gang,
That fire the mob with treason,-
When these we shoot and those we hang
The town will come to reason.'

On-on to where the tea-ships ride!
And now their ranks are forming,—
A rush, and up the Dartmouth's side
The Mohawk band is swarming!
See the fierce natives! What a glimpse
Of paint and fur and feather,
As all at once the full-grown imps
Light on the deck together!
A scarf the pigtail's secret keeps,
A blanket hides the breeches,--
And out the cursed cargo leaps,
And overboard it pitches!

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The waves that wrought a century's wreck
Have rolled o'er Whig and Tory;
The Mohawks on the Dartmouth's deck
Still live in song and story;

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The waters in the rebel bay

Have kept the tea-leaf savour;

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Our old North-Enders in their spray
Still taste a Hyson flavour;

And Freedom's teacup still o'erflows
With ever fresh libations,

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To cheat of slumber all her foes

And cheer the wakening nations!

O. W. HOLMES.

45. rope walk. A long alley where rope yarn is made. 46. Tories. Here used for the Colonists who remained loyal to English rule.

49. King Hancock. John Hancock organized the party of Bostonians who, disguised as a tribe of Mohawk Indians, threw the tea overboard.

Adams. Samuel Adams, a great orator, and leader in the separation of the thirteen States from England.

55. the Dartmouth. One of the East India Company's ships, whose cargo was ruined.

66. Whig. Here applied to the Colonists who resisted the Home government. (See Bancroft's History of the United States, vol. III, ch. xxxiv.

72. Hyson. Green tea from China.

THE SHAN VAN VOCHT

(1798)

Since 1782 Ireland had possessed an independent Parliament, which, however, represented only the Protestant minority. In 1791 the discontent due chiefly to the repression of the Roman Catholics and the miserable poverty of the peasantry led to the formation of a society called the United Irishmen. Its proposed object was parliamentary reform and Catholic emancipation, but the influence of the French Revolution caused many of the members to aim at complete independence from England. The English government had no settled policy, and in 1798 civil war broke out. The miserably equipped army of the Irish was, however, easily defeated at Vinegar Hill, and the rising was soon suppressed.

The 'Shan Van Vocht' (The Poor Old Woman, i. e. Ireland) and the ballad that follows were popular street-songs at the time. OH! the French are on the sea,

Says the Shan Van Vocht;
The French are on the sea,

Says the Shan Van Vocht;

Oh! the French are in the Bay,
They'll be here without delay,
And the Orange will decay,

Says the Shan Van Vocht.
Oh! the French are in the Bay,
They'll be here by break of day,
And the Orange will decay,

Says the Shan Van Vocht.

And where will they have their camp?
Says the Shan Van Vocht;

Where will they have their camp?
Says the Shan Van Vocht;

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