About the author
Frank Moore was a journalist and Revolutionary historian. He published a number of books on the American Revolution during his career in the mid-19th century, including Songs and Ballads of the American Revolution, Diary of the American Revolution and The Patriot Preachers of the American Revolution.
This song was written in England, and first published in the Middlesex Journal, over the signature of M. On a broadside, dated 1777, the author says: “My efforts were so well received last year, I have the temerity to republish, in a more portable form, and try the royal brutes again. Heaven help us, if they will not take good advice, or stop for reflection, for they are speedily leading us to the _____.”
To the Commons on Meeting After the Recess
WITH Christmas mirth, and Christmas cheer,
My friends pray look not glummer;
With turkey, chine, and beef and beer,
You’re surely in-good humor.
The folks on t’other side the wave,
Have beef as well as you, sirs;
Some chines, and turkeys too, they have,
And as they bake they brew, sirs.
What, tho’ your cannon raze their towns,
And tumble down their houses,
They’ll fight like devils 1 – blood and ‘oons,
For children and for spouses.
Another truth – nay, ’tis no boast,
Nor yet the lie o’ th’ day, sirs;
The saints on Massachusetts coast,
Gain if they run away, sirs.
For further than your bullets fly,
A common man may run, sirs,
And wheat will grow beneath the sky,
Where cannot reach a gun, sirs.
Then what are ships, and swords, and guns,
And men of bloody mind, sirs,
While, Parthian-like, who conquers runs,
Who loses, – stays behind, sirs.
Then rise my men, in merry mood,
Vote – nem-con-tra-di-cente,
That five and five for ten are good,
And ten and ten make twenty.
Recall your ships, your troops recall,
Let friends each other nourish,
So shall old England rule the ball,
And George and freedom flourish.
- They’ll fight like devils. I see that the conduct of the New England peasantry has softened the hearts of some of our wise nobs, and that they dare to allow them a degree of “wisdom, courage, and bravery,” although they have modified their praise slightly since the “dastard rebels” have gone to rhyming. Here’s a fine specimen of “cowardice,” by the last mail, from “loyal Virginia.””Let Britons, now sunk into tyrants and slaves !
Submit to be governed by fools and by knaves.
Not so will their kindred on this side the sea,
American Britons will ever be free.”– Note by author of the Song.
