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INTRODUCTION |
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Others relate to the fortunes of American privateers. On the American side the laureate of the war was Philip Freneau, whose poems appeared for the most part in newspapers published in America during the war. They were collected and published at Philadelphia in 1786, and republished in England in 1861 by Russell Smith. Many refer to incidents in the naval war. One is Captain Jones's Invitation to American Backwoodsmen to become Sailors; another, On the Memorable Victory gained by the gallant Captain Paul Jones, narrates his capture of the Serapis. There are Stanzas on the new American frigate Alliance ; On the Death of Captain Nicholas Biddle, commander of the Randolph, a 32-gun frigate, blown up in action with the British 64-gun ship Yarmouth on March 7, 1778. A third poem, The British Prison Ship, tells of the capture of the American privateer Aurora by the Iris (once the American frigate Hancock) and the sufferings of the prisoners on board the hulks Scorpion and Hunter. The Sailor's Invitation is an encouragement to ship under Captain Barney on board the Hyder Ally privateer; another ballad, describes the capture of the sloop General Monk by the Hyder Ally on April 8, 1782. (Freneau's Poems, pp. 144, 146, 164, 183, 235, 239, 241.) Another collection, Songs and Ballads of the American Revolution, edited by Frank Moore, 1856, contains a satirical letter in verse describing the capture of the South Carolina, a 40-gun frigate, by the British ships Diomede and Quebec on December 20, 1782 (Clowes, iv. 91).
The major operations of the war of the French Revolution and the general engagements are illustrated by numerous ballads, though for the most part of very inferior quality. |
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