The Poems of Philip Freneau, Poet of the American Revolution. Volume 1 (of 3)

III

In the early summer of 1775, Freneau suddenly appeared in New York as a publicist of remarkable fluency. Before November he had issued no less than eight long poems as separate publications, nearly all of them called forth by the new crisis in American affairs. Beginning with "American Liberty," issued by Anderson, the editor of the new patriotic weekly, The Constitutional Gazette, he published pamphlet after pamphlet in rapid succession, all of them throwing upon Gage and the British cause in Boston all the satire and invective which he had used so mercilessly in the old society war at Princeton. Two of these were published by Hugh Gaine, and another, "The Voyage to Boston," first issued by Anderson, was reprinted at once in Philadelphia. All of them have fared hardly during the years. Several, like "General Gage's Soliloquy," and "Timothy Taurus," which recounts the story of a journey made by Freneau to Passaic Falls, near Paterson, New Jersey, in August, have disappeared entirely, one of them, the "General Gage's Confession," has never been republished in any form, and all the others were cut down and altered by the author for later editions until they were almost in every respect entirely new poems.

That these voluminous and vigorous tirades, which their author evidently poured forth with perfect ease, were criticised and condemned by the fastidious we have no evidence. Certain it is that judging by the contemporary newspaper press they were exceedingly popular. Yet, in November we find Freneau in a sad state of discouragement, ready to give up forever all association with the muses. Some one, envious of his rising fame, has criticised him unmercifully. He seeks out the old Clio-Whig satires and after adapting and reshaping them he hurls them at the head of his enemy whom he designates as McSwiggen.

 
Great Jove in wrath a spark of genius gave
And bade me drink the mad Pierian wave,
Hence came those rhymes with truth ascribed to me,
That urge your little soul to jealousy.
 

* * * * *

 
Devoted mad man what inspired your rage,
Who bade your foolish muse with us engage?
Against a windmill would you try your might,
Against a castle would a pigmy fight?
 

The young poet had begun to realize how barren was the new world in poetic appreciation; how impossible it was for even a true poet to practice his art where few could appreciate, and none really cared:

 
Alone I stand to meet the foul-mouthed train
Assisted by no poets of the plain.
 

He looked longingly across the water where poets were appreciated:

 
Long have I sat on this disastrous shore,
And sighing sought to gain a passage o'er
To Europe's towns, where as our travellers say
Poets may flourish, or perhaps they may.
 

The poem was a valedictory.

 
I to the sea with weary steps descend,
Quit the mean conquest, that such swine must yield
And leave McSwiggen to enjoy the field.
In distant isles some happier scene I'll choose
And court in softer shades the unwilling muse.
 

Freneau had determined to spend the winter in the West Indies. He had become acquainted during the autumn with a West Indian gentleman by the name of Hanson, who owned large estates in the islands, and who sailed master of his own vessel. Upon his invitation Freneau became a passenger late in November for the Island of Santa Cruz. Early in the voyage the mate died, and the young poet, his education outweighing his inexperience in nautical matters, was chosen to fill his place. The study of navigation, made necessary by this step, doubtless turned the direction of his whole life.

For the next two years Freneau made his home on Captain Hanson's estate on the Island of Santa Cruz. A selection from one of his letters charmingly describes the spot.

"The town at the west end is but mean and ordinary, consisting of a fort and perhaps 80 or 90 wooden houses. The harbor is nothing but an open road, where, however, ships lie in the utmost security at their moorings, the bottom being good for anchorage and the wind always off shore. About two miles to the eastward of this town, along the seashore, is the estate of Capt. Hanson, into which the sea has formed a beautiful little bay, called Buttler's Bay, about 100 yards across; it has a sandy shore and an excellent landing, though all the rest of the shore is sharp craggy rocks. My agreeable residence at this place for above two years, off and on during the wars in America, renders the idea of it all too pleasing, and makes me feel much the same anxiety at a distance from it as Adam did after he was banished from the bowers of Eden."⁵

He seems to have been employed at intervals by Captain Hanson in voyages about the islands. Thus he records of the Island of St. James, that "I went over July 13, 1777, and remained there eight days. We loaded our vessel with coral rock, which is used in these islands for burning lime of a very excellent quality."

It was while at the ideal retreat at Butler's Bay that Freneau wrote three of his most significant poems, "Santa Cruz," "The House of Night," and "The Jamaica Funeral," the first two of which were contributed to the United States Magazine in 1779. Of these the "House of Night" is the most significant, containing as it does evidence of a high creative power and a romantic imagination, rare indeed in English poetry in 1776. There are evidences that Freneau composed the first draught of the poem before leaving for the West Indies, but the point is not an important one. For the edition of 1786 he nearly doubled the original version, but in 1795 he cut it down to a few stanzas, taking from it nearly everything which had made it a notable creation.

On April 1, 1778, Freneau sailed from Santa Cruz for the Bermuda Islands, where for a time he was the guest of the English Governor. In an elaborate letter to Brackenridge, dated Bermuda, May 10, afterward published in the United States Magazine, he describes at length the islands. "These," he says in conclusion, "are a few particulars concerning this little country where I resided upwards of five weeks, and if this slight description gives you any satisfaction, it will amply repay me for the fatigues I underwent in sailing thither."

On June 6th he was again in Santa Cruz; on the 15th he set out on his homeward voyage, after an absence of nearly three years. The run home was destined to be eventful. Off the Delaware capes the vessel was taken by the British, but Freneau, being a passenger, was landed on July 9th and allowed to go his way.

The young poet now retired to Mount Pleasant, where doubtless he quietly remained until the autumn of the following year. In August, 1778, he published with Bell in Philadelphia the pamphlet poem "America Independent." On January 1, 1779, Brackenridge issued in Philadelphia the first number of the United States Magazine,⁶ and Freneau at once became an important contributor. His work in prose and verse may be found in nearly every number. There are prose papers on the West Indies, purporting to be extracts from the letters of "a young philosopher and bel esprit just returned from several small voyages amongst these islands." There are several early poems for the first time put into print, like "Columbus to Ferdinand" and "The Dying Elm," and there are several notable long poems, like "Santa Cruz" and "The House of Night." At least three of the poetical contributions were written expressly for the magazine: "George the Third's Soliloquy," "Psalm cxxxvii Imitated," – signed "Monmouth, Sept. 10," – and the "Dialogue between George and Fox." It is evident, however, that Freneau, though his work very greatly strengthened the periodical, was only a "valued contributor." The psalm in the September issue, the first of the poems to bear his name, had a foot-note explaining that the author was "a young gentleman to whom in the course of this work we are greatly indebted."

The United States Magazine is a notable landmark in American literary history. Its methods, as we view them to-day, seem singularly modern, and its materials and arrangement are indeed remarkable when we view them against the background of their times. It was a spirited, intensely patriotic, and highly literary periodical; the single fact that "The House of Night" first appeared in its columns is enough to stamp it as no ordinary work. It died with its twelfth issue, owing to the troubled state of the country and the unsettled nature of the currency. Then, too, the audience to which it appealed was found to be a small one. In his valedictory the editor complains bitterly of the unliterary atmosphere in America. A large class, he declares, "inhabit the region of stupidity, and cannot bear to have the tranquility of their repose disturbed by the villanous shock of a book. Reading is to them the worst of all torments, and I remember very well that at the commencement of the work it was their language, 'Art thou come to torment us before the time?' We will now say to them, 'Sleep on and take your rest.'"

Late in September, 1779, Freneau shipped as super-cargo on the brig Rebecca, Captain Chatham, bound for the Azores. After an exciting voyage, during which they were several times chased by British ships, they arrived at Santa Cruz, in the island of Teneriffe, where they remained two months. A part of Freneau's notebook during this voyage has been preserved. It shows him to have been a careful and conscientious student of navigation, making each day an observation of his own and minutely tabulating his results. His cash account with the crew during the stay in the islands is interesting and suggestive.

The early spring of 1780 was spent by the poet at the old home, but his mind was evidently tossing upon the ocean. He longed to visit again his beloved West Indies, and accordingly on the 25th of May he took passage at Philadelphia, in the ship Aurora, for St. Eustatia. Freneau's account of this voyage and its after results is still extant.⁷ A few quotations will tell the story.

"On the 25th of May, in beating down the Delaware Bay, we unfortunately retook a small sloop from the refugees loaded with corn, which hindered us from standing out to sea that night, whereby in all probability we should have avoided the enemy which afterwards captured us.

"Friday morning, May 26. The air very smoky and the wind somewhat faintish, though it afterward freshened up. The wind was so that we stood off E.S.E., after putting the pilot on board the small sloop, handcuffing the prisoners, and sending the prize to Cape May. About three o'clock in the afternoon we discovered three sail bearing from us about E.N.E.; they were not more than five leagues from us when we discovered them from the foretop; at the same time we could see them from the quarter-deck. One appeared to be a pretty large ship, the other two brigs. We soon found they were in chase of us; we therefore tacked immediately, set all sail we could crowd, and stood back from the bay. My advice to the officers was to stand for Egg Harbor or any part of the Jersey shore, and run the ship on the flats, rather than be taken; but this was disregarded. We continued to stand in till we saw Cape Henlopen; the frigate, in the meantime, gaining on us apace; sun about half an hour high. We were abreast of the Cape, close in, when the wind took us aback, and immediately after we were becalmed; the ebb of the tide at the same time setting very strong out of the bay, so that we rather drifted out. Our design was, if possible, to get within the road around the point, and then run the ship on shore; but want of wind and the tide being against us, hindered from putting this into execution. We were now within three hundred yards of the shore. The frigate in the meantime ran in the bay to leeward of us about one-quarter of a mile (her distance from the Cape hindering it from becalming her as it did us) and began to bring her cannon to bear on us. Her two prizes hove to; one we knew to be the brig Active, Captain Mesnard; the other, as we afterward learned, was a Salem brig from the West Indies. The frigate was the Iris, returning from Charleston to New York, with the express of the former's being taken. We now began to fire upon each other at the distance of about three hundred yards. The frigate hulled us several times. One shot went betwixt wind and water, which made the ship leak amazingly, making twenty-four inches in thirty minutes. We found our four-pounders were but trifles against the frigate, so we got our nine-pounder, the only one we had, pointed from the cabin windows, with which we played upon the frigate for about half an hour. At last a twelve-pound shot came from the frigate, and, striking a parcel of oars lashed upon the starboard quarter, broke them all in two, and continuing its destructive course, struck Captain Laboyteaut in the right thigh, which it smashed to atoms, tearing part of his belly open at the same time with the splinters from the oars; he fell from the quarter-deck close by me, and for some time seemed very busily engaged in setting his legs to rights. He died about eleven the same night, and next day was sewed up in his hammock and sunk. Every shot seemed now to bring ruin with it. A lad named Steel had his arm broken and some others complained of slight wounds; whereupon, finding the frigate ready and in a position to give us a broadside, we struck, after having held a very unequal contest with her for about an hour… As soon as we struck, one Squires with some midshipmen came on board and took possession of the vessel."

Freneau at first supposed that, being a passenger, he would be taken with the prize to New York and there released; but despite his protests, he was driven into the barge with the other prisoners and taken to the Iris. All his baggage was left behind, and he was destined never to see it again. Arriving on board, the prisoners were driven between decks, where the air was hot and stifling.

"There were about one hundred prisoners forward, the stench of whom was almost intolerable. So many melancholy sights and dismal countenances made it a pretty just representation of the infernal region. I marched through a torrent of cursing and blasphemy to my station, viz., at the blacksmith's vice, where the miserable prisoners were handcuffed two and two. At last it came my turn. 'Pray,' said I, 'is it your custom to handcuff passengers? The Americans, I am confident, never used the English so.'

"'Are you a passenger?' said the blacksmith. At the same time happening to look up, I saw Hugh Ray looking steadily at me, who immediately seized my hand, and asked me how I did. 'Do you know him?' said Holmes, the master-at-arms. 'Then you are free from irons; come over among the gentlemen.'

"This was an unexpected deliverance from a cursed disgrace which I hardly knew how I should get clear of. After this I was used well by everybody."

On the 29th the Iris reached New York and the common prisoners were sent to the prison ships in the harbor. Freneau, however, was retained with the officers. He had been promised his liberty at the first possible moment, but on Thursday, June 1st, at the Commissioner's office, the charge was brought by the second mate that Freneau had been among those stationed at the guns during the fight. He was refused parole, though he promised security in any amount up to ten thousand pounds, and the same day was placed on board the Scorpion prison ship, "lying off the college in the North River."

Freneau's experiences during his stay upon the Scorpion have been described by him in graphic style in his poem, "The Prison Ship."

"On the night of June 4th, thirty-five of the prisoners formed a design of making their escape, in which they were favored by a large schooner accidentally alongside of us. She was one that was destined for the expedition to Elizabeth Town, and anchored just astern of us. We were then suffered to continue upon deck, if we chose, till nine o'clock. We were all below at that time except the insurgents, who rushed upon the sentries and disarmed them in a moment; one they tied by his neck-stock to the quarter rails, and carried off his musquet with them (they were all Hessians); the rest they drove down with their arms into the cabin and rammed the sentry box down the companion in such a manner that no one could get it up or down. One, Murphy, possessed himself of Gauzoo's silver-hilted sword, and carried it off with him. When the sentries were all silent, they manned the ship's boat and boarded the schooner, though the people on board attempted to keep them off with handspikes. The wind blowing fresh at south and the flood of tide being made, they hoisted sail and were out of sight in a few minutes. Those particulars we learned from some who were on duty, but were unsuccessful in getting into the boat. As soon as the sentries got possession of the vessel again, which they had no difficulty in doing, as there was no resistance made, they posted themselves at each hatchway and most basely and cowardly fired fore and aft among us, pistols and musquets, for a full quarter of an hour without intermission. By the mercy of God they touched but four, one mortally… After this no usage seemed severe enough for us."

On June 22d, Freneau, who was weak with fever, was taken to the Hunter hospital ship, lying in the East River. Here he languished with an intermittent fever, that threatened constantly to become "putrid" and fatal, until July 12th, when:

"The flag came alongside and cleared the hospital ship. But the miseries we endured in getting to Elizabeth Town were many. Those that were very bad, of which the proportion was great, naturally took possession of the hold. No prisoner was allowed to go to the cabin, so that I, with twenty or thirty others, were obliged to sleep out all night, which was uncommonly cold for the season. About ten next morning we arrived at Elizabeth Town Point, where we were kept in the burning sun several hours, till the Commissary came to discharge us.

"I was afflicted with such pains in my joints, I could scarcely walk, and besides was weakened with a raging fever; nevertheless I walked two miles to Elizabeth Town; here I got a passage in a wagon to within a mile of Crow's Ferry, which I walked; got a passage over the ferry and walked on as far as Molly Budleigh's, where I stayed all night. Next morning, having breakfasted on some bread and milk, I set homeward; when I came to Obadiah Budleigh's corner I turned to the right and came home round about through the woods, for fear of terrifying the neighbors with my ghastly looks had I gone through Mount Pleasant."

Some days later he despatched the following note to his friend at Santa Cruz:

"Sir: – I take this opportunity to inform you that instead of arriving, as I fondly promised myself, at the fragrant groves and delectable plains of Santa Cruz, to enjoy the fruits and flowers of that happy clime, I was unfortunately taken and confined on board a prison ship at New York, and afterwards in a Hospital Ship, where the damnable draughts of a German doctor afforded far different feelings to my stomach than the juice of the orange or more nourishing milk of the cocoa."

IV

On April 25, 1781, there was established in Philadelphia a new weekly newspaper, the Freeman's Journal or North American Intelligencer, which was to be "open to all parties but influenced by none," and which had for its object "To encourage genius, to deter vice, and disrobe tyranny and misrule of every plumage." The proprietor and printer of this paper was Mr. Francis Bailey, who not long before had removed his office from Lancaster, Pa. The editor and ruling spirit, although his name during three years did not once appear in its columns, was Philip Freneau. The mark of the young poet is upon every page. Its opening editorial, which was from his pen, sounded a note that was not once lowered or weakened while he was in control.

"At no period of time, in no era of important events from the first establishment of social government, have the liberties of man, have the rights even of human nature, been more deeply interested than at the time in which we presume to address you. While Liberty, the noblest ornament of society, and without which no community can be well organized, seemed to pine and sicken under the trammels of despotic restraint in every one of the ancient nations of the earth, it fairly promises to resume its pristine majesty here, and the new world begins to emerge from the fangs and tyranny of the old… One of the first sources of her decline in those countries where she last resided spring from the wanton and unhallowed restraints which the jealous arm of despotism hath imposed on the freedom of the press…

"That freemen may be made acquainted with the real state of their affairs, and that the characters of their public servants, both individually and collectively, be made manifest, is our object. With this patriotic view, and under the tutelage of law and the constitution, has the subscriber opened a Free Press, universally free to every citizen indiscriminately, whose principles coincide with those of the Revolution, and whose object is confessedly known to point at public or private good."

 

From this time until June, 1784, Freneau resided principally in Philadelphia, and edited the journal. During all of this time his muse was exceedingly active. He followed carefully the last years of the war, and put into satiric verse every movement of the "insolent foe." He sang the victory of Jones, and mourned in plaintive numbers the dead at Eutaw Springs. He voiced his indignation over the destructive career of Cornwallis, and burst into a Laus Deo at his fall. The ludicrous plight of Rivington and Gaine, the distress of the Tories, and the final departure of the British filled him with glee, which he poured out in song after song. It was his most prolific and spontaneous period.

He wrote, too, an abundance of prose. The series of graceful papers entitled "The Pilgrim" is from his pen, besides many a political study and literary sketch signed with a sounding name. Everywhere are manifest his love of true literature and his desire to lead a merely literary life, but here and there are notes of discouragement. "Barbers cannot possibly exist as such," he writes, "among a people who have neither hair nor beards. How, then, can a poet hope for success in a city where there are not three persons possessed of elegant ideas?"

During the year 1783 Freneau's pen was very busy in various lines of work. It is probable that he assisted Bailey in many ways, – writing introductions to publications issued by the office and performing the various other duties incumbent upon the literary editor of a publishing house. During this year he translated the "New Travels through North America," which had just been issued by the Abbé Robin, one of the chaplains of the French Army in America, and the translation was issued first by Bailey and later by Powers and Willis of Boston. Freneau's introduction is characteristic:

"Most of those accounts of North America, given to the public by British explorators and others, previous to the Revolution, are generally taken up, with the recitals of wonderful adventures, in the woods beyond the Lakes, or with the Histories and records of the wild Indian nations, so that by the time the reader gets through one of those performances, he never fails to be better acquainted with the Ottagnies, Chereokees, Miamees, Nadouwessians, and a hundred others, with their various customs of paw-wawing, or methods of making wampum, than with the most interesting particulars relative to the inhabitants of the then colonies these were but rarely thought worthy mentioning by those gentlemen, and when they are, it is mortifying enough to see them constantly considered as mere beasts of burden, calculated solely for the support of the grandeur, wealth and omnipotence of Great-Britain, than as men and Free-Men.

"Our French Author is more liberal – two years before the present peace he considered the United States as a great independent nation, advancing with hasty strides to the summit of power and sovereignty."

It was during this year that the poet, for the first time, met with positive opposition and abuse. Oswald, the editor of the newly established Gazette, quarrelled with Bailey, and a poetical battle was one phase of the contest. The details of this affair will be found in the proper place, and I need not recount them here, but suffice it to say that Freneau soon found his muse assailed by the meanest of all critics. His extremely sensitive nature could brook no criticism. His Celtic temperament could fight fiercely in the presence of an open foe, but it was easily depressed and discouraged by criticism and covert attack. He lost heart in his work, and at the end of the third volume he quietly withdrew from his editorship.

The three volumes of the Journal which bear his impress are notable for their vigor of policy, their high ideals, their unswerving patriotism, and their real literary merit. It is to be hoped that a selection from Freneau's prose writings during this critical era in our history may sometime be made. Nowhere else can we gain so distinct a picture of the man, with his sanguine, impetuous temperament, his proud spirit, and his intense hatred of every form of tyranny. He wrote vigorously not only on British oppression, but on such topics as the wrongs of negro slavery, cruelty to animals, the wanton destruction of trees, the evils of intemperance, and the rights of woman.

The "Epistle to Sylvius" was his valedictory. In it he deplores the lack of literary taste in America, and the sad fate which has befallen his youthful poetic dreams. The age is grown mercantile, and Sejanus the mighty tradesman, —

 
"Sejanus has in house declared
'These States, as yet, can boast no bard,
And all the sing-song of our clime
Is merely nonsense fringed with rhyme.'"
 

A bard with more Teutonic blood, if he knew within himself that he was indeed a poet, and the only real poet of his time, would have staid at his post and made himself heard, despite narrow criticism and mean abuse, but Freneau was too proud to fight for recognition. The people had crowned him, to be sure, but if the critics, those who should be the real judges, rejected him, he would strive no longer. He would leave the field.

 
"Then, Sylvius, come – let you and I
On Neptune's aid, once more rely:
Perhaps the muse may still impart
The balm to ease the aching heart.
Though cold might chill and storms dismay,
Yet Zoilus will be far away."
 

On June 24, 1784, Freneau sailed from Middletown Point as master of the brig Dromilly, bound for Jamaica. The voyage was indeed a memorable one. On the night of July 30, while off the end of the island, the ship encountered a violent hurricane. According to contemporary accounts, "No more than eight out of one hundred and fifty sail of vessels in the ports of Kingston and Port Royal were saved." The Dromilly survived the storm, but it was a mere wreck when the next morning it crept into Kingston Harbor.

Freneau remained in Jamaica until September 24, when he left for Philadelphia in the brig Mars, arriving November 4. His experiences in trying to fit out the wrecked Dromilly are not recorded, but the one incident of his poetic reply to the keeper of the King's water works, who had refused him a puncheon of water, is characteristic.

From this time until 1790, Freneau's life is redolent of the ocean. A complete itinerary of this wandering era may be compiled from the shipping news of the various seaport newspapers, but it is useless to go into details. He was master for a time of the sloop Monmouth, plying for freight between Charleston, S. C., New York, and Savannah. His brother Peter, in Charleston, had become a man not only of influence, but of means, and together they owned the vessel and shared its profits. For several years advertisements like this appeared in the Charleston papers:

"For freight to any part of this State or Georgia; for charter in any free port in the West Indies, the sloop Monmouth, Philip Freneau, Master, burden about 40 tons. She is new, stanch, well-formed and draws six feet when loaded. Will carry about one hundred barrels of rice. For further particulars inquire of said master on board at Mrs. Motte's wharf or Peter Freneau."

On the 1st of June, 1786, there was issued from Bailey's press the first collected edition of Freneau's poetry. During the entire year its author was at sea almost continuously. It is evident that he had little to do with the edition. The copy furnished to Bailey consisted of the manuscript of a few early poems, revised copies of the 1775 pamphlets, and corrected and enlarged versions of his contributions to the United States Magazine. The bulk of the book is made up of Freneau's contributions to the Freeman's Journal, printed seriatim and without change. The poem "Rivington's Confessions" is even divided into two parts, with another poem between, as it first appeared in the paper. An index of the poetry in the first four volumes of the Journal is a nearly perfect index of the 1786 edition, after the poem "The Prison Ship."

Bailey wrote for the edition the following introduction:

"The pieces now collected and printed in the following sheets, were left in my hands, by the author, above a year ago, with permission to publish them whenever I thought proper. A considerable number of the performances contained in this volume, as many will recollect, have appeared at different times in Newspapers (particularly the Freeman's Journal) and other periodical publications in the different States of America, during the late war, and since; and from the avidity and pleasure with which they generally appear to have been read by persons of the best taste, the Printer now the more readily gives them to the world in their present form, (without troubling the reader with any affected apologies for their supposed or real imperfections) in hopes they will afford a high degree of satisfaction to the lovers of poetical wit, and elegance of expression."

This edition is the most spontaneous and poetic of the poet's works. In it we see Freneau before he has lost his early poetic dream, before he has become hardened by close contact with the world of affairs and the cold, practical round of political life. This and the 1788 edition contain by far the most valuable part of his poetic work.