As gallant ships as ever ocean stemm'd —
A thousand ships are captured, and condemn'd!
Ships from our shores, with native cargoes fraught,
And sailing to the very shores they ought:
And yet at peace!— the wrong is past all bearing;
The very comets are the war declaring:
Six thousand seamen groan beneath your power,
For years immured, and prisoners to this hour:
Then England come! a sense of wrong requires
To meet with thirteen stars your thousand fires;
On your own seas the conflict to sustain,
Or drown them, with your commerce in the main!
True do we speak, and who can well deny,
That England claims all water, land, and sky
Her power expands — extends through every zone,
Nor bears a rival — but must rule alone.
To enforce her claims, a thousand sails unfurl'd
Pronounce their home the cock-pit of the world;
The modern Tyre, whose fiends and lions prowl,
A tyrant navy, which in time must howl.
Heaven send the time — the world obeys her nod:
Her nods, we hope, the sleep of death forbode;
Some mighty change, when plunder'd thrones agree,
And plunder'd countries, to make commerce free.