The Poems of John Byrom :: :: University of Virginia Library

What Monitor's here! What a British Freeholder!
Of judgment and death what a merciless moulder!
Whether Admiral Byng has been guilty or not,
Has deserv'd to be spar'd or deserv'd to be shot,
No British freeholder who holds himself free,
Is oblig'd to determine before he can see,
And pursue him with keen British foxhunter's hurry,
Who, when he gives law, is determin'd to worry.

II

To soften law's rigours by equity's plan
Humanity often admonishes man;
Too apt to forget his own shortness of breath,
And to hasten, for others, the sentence of death,—
Very seldom oppos'd, when the crime is so plain
That the known to be guilty deserve to be slain;
But when it is doubtful, all freedom and sense
Will, before execution, choose proper suspense.

III

If the name of a paper can make a man wiser,
Of “British Freeholder,” or “Night Advertiser,”

432

Byng must be dispatch'd; and it does mighty well,
For the mob to be pleas'd, and the paper to sell.
But, if justice, and wisdom, and value for laws
Whose sounds are so urg'd in so killing a cause,
Are to have their true meaning, the Monitor's haste
In the British freeholders will raise a distaste.

IV

What sense in his motto? Though, choosing of that,
To be sure Overshooter would seek the most pat.
“'Tis a sample of wisdom that guarded the King
And secur'd his good subjects”;—apply it to Byng!
“Our laws,” says the motto, “shall suffer no change.”
Now, if Byng must be shot, sure the logic is strange;
For nothing condemn'd him, his judges all saw,
But a change that had lately been made in the law.

V

Though oblig'd to interpret the article thus
By “Summum” (or “Summa injuria”) “jus,”

433

Their notion of justice (which ought to be, still,
The intent of the law, though its letter should kill)
Which conscience inspir'd in so hard an affair,
Occasion'd from them an unanimous pray'r,
That a mercy so just in his case might be shown,
And themselves be reliev'd by the voice of the Throne.

VI

Will the treating of conscience, and of the Court-martial,
In the Monitor's strain, as if all had been partial,
Forbid one to see, in this Admiral's case,
A reason sufficient for respiting grace?
How oft does an object, whom judges report
Who yet have condemn'd him, find mercy at court?
“A comméndable attribute this, to be sure!”—
Why, then, when a Court so desires, it abjure?

VII

If not to be shown to so strong a request,
When must it prevail in monarchical breast?
A King, it should seem, has express'd a desire,
On the fairest occasion, for time to enquire,—
And a Monitor comes, with his duty turn'd sour,
To talk to freeholders of absolute pow'r;
That mercy may yield to the voice of the crowd,
Not because it is right, but because it is loud.

VIII

And what proof has he brought for the merciless side?
“Why, the people condemn'd him, before he was tried!

434

Their resentment was just at the very first brunt;
But the Court, if it durst have acquitted, had done't,
For private acquaintance,” the Monitor knows,
“They proceeded to hazard the public repose,
And the union of King and of subjects so good”:
Whose cement, as it seems, was the Admiral's blood.—

IX

Now, had it been true that this laudable nation
Was never misled by misrépresentation,
It were something; or else, why should Admirals die
To secure the repose of a popular cry?
The one single fact for which mercy's denier
Can quote this harangue of a popular cryer,
Who measures the wisdom of nation and throne
By cruel conceits which he has of his own!

X

Whether sailors condemn'd an unfortunate brother,
Because, as he hints it, they durst do no other;
Whether urging of conscience was wrong, or was right,
Though, according to him, it had reason to smite;
Whether twenty surmises that readers may meet,
When a man must amuse them and fill up his sheet,
Have a ground or no ground whereupon to believe:
What chance for the knowing, without a reprieve?

XI

Should mercy rekindle so gentle a spark
Will the man run away, thinks he, from the Monarque?
Or will justice be hurt, if a proper delay
Should banish all doubt that he had not fair play?
“But a merciful turn will be thought somewhat worse
In the ages to come.”—What a notion to nurse!

435

Of human condemners all history's pages
Secure, to the slow, the applause of all ages.

XII

So much for the Monitor, sent yesterday,
And reflexions upon it that fell in one's way!
As a servant came for it this morning, perhaps,
It has pass'd through the hands of more politic chaps;
Who change not their laws, but will hear the man teach
How to snatch at a sentence—but just within reach;
Though the freehold belongs, of so legal a snatch,
No none but the race of—Johannes de Catch!