 | The lay of the Scottish fiddle : a tale of Havre de Grace |  |
VIII.
What gallant chiefs well known to fame,To answer thus the signal came?
Sir Beresford, a sturdy limb,
This gallant chieftain was formerly we understand on a visit to the city of Gotham, where he partook of the hospitality for which that ancient city is so celebrated, particularly with reference to any of his Britannic Majesty's officers. He was at all the entertainments given by the rich merchants, and to use his own phrase, “punished” some of their claret pretty handsomely. In fact you could go no where without seeing him.
When he left that place he amused himself with cruising just without the harbour, bringing to every vessel going in or out, particularly if they happened to belong to the gentlemen whose claret he had “punished,” and practising all that train of petty tyrannical imposition, which America has been in the habit of receiving from the two “great Belligerents” for several years past.
Sir Beresford has lately distinguished himself by capturing the Wasp, an American “seventy-four in disguise,” for which we believe he received the honor of knighthood.
To drink or fight all one to him,
Though sooth to say, 'twas always thought,
In liquor he most bravely fought;
Nor ever so resistless felt
As when beneath his buck-skin belt,
He carried store of claret rare,
Sooth! then he'd fight, as well as swear.
'Mongst oyster boats and neutral fleets,
And never turn'd his back they say,
To any ship that ran away:
From “Emerald Isle,” he swaggering came
To fill his purse, I ween full fain.
| The lay of the Scottish fiddle : a tale of Havre de Grace | |