| |
| AS 1 near Porto-Bello lying | |
| On the gently swelling flood, | |
| At midnight with streamers flying | |
| Our triumphant navy rode; | |
| There while Vernon sate all-glorious | 5 |
| From the Spaniards’ late defeat: | |
| And his crews, with shouts victorious, | |
| Drank success to England’s fleet. | |
| |
| On a sudden shrilly sounding, | |
| Hideous yells and shrieks were heard; | 10 |
| Then each heart with fear confounding, | |
| A sad troop of ghosts appear’d. | |
| All in dreary hammocks shrouded, | |
| Which for winding-sheets they wore, | |
| And with looks by sorrow clouded | 15 |
| Frowning on that hostile shore. | |
| |
| On them gleam’d the moon’s wan lustre, | |
| When the shade of Hosier brave | |
| His pale bands was seen to muster | |
| Rising from their watery grave. | 20 |
| O’er the glimmering wave he hied him, | |
| Where the Burford rear’d her sail, | |
| With three thousand ghosts beside him, | |
| And in groans did Vernon hail. | |
| |
| Heed, oh heed our fatal story, | 25 |
| I am Hosier’s injur’d ghost, | |
| You who now have purchas’d glory | |
| At this place where I was lost! | |
| Tho’ in Porto-Bello’s ruin | |
| You now triumph free from fears, | 30 |
| When you think on our undoing, | |
| You will mix your joy with tears. | |
| |
| See these mournful spectres sweeping | |
| Ghastly o’er this hated wave, | |
| Whose wan cheeks are stain’d with weeping; | 35 |
| These were English captains brave. | |
| Mark those numbers pale and horrid, | |
| Those were once my sailors bold: | |
| Lo, each hangs his drooping forehead, | |
| While his dismal tale is told. | 40 |
| |
| I, by twenty sail attended, | |
| Did this Spanish town affright: | |
| Nothing then its wealth defended | |
| But my orders not to fight. | |
| Oh! that in this rolling ocean | 45 |
| I had cast them with disdain, | |
| And obey’d my heart’s warm motion | |
| To have quell’d the pride of Spain! | |
| |
| For resistance I could fear none, | |
| But with twenty ships had done | 50 |
| What thou, brave and happy Vernon, | |
| Hast achiev’d with six alone. | |
| Then the bastimentos never | |
| Had our foul dishonour seen, | |
| Nor the sea the sad receiver | 55 |
| Of this gallant train had been. | |
| |
| Thus, like thee, proud Spain dismaying, | |
| And her galleons leading home, | |
| Though condemn’d for disobeying, | |
| I had met a traitor’s doom, | 60 |
| To have fallen, my country crying | |
| He has play’d an English part, | |
| Had been better far than dying | |
| Of a griev’d and broken heart. | |
| |
| Unrepining at thy glory, | 65 |
| Thy successful arms we hail; | |
| But remember our sad story, | |
| And let Hosier’s wrongs prevail. | |
| Sent in this foul clime to languish, | |
| Think what thousands fell in vain, | 70 |
| Wasted with disease and anguish, | |
| Not in glorious battle slain. | |
| |
| Hence with all my train attending | |
| From their oozy tombs below, | |
| Thro’ the hoary foam ascending, | 75 |
| Here I feed my constant woe: | |
| Here the bastimentos viewing, | |
| We recall our shameful doom, | |
| And our plaintive cries renewing, | |
| Wander thro’ the midnight gloom. | 80 |
| |
| O’er these waves for ever mourning | |
| Shall we roam depriv’d of rest, | |
| If to Britain’s shores returning | |
| You neglect my just request; | |
| After this proud foe subduing, | 85 |
| When your patriot friends you see, | |
| Think on vengeance for my ruin, | |
| And for England sham’d in me. | |
