OR, CAUSTIC'S PETITION TO THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS.

I sooth, as humour prompts my idle vein,
With frolic verse.

Albion Press:

PRINTED BY J. CUNDEE, IVY LANE,

FOR T. HURST, PATERNOSTER ROW.

PREFACE.

THE author of the following pages hopes that they may be thought not unworthy the attention of the British Public. He builds this hope not on any extraordinary merit which he presumes that his poems will be thought to possess, but on their containing information relative to the manners, customs, and policy of a rising Empire, between whose interests, and those of Great Britain, there subsists a most intimate and reciprocal connection.

*

"For the information of those who may be induced to suppose that we pay too much attention to the affairs of "America, we will briefly state, that America imports "nearly more of the manufactures of Britain than all the "nations of Europe put together; and that Great Britain " and her Colonies consume nearly nine-tenths, we believe " of the whole exported produce of America. Add to this,

Although the war, which terminated in a separation of the two nations, inflicted wounds, which, it is to be feared, still rankle; yet the more considerate of both countries have long desired (if I may be allowed a Trans-Atlantic simile,) that the hatchet of animosity might be buried in the grave of oblivion.* This event is greatly to be wished at the present crisis. Great Britain now presents the most important, perhaps the only barrier against an inundation of modern Goths, which threatens destruction to all civilized society. America remains neuter in the tremendous contest; and, from her relative situation, possesses tenfold consequence in the scale of nations. He, therefore, who contributes his mite towards preserving harmony between the two countries, ought to be considered not only a well-wisher to Great Britain and America, but the friend of man. If the following pages should have

"with Britain her enemy, America could not send a single ship to Europe; while, with Britain her friend, she might "bid defiance to the enmity of the whole world!"

Anti-Jacobin Review.

* A hatchet is a weapon of war among the American Aborigines: on the death of a warrior it is their custom to bury his warlike implements with him.

a tendency to that purpose my highest ambition will be gratified.

I have, in various instances in this work, taken notice of characters in America, who stile themselves republicans, but who should be called demagogues: men who, like the French revolutionary leaders, obtained their political ascendency by a dereliction of every principle which ought to influence a gentleman and an honest man. *

I could have enlarged on the demerits of these political impostors. But I feared I might disgust the English reader, by such exhibitions of human depravity. I accordingly selected from my manuscript but a small part of what I had originally written for the purpose of displaying the real characters of those Pseudo-patriots.

* I would not, hereby, be understood to include all those who denominate themselves Republicans, and think themselves exclusively entitled to that appellation, in opposition to the supporters of Washington and Adams. Some of them I know to have been well meaning men, who have imbibed certain whimsical ideas relative to the perfectibility of man -that society may be supported by the social feelings, and a sense of moral rectitude, without coercion, or any trouble to secure Liberty by Law. Such men may be honest, but a mad-house is the place for them.