Reader,
If thou be a Christian and a Freeman,
consider
By what unexampled causes
It has become necessary to construct
This Monument
of national degradation
and
Individual Injustice
which is erected
To the Memory of a Citizen of the United States
JONATHAN ROBBINS , Mariner;
A native of Danbury, in the pious and industrious state of
Connecticut:
who,
Under the Presidency of John Adams,
And by his advice ,
Timothy Pickering being Secretary of State,
Was delivered up to the British government,
By whom he was ignominiously put to death;
because,
Though an American Citizen,
He was barbarously forced into the service of his country's
worst enemy,
And compelled to fight
Against his conscience and his country's good,
On board the British frigate Hermione,
Commanded by a monster of the name of Pigot,
He
Bravely asserted his right to freedom as a man, and boldly
extricated himself from the bondage of his tyrannical
oppressors,
After devoting them to merited destruction.
If you are a Seaman,
Pause: —
Cast your eyes into your soul and ask,
If you had been as Robbins was
What would you have done?
What ought you not to do?
And look at Robbins
Hanging at a British yard-arm!
He was your comrade —
And as true a tar as ever strapped a block:
He was your fellow-citizen
And as brave a heart as bled at Lexington or Trenton.
Like you,
He was a member of a Republic
Proud of past glories,
and
Boastful of national honour, virtue, and independence.
Like him,
You may one day be trussed up, to satiate British vengeance;
Your heinous crime,
Daring to prefer danger or death
To a base bondage —
Alas poor Robbins!
Alas poor Liberty!
Alas my country!