The British sogers killed in our gret fight
  (Nigh fifty year they hedn’t stirred nor spoke)
  Made sech a coil you’d thought a dam hed broke: 
  Why, one he up an’ beat a revellee
  With his own crossbones on a holler tree,
  Till all the graveyards swarmed out like a hive
  With faces I hain’t seen sence Seventy-five. 
  Wut is the news?  ‘T ain’t good, or they’d be cheerin’. 
  Speak slow an’ clear, for I’m some hard o’ hearin’.

  THE MONIMENT.

  I don’t know hardly ef it’s good or bad,—­

  THE BRIDGE.

  At wust, it can’t be wus than wut we’ve had.

  THE MONIMENT.

  You know them envys thet the Rebbles sent,
  An’ Cap’n Wilkes he borried o’ the Trent?

  THE BRIDGE.

  Wut! hev they hanged ’em?  Then their wits is gone! 
  Thet’s a sure way to make a goose a swan!

  THE MONIMENT.

  No:  England she would hev ’em, Fee, Faw, Fum!
  (Ez though she hedn’t fools enough to home,)
  So they’ve returned ’em—­

  THE BRIDGE.

Hev they?  Wal, by heaven, Thet’s the wust news I’ve heerd sence Seventy-seven! By George, I meant to say, though I declare It’s ’most enough to make a deacon, swear.

THE MONIMENT.

Now don’t go off half-cock:  folks never gains
By usin’ pepper-sarse instid o’ brains. 
Come, neighbor, you don’t understand—­

THE BRIDGE.

                                  How?  Hey? 
  Not understand?  Why, wut’s to hender, pray? 
  Must I go huntin’ round to find a chap
  To tell me when my face hez hed a slap?

THE MONIMENT.

See here:  the British they found out a flaw
In Cap’n Wilkes’s readin’ o’ the law: 
(They make all laws, you know, an’ so, o’ course,
It’s nateral they should understand their force:)
He’d oughto took the vessel into port,
An’ hed her sot on by a reg’lar court;
She was a mail-ship, an’ a steamer, tu,
An’ thet, they say, hez changed the pint o’ view,
Coz the old practice, bein’ meant for sails,
Ef tried upon a steamer, kind o’ falls;
You may take out despatches, but you mus’n’t
Take nary man—­

THE BRIDGE.

                   You mean to say, you dus’n’t! 
  Changed pint o’ view!  No, no,—­it’s overboard
  With law an’ gospel, when their ox is gored! 
  I tell ye, England’s law, on sea an’ land,
  Hez ollers ben, “I’ve gut the heaviest hand.” 
  Take nary man?  Fine preachin’ from her lips! 
  Why, she hez taken hunderds from our ships,
  An’ would agin, an’ swear she hed a right to,
  Ef we warn’t strong enough to be perlite to. 
  Of all the sarse thet I can call to mind,
  England doos make the most onpleasant kind: 
  It’s you’re the sinner ollers,