Legends and Memories of St John's Chapel -
Addressed to R. A. Riddick
by Major John W. Moore 

Part XXV  - published in the Windsor Ledger Jan.  11, 1900

 Yet the man  could not be found
Who more proudly would behold
What he called the rights of freeman
Yeomen that from times untold
Had swift broken the lines of battle
Winning days like Azincourt
Should be in immortal honor
Here and on the English shore
And be, Gods own anointed King
Would to them right and justice bring.

So he thought of all divines
Doctor Filmer ablest best
And in his every teaching
Full persuaded did he rest
Scorning every temptation
Whigs and the philosophers
Ventured in the vast upheaval
Of the fast forth coming years
When France got drunk to vomit Crime.
And never earth saw such a time.

Of books he had scant supply
Rarely reading ought beside
The Holy Scripture and Gazette
Or Vanbros, his greatest pride
Like Uncle Toby and his henchman
That incomparable Paine
He would fight his battles over
And with tears his eyes grow dim
As he recalled some comrade slain,
Whose like he ne'er should see again.

He loved the noble sacred past
Of the land that gave him birth
All the grandeur of its story
All the glory, wit and worth
Of its states men building slowly
Empire from the circling Seas
Heroes bearing forth her banners
Wherever blows the stormy breeze
And patriots giving life and blood
Libations to the public good.

No wonder such proud memories
Made the half pay Grenadier
Sorely chafe and sadly go
And there fell upon his ear,
Talk of many men around him
Touching hosts of troubles sore
When the King and ministers
With their measures harshly bore
Upon the freeborn colonists
These freemen of old English blood
Such measures they at once withstood.

But he had lived long enough
Midst his neighbors and good friends
For a host of kindly feelings
To create such potent bands
Of mutual love and confidence
Between men of kindred aims
Robert Sumner, Arthur Cotton
And staunchest whigs of other names
All loved him like a very brother
Though never found for weeks together.

He might have known these same men
Would ne'er sit below their peers
Having both the blood and spirit
Of the men of former years
Aye, of those heroic Barons
Who in hour of direst need
Made their land forever free
On the plains of Rumemede
And made old England from that day
A place where only freemen stay.

Ever since that holy day
Law had guarded life and right
He the lowest of the land
With his claim however slight
Safe from assessment, tax or fine
Save by verdict of his peers
Or by law of Parliament
Nothing could arouse his fears
For Judges had long ages said
Without consent no tax is laid.

But her many colonies
Had cost England sums untold
She had mighty forces sent
To secure her larger hold
Upon the pathless hills and plains
Of the great states manifold
To and past the Mississippi
Where its floods fast southward roll
A mighty debt was then incurred
Its payments all her statesmen stirred.

There were other troubles
Which our good old forebears had
Ever since the land was settled
He the king done as he said
When across the ocean wide
Puts utter wilderness
They had come to seek a home
He vouched should be free of stress
And blessings they had known at home
Would but the larger here become.

If in England they were free
Why not in America?
Had they lost in migrating
Any part of what they were?
So 'gainst Major Brown disputing
Of things of long ago
Would good whigs say to the Tories
And distressed the old man so
That he wished a thousand times
He ne'er had come unto such climes.

How could he an officer
Of the crown, upon half pay
Join in such disloyalty
And in silence fail to say
What he believed was but treason
And deep down within his soul
There was not a single doubt
But disaster soon would roll
On all who thus in treason stood
Gainst King and government so good.

He would surely have returned
Old and feeble as he was
To the land from which he came
But he had a boy and a lass
Who, now were all in all to him
Who had also hearts and wills
So they pleaded long and tearful
With reverence that love instills
That he would such intent forego
And think no more of doing so.

Dark eyed Sarah arch and free
As the jayest of her sex
Ne'er before in all her life
Did a thing his soul to vex
But she with all her guilty
Had a tender link that bound
Her, unto the land she loved so
And she was unwilling found
To seek in realms beyond the seas
Another home her sire to please.

She and young Godwin Cotton
Had been loving since the days
When in Pinafores together
They as children had their plays
These old fellows o'er and often
Fought their battles o'er again
Major Brown at dire Rommillers
Captain Cotton the Main
Seaman and soldier thus once more
Heard sabers clash and cannons roar.

Thus a strong and tender link
Bound the two in tender bonds
Ancient veterans of days
Of which both were still so fond
When Hawks on Biscay raging wild
Triumphant in the midnight storm
And Wolfe on plains of Abraham
Laid down his own heroic form
And every where from East to West
Lord Chathams fame was at the best.

These lovers had not disclosed
Unto others what they felt
Only in their mutual trusting
Hoping they could some way meet
The stubborn will of Major Brown
When he knew how long and well
They had loved each other so
They were sure he would tell
Them, that he blesses with all his heart
These two, that held so large a part.

But the courses of true love
Have ever seemed doomed to be
Subjects to perturbations
Like all things that are earthly
These two who had been so fondly
Counting on their future bliss
Were told to meet no more forever
And the way it came was this---
Major Brown and Captain Cotton
In a quarrel they had gotton.