All hail, ye venerable Band,
Who nobly for your Country stand,
And from the yoke of tyranny
Set an indignant Nation free
From Ministers that serv’d for gain,
From Influence, and a Tory reign!
Your public spirit we confess,
Your patriotic labours praise,
Your indefatigable zeal
The breaches (which ye made) to heal
And by a Second Revolution
To mend our crazy Constitution,
Full well the Balance ye restore
Of Commons, Lords, and Kingly power,
Who neither King nor Nobles crown,
But seat the Rabble on the throne,
That ye may hold the leading-strings
Of men who make, and govern kings.
Our warmest thanks ye justly claim
That ye have left us still the name,
While ye the people’s Slave abase,
And make him know his proper place,
Reduce him to confess his need,
And sue to you for daily bread,
As a poor, tame, obedient thing,
An humble Doge, a wooden King.
But from his old oppressors freed
Ye stile him now a King indeed,
Whilom in other hands confin’d,
But neither captive now nor blind:
His spoils among yourselves ye part,
And praise the goodness of his heart;
(How coud they so much goodness wrong,
And keep him in the dark so long?)
But after all his sad disasters,
We fear, he has but chang’d his masters.
An happy change for him, I trow,
As his own gracious speeches show
His own (ye faithfully aver
Not copied by a minister)
Which fill your feeling hearts with joy,
And well deserve a Vive le Roy![1]
Proof of the blessed alteration
Wrought by the New Administration.
Wonders ye have already done,
And taught the Child to go alone,
His motion from himself proceeds,
Spontaneous all his words and deeds;
Without reluctance, or constraint
He grants whate’er ye wish, or want,
Gives himself up into your hands
With a chart blanche for your demands,
Or’epowers your sensibility
With favors so intirely free,
To servants he so well approves,
And with such tender fondness loves!

You look the nation in the face,
And say—It is the very case:
The nation says (not to provoke you)
A Lie, my friends, will never choak you.
Have you so suddenly forgot
(But we who love our King have not)
The slanders which your Party shed,
The curses, on his sacred head?
Did you not then the tyrant paint
Deaf to his people’s just complaint,
Deserter of his Father’s friends
To serve his own despotic ends,
Bent to inslave the colonies,
And then your liberties to seize?
Did ye not in your speeches rate him,
And stir the rabble up to bait him
To outrage, and insult their King
(For Treason—there is no such thing)
The tool of Bute, the son of Rome,
Ye threaten’d him with Charles’s doom,
(Blacken’d him with ten thousand lies
That all might hate him and despise)
With ills ye did yourselves occasion
And made the Scape-goat of the Nation;
Guilty of all that F[ox] has done
His crimes and yours he bore alone,
And justly too ye must confess,
For why?—Ye then were out of place.

But now the mist is clear’d away,
He sees your worth in open day,
Sees with a father’s tenderness,
And folds you in his fond embrace:
And you with warmest loyalty
Unbought, uninfluenc’d, and free
The greatest, best of Sovereigns own
And make his royal virtues known,
And promise him your grateful praises,
As long as ye retain your places.
But rais’d to rule us for an hour,
Howe’er ye use your ill-got power,
Unmov’d by all your promises,
The wise will wait, and hold their peace
Rejoice, if public good is done,
Nor wonder, if ye seek your own:
And here my final leave I take,
And spare you for your Office sake.

[1] Wesley added the footnote: “Exclamation of the D[uke] of G., in the house.”