THE CREAM OF PUNCH. RULE BRITANNIA. ADMIRAL WILKES’S NEW EDITION FOR THE USE OF AMERICAN READERS. (To be sung with the accompaniment of a full brass band of native Americans from Ireland, Germany, France, and every other country of Europe, every man blowing his own trumpet.)
Submitted to Columbia’s chain.
This was the charter of the land,
Which I enforced upon the main,
Britons ever will be knaves!
All nations, but Ameriky,
Must in their turn to tyrants fall.
Whilst we shall flourish, great A.P.*
The dread and envy of them all!
Britons ever will be slaves!
More mighty shall Columbia rise,
The British Lion if she poke;
As for his roar that rends the skies,
There’s never fire where there is smoke.
Britons ever will be knaves!
The haughty tyrants we will tame,
To Stars and Stripes to knuckle down,
And if they dare to check our game,
‘Twill work their woe and our renown.
Britons ever will be knaves!
To us belongs the naval reign,
All ours shall be the subject main,
And every flag shall stoop to mine.
Britons ever will be slaves!
The Muses, still with Freedom found,
Shall to New England’s coast repair,
Leaving Old England’s rotten ground,
Britons ever will be slaves!
*“Airthly Paradise.”
Title:The Cream of Punch – 'Rule Britannia'
Author:unknown
Publication:Bury Guardian
Published in:Bury
Date:9/5/63
Keywords:nationalism, politics, war
Commentary
This poem published after the Trent Affair at a time of great tension between Britain and America satirises the relationship and balance of international power between the two nations. It ventriloquises the voice of America singing the famous patriotic British song, and its introduction slyly notes that the majority of American citizens (white ones, anyway) are recently of European origin. The comment that each blow a trumpet for themselves is an interesting early observation of perceived American individualism and exceptionalism. – SR