About the author
Frank Moore was a journalist and Revolutionary historian. He published a number of books on the American Revolution during his career in the mid-19th century, including Songs and Ballads of the American Revolution, Diary of the American Revolution and The Patriot Preachers of the American Revolution.
The author of this ballad is unknown. It appeared originally if the “Poet’s Corner” of Dunlap’s Packet, as the “Pennsylvania March,” to the tune of the Scots’ song, “I winna marry ony lad, but Sandy o’er the lea.”
Pennsylvania Song
WE are the troop that ne’er will stoop
To wretched slavery,
Nor shall our seed, by our base deed
Despisèd vassals be;
Freedom we will bequeathe to them,
Or we will bravely die;
Our greatest foe, ere long shall know,
How much did Sandwich lie.
And all the world shall know,
Americans are free;
Nor slaves nor cowards we will prove,
Great Britain soon shall see.
We’ll not give up our birthright,
Our foes shall find us men;
As good as they, in any shape,
The British troops shall ken.
Huzza ! brave boys, we’ll beat them
On any hostile plain;
For freedom, wives, and children dear,
The battle we’ll maintain.
What ! can those British tyrants think,
Our fathers cross’d the main,
And savage foes, and dangers met,
To be enslav’d by them?
If so, they are mistaken,
For we will rather die;
And since they have become our foes,
Their forces we defy.
And all the world shall know,
Americans are free,
Nor slaves nor cowards we will prove,
Great Britain soon shall see.
