MES'S.

THE PRINCIPAL PLACE OF ACTION IN AMERICA.

PUBLISH'D. ACCORDING TO ACT OF PARLIAMENT.

Quis furor o cives! quae tanta licentia ferri?

LUCAN. lib. 1. ver. 8.

_What blind, detested madness could afford
Such horrid license to the murd'ring sword?_

ROWE.

_PHILADELPHIA:_

PRINTED BY STYNER AND CIST, IN SECOND-STREET, NEAR ARCH-STREET. M DCC
LXXVI.

FAC-SIMILE TITLE-PAGE OF THE FIRST EDITION]

_THE DEDICATION_

To Lord Boston, Lord Kidnapper, and the innumerable and never-ending
Clan of Macs and Donalds upon Donalds, and the Remnant of the
Gentlemen Officers, Actors, Merry Andrews, strolling Players,
Pirates, and Buccaneers in America.

My Lords and Gentlemen:

_Understanding you are vastly fond of plays and farces, and frequently
exhibit them for your own amusement, and the laudable purpose of
ridiculing your masters (the YANKEES, as you call 'em), it was expected
you would have been polite enough to have favoured the world, or America
at least (at whose expense you act them), with some of your play-bills,
or with a sample of your composition._

_I shall, however, not copy your churlishness, but dedicate the
following Tragi-Comedy to your patronage, and for your future
entertainment; and as the most of you have already acted your particular
parts of it, both comic and tragic, in reality at Lexington,
Bunker's-Hill, the Great-Bridge, &c., &c., &c., to the very great
applause of yourselves, tho' not of the whole house, no doubt you will
preserve the marks, or memory of it, as long as you live, as it is wrote
in capital American characters and letters of blood on your posteriors:
And however some Whigs may censure you for your affected mirth (as they
term it, in the deplorable situation you are now in, like hogs in a pen,
and in want of elbow room), yet I can by no means agree with them, but
think it a proof of true heroism and philosophy, to endeavour to make
the best of a bad bargain, and laugh at yourselves, to prevent others
from laughing at you; and tho' you are deprived of the use of your
teeth, it is no reason you should be bereaved of the use of your
tongues, your eyes, your ears, and your risible faculties and powers.
That would be cruel indeed! after the glorious and fatiguing campaign
you have made, and the many signal victories obtained over whole herds
of cattle and swine, routing flocks of sheep, lambs and geese, storming
hen-roosts, and taking them pri