ou not strike a breast that
ne'er will flinch from your pointed bayonet?

GEN. PRESCOT. Provoke me not--Remember you're my prisoners.

COL. ALLEN. Our souls are free!--Strike, cowards, strike!--I scorn to
beg my life.

GEN. PRESCOT. Guards! away with them--I'll reserve you for a more
ignominious death--your fate is fix'd--away with them.

COL. ALLEN. [_Going off._] Be glutted, ye thirsters after human
blood--Come, see me suffer--mark my eye, and scorn me, if my expiring
soul confesses fear--Come, see and be taught virtue, and to die as a
patriot for the wrongs of my country.

[_Exeunt PRISONERS and GUARDS._

SCENE II. _A Dungeon._

COL. ALLEN. What! ye infernal monsters! murder us in the dark?--What
place is this?--Who reigns king of these gloomy mansions?--You might
favour us at least with one spark of light--Ye cannot see to do your
business here.

OFFICER. 'Tis our orders.

COL. ALLEN. Ye dear, ye brave, wretched friends!--now would I die for ye
all--ye share a death I wou'd gladly excuse you from--'Tis not death I
fear--this is only bodily death--but to die noteless in the silent dark,
is to die scorn'd, and shame our suff'ring country--we fall undignify'd
by villains' hands--a sacrifice to Britain's outcast blood-hounds--This,
this shakes the soul!--Come then, ye murderers, since it must be so--do
your business speedily--Farewell, my friends! to die with you is now my
noblest claim since to die for you was a choice deny'd--What are ye
about?--Stand off, ye wretches!

OFFICER. I am order'd to lay you in irons. [_They seize him._] You must
submit.

COL. ALLEN. What, do you mean to torture us to death with chains, racks
and gibbets? rather despatch us immediately--Ye executioners, ye
inquisitors, does this cruelty proceed from the lenity I shewed to the
prisoners I took?--Did it offend you that I treated them with
friendship, generosity, honour and humanity?--If it did, our suff'rings
will redound more to our honour, and our fall be the more glorious--But
remember, this fall will prove your own one day--Wretches! I fear you
not, do your worst; and while I here lay suff'ring and chain'd on my
back to the damp floor, I'll yet pray for your conversion.

OFFICER. Excuse us, we have only obey'd our order.

COL. ALLEN. Then I forgive you; but pray execute them.

_Oh! my lost friends! 'tis liberty, not breath,
Gives the brave life. Shun slav'ry more than deat