an Company have
anxiously striven to oblige him.

If this Play is successful, it will be a proof that recent events may be
so managed in tragedy as to command popular attention; if it is
unsuccessful, the question must remain undetermined until some more
powerful writer shall again make the experiment. The Poem is now submitted
to the ordeal of closet examination, with the Author's respectful
assurance to every reader, that as it is not his interest, so it has not
been his intention, to offend any; but, on the contrary, to impress,
through the medium of a pleasing stage exhibition, the sublime lessons of
Truth and Justice upon the minds of his countrymen.

W. DUNLAP.

_New-York, April 4th, 1798._

PROLOGUE

SPOKEN BY MR. MARTIN.

A native Bard, a native scene displays,
And claims your candour for his daring lays:
Daring, so soon, in mimic scenes to shew,
What each remembers as a real woe.
Who has forgot when gallant ANDRE died?
A name by Fate to Sorrow's self allied.
Who has forgot, when o'er the untimely bier,
Contending armies paus'd, to drop a tear.

Our Poet builds upon a fact tonight;
Yet claims, in building, every Poet's right;
To choose, embellish, lop, or add, or blend,
Fiction with truth, as best may suit his end;
Which, he avows, is pleasure to impart,
And move the passions but to mend the heart.

Oh, may no party-spirit blast his views,
Or turn to ill the meanings of the Muse:
She sings of wrongs long past, Men as they were,
To instruct, without reproach, the Men that are;
Then judge the Story by the genius shewn,
And praise, or damn, it, for its worth alone.

CHARACTERS

GENERAL, _dress, American staff uniform, blue, faced with
buff, large gold epaulets, cocked hat, with the black and
white cockade, indicating the union with France, buff
waistcoat and breeches, boots,_ Mr. Hallam.

M'DONALD, _a man of forty years of age, uniform nearly the
same of the first,_ Mr. Tyler.

SEWARD, _a man of thirty years of age, staff uniform,_ Mr. Martin.

ANDRE, _a man of twenty-nine years of age, full British
uniform after the first scene,_ Mr. Hodgkinson.

BLAND, _a youthful but military figure, in the uniform of
a Captain of horse--dress, a short blue coat, faced with
red, and trimmed with gold lace