“Are you mad, you Malouins? Are you cowards, fools, or rogues?

Talk to me of rocks and shoals, me who took the soundings, tell

On my fingers every bank, every shallow, every swell

’Twixt the offing here and Greve, where the river disembogues?

Are you bought by English gold? Is it love the lying’s for?

Morn and eve, night and day,

Have I piloted your bay,

Entered free and anchored fast at the foot of Solidor.

Burn the fleet, and ruin France? That were worse than

fifty Hogues!

Sirs, they know I speak the truth! Sirs, believe me, there’s a way!

Only let me lead the line,

Have the biggest ship to steer,

Get this Formidable clear,

Make the others follow mine,

And I lead them most and least by a passage I know well,

Right to Solidor, past Greve,

And there lay them safe and sound;

And if one ship misbehave,

Keel so much as grate the ground,—

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