No. 59 Marching to Quebec
This piece of doggerel may be of revolutionary origin, as it can be traced to near the beginning of the present century. It is unusual for political or military events to be alluded to in children’s games.
As we were marching to Quebec,
The drums were loudly beating;
The Americans have won the day,
The British are retreating.
March! march! march! march!
So the game was played in Philadelphia in the childhood of a lady born at the end of the last century. In Massachusetts and Maine it continued to be popular until within a few years, as follows:
We were marching to Quebec,
The drums were loudly beating;
America has gained the day,
The British are retreating.
The war is o’er, and they are turned back,
For evermore departed;
So open the ring, and take one in,
For they are broken-hearted.
Oh, you’re the one that I love best,
I praise you high and dearly;
My heart you’ll get, my hand I’ll give,
The kiss is most sincerely.
Worcester, Mass.
That the population of Dutch extraction in New York had no deep sympathy with the patriotic sentiments of revolutionary times seems to be indicated in a satirical stanza, which has come to us from an informant who learned it in youth of her aged grandmother, and which appears also to have been originally a dance-song. We hope that errors in spelling American Dutch may be forgiven:
Loope, Junger, de roier kome—
Spann de wagen voor de Paarde!
That is,
Run, lads, the king’s men are coming;
Harness the wagons before the horses!
in jesting allusion to the speed with which the patriots were supposed to make off. The refrain is in part unintelligible to us, but seems to belong to a dance.