ABSTRACT
Thomas Warwick was a Cornish-born student poet at University College, Oxford, when he penned The Rights of Sovereignty Asserted, his patriotic ode. He dedicated the poem to Hugh Percy, Duke of Northumberland, who, originally named Smithson, took his wife’s family name. Percy was a vice-president of the Society for the Encouragement of Learning and a Privy Councillor from 1762. Warwick’s sympathies are easy enough to discern, opening with a characterization of America as a ‘MONSTER!’ with an ‘unfilial hand’, a ‘rebel-blade’ and a ‘rash arm’. Despite using the medium of poetry, many of Warwick criticisms of colonists are similar to those of prose writers. He also portrays Americans as dishonest, with ‘well-feign’d Peity’, a ‘false appeal’, and ‘Guile’. It is impossible to tell if Warwick knew of the enmity between Percy and the Howe brothers, General William and Admiral Lord Richard, but he has kind words for all.
