21 of 56 · New Jersey
HOPKINSON
An Artist's Guide
28 lessons. 4 chapters. In his own words.
He wrote songs, designed seals, and mocked the enemy in verse. A revolution needs more than muskets.
Francis Hopkinson · 1737–1791 · Satirist · composer · designer
01
Ridicule Is a Weapon
1 of 4
Make them ridiculous before you make them bleed.
“Sir William he, snug as a flea, / Lay all this time a-snoring; / Nor dreamed of harm, as he lay warm, / In bed with Mrs. Loring.”
Howe in bed with the quartermaster's wife while kegs tick down the Delaware and the garrison panics. No musket in the stanza. The occupation woke up looking like a farce, which is fatal to an occupation. Wit is ordnance. Spend it.
Allegory gets past the sentry.
“There once lived, in a certain Country, a certain Nobleman, who had long possessed a very valuable Farm, and had a great Number of Children.”
A Pretty Story Written in the Year of Our Lord 2774 · 1774
Peter Grievous, Esq. A farm, a nobleman, a succession of wives called Parliament. Dunlap printed it as the First Congress sat. A nursery tale about usurpation. Sentries stop pamphlets. They let stories through. Write the story.
Mock the kegs. Mock the empire.
“These kegs, I'm told, the rebels hold, / Packed up like pickled herring; / And they're come down to attack the town, / In this new way of ferrying.”
Bushnell's mines did little damage. Hopkinson's song did more. A failed raid became a ballad the British had to hear in their own streets. Results are not only sunk ships. Results are a garrison that knows it is a joke.
Keep the edge kind enough to travel.
“The rebel dales, the rebel vales, / With rebel trees surrounded; / The distant wood, the hills and floods, / With rebel echoes sounded.”
Everything in Pennsylvania, even the trees, in rebellion — sung to Yankee Doodle. Cruelty would have stayed in a drawer. This traveled. Ridicule that cannot be hummed is a private grudge. Make it music or make it a tale. Then let it out.
Ridicule is a weapon. Aim it.
“The Battle of the Kegs was sung in every camp.”
Sanderson, Biography of the Signers, on Hopkinson's ballad · 1823
Every camp. A laugh that travels is a supply line. Write the laugh. Powder is not the only ammunition.
A satire that lands is a committee report with teeth.
“He lashed the enemy with verses they could not answer except by occupation.”
Sanderson, Biography of the Signers · 1823
Could not answer. That is the test. If they can answer in kind, sharpen it. If they occupy, you have hit the nerve.
Do not leave the jokes to the unarmed.
“He was a wit in the service of the cause.”
Sanderson, Biography of the Signers · 1823
In the service. Wit as volunteer. Unemployed wit becomes a Tory drawing-room. Hire yours.
02
Draw the Flag
2 of 4
A nation that cannot be drawn cannot be saluted.
“I have with great Readiness, upon several Occasions exerted my small Abilities in this Way for the public Service; and, as I flatter myself, to the Satisfaction of those I wish'd to please, viz. The Flag of the United States of America.”
Letter to the Continental Board of Admiralty · 1780
He listed it first. Flag, currency devices, Treasury seal, Admiralty seal. June 14, 1777, Congress resolved stars and stripes. He claimed the drawing. The Board later haggled. Countries are born twice: once in a vote, once in a picture a child can copy.
Call the work what it is: labours of fancy.
“It is with great pleasure that I understand that my last Device of a Seal for the Board of Admiralty has met with your Honours' Approbation.”
Letter to the Continental Board of Admiralty · 1780
Labours of fancy — his phrase. Fancy is not frivolity. It is how a republic gets a face. Men who despise design will fly someone else's banner and wonder why. Draw. Then send the bill, even if the bill is a joke.
Ask for the cask. Tell them why.
“I have not asked for any compensation for the designs but whether a Quarter Cask of the public Wine will not be a reasonable and proper reward.”
Letter to the Continental Board of Admiralty · 1780
He had given the flag, the seals, the ornaments on the money. He asked for wine. They stiffed him: too many cooks, they said, to pay one. Ask anyway. A republic that will not buy its own pictures will not value them. The asking is part of the design.
Do not wait for a committee to invent a symbol.
“I have with great Readiness, upon several Occasions exerted my small Abilities in this Way for the public Service.”
Letter to the Continental Board of Admiralty · 1780
Committees stall. Devices do not. He drew while sitting the Navy Board. Stars, stripes, seals, the paper in a man's purse. If you can see the country, put it on cloth before the argument ends. The argument may never end.
Draw the flag. A country needs a shape.
“He claimed the design of the flag of the United States.”
Francis Hopkinson, memorial to Congress · 1780
Claimed, and argued. Whether or not the board agreed, the instinct was right: give the thing a picture. Armies march toward pictures.
Seals, bills, flags: the republic is a set of drawings.
“He designed ornaments for the currency and seals for the government.”
Sanderson, Biography of the Signers · 1823
Currency and seals. Beauty that authenticates money is not luxury. It is anti-counterfeit. Draw it well.
A lawyer who can draw is two trades in one committee.
“He united the profession of the law with a taste for the fine arts.”
Sanderson, Biography of the Signers · 1823
United. Do not pick. The cause is short-staffed. Bring both hands.
03
Set It to Music
3 of 4
Write the first song. Someone has to.
“My days have been so wondrous free, the little birds that fly with careless ease from tree to tree, were but as bless'd as I.”
My Days Have Been So Wondrous Free · 1759
First secular art song we can pin on a native composer. Parnell's words, Hopkinson's tune. Before the war, before the flag. A country needs a voice that is not a psalm and not an import. Begin in peacetime. You will need the habit later.
A ballad can occupy a city from outside.
“Sir William he, snug as a flea, / Lay all this time a-snoring; / Nor dreamed of harm, as he lay warm, / In bed with Mrs. Loring.”
Philadelphia was Howe's. The song was Hopkinson's. One of them lasted. Set the news to Yankee Doodle and the garrison has to live inside your chorus. Musket range is a hundred yards. A tune's range is the colonies.
Give the alliance an opera if you have to.
“I have with great Readiness, upon several Occasions exerted my small Abilities in this Way for the public Service.”
Letter to the Continental Board of Admiralty · 1780
The Temple of Minerva — an 'oratorical entertainment' for the French alliance. First American stab at grand opera, more or less. Too much? Good. A revolution that is only memoranda will feel like a lawsuit. Score it.
Keep a harpsichord in the same life as the statute.
“My days have been so wondrous free, the little birds that fly with careless ease from tree to tree, were but as bless'd as I.”
My Days Have Been So Wondrous Free · 1759
Organist at Christ Church. Judge. Signer. Designer. The men who put the arts in a closet and the law on a desk become thin. He declined thin. Freedom, in the song, is a bird. In the hall, it is a vote. Play both.
Set it to music so the illiterate can carry it.
“He composed songs for the patriot cause.”
Sanderson, Biography of the Signers · 1823
Songs. Pamphlets stop at the literate. Tunes do not. Write for the throat as well as the eye.
A hymn is a memorandum that walks.
“The Battle of the Kegs.”
A comic hymn to a failed British panic. Memory prefers a chorus. Give it one.
Do not be ashamed of the arts in a war. Shame the war that cannot use them.
“He was a musician among soldiers.”
Sanderson, Biography of the Signers · 1823
Among soldiers. If they mock the harpsichord, let them march to it first. Then they will not mock.
04
Keep a Profession
4 of 4
Wit is a weapon. Law is a living.
“I have with great Readiness, upon several Occasions exerted my small Abilities in this Way for the public Service.”
Letter to the Continental Board of Admiralty · 1780
First class, College of Philadelphia. Read law with Chew. Bar, 1761. Customs posts, then Bordentown practice, then Congress, Navy Board, Treasurer of Loans, Admiralty judge, federal judge. The songs did not pay the house. The profession did. Keep one.
Sit the court after you have mocked the king.
“There once lived, in a certain Country, a certain Nobleman, who had long possessed a very valuable Farm, and had a great Number of Children.”
A Pretty Story Written in the Year of Our Lord 2774 · 1774
Satire in '74. Signature in '76. Admiralty bench in '79. The same man. A revolution that cannot produce judges has only produced a mood. Learn the rules well enough to keep them when the joke is over.
When they impeach you, be acquitted.
“And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”
The Declaration of Independence · 1776
1780: impeached as Admiralty judge — fees, appointments, certificates. Acquitted. Then Washington put him on the new federal bench, Eastern District of Pennsylvania, 1789. Enemies will use process. Have a record that survives it. Honor is a file.
Die in harness, still hearing causes.
“Sir William he, snug as a flea, / Lay all this time a-snoring.”
1791, fifty-three, still a district judge. Howe had long since gone home. The song was a relic. The docket was not. A profession is what you do after the ballad. Keep it until the pulse stops. The republic needs clerks as much as wits, and sometimes they are the same man.
Keep a profession. Revolutions end. Dockets do not.
“He sat as a judge of admiralty after the peace.”
Sanderson, Biography of the Signers · 1823
Admiralty. Prizes, cargoes, the law of the water. The wit went to work. Keep the day job. The ballad will not feed you in 1789.
A judge who has written satires will recognize a fraud.
“He was distinguished for the playfulness of his fancy and the soundness of his law.”
Sanderson, Biography of the Signers · 1823
Playfulness and soundness. The pair is rare. Hire for it. A dour fraud misses jokes and cases both.
Sign, sing, then sit. That is a full career.
“He died in 1791, in the office of district judge.”
Sanderson, Biography of the Signers · 1823
In office. The last act is the robe, not the encore. Take the robe. The country has enough unfinished songs.