Throughout November he labored at the task of casting into rhyme the sorry episodes of his journey:
Freighted with Fools, from Plimouth Sound,
To MARYLAND our Ship was bound;
Where we arriv'd, in dreadful Pain,
Shock'd by the Terrors of the Main. .
He recalled his first encounter with the planters in St. Mary's County, whom he had mistaken for field hands —
. . a numerous Crew,
In Shirts and Drawers of Scotch-cloth blew,
With neither Stocking, Hat, nor Shoe. .
— and to their description appended the couplets written long before under different circumstances, painful now to remember:
Figures, so strange, no GOD design'd
To be a Part of Human-kind:
But Wanton Nature, void of Rest,
Moulded the brittle Clay in Jest. .
Shifting with masterly nonchalance from tetrametric to pentametric verses, he next proceeded to flay the inhabitants of his poetical bailiwick —
. .that Shore where no good Sense is Found,
But Conversation's lost, and Manners drown'd. .
— and thereafter to describe in turn, once more in four-footed lines, his trip across the Patuxent River in a canoe:
Cut from a Poplar tree, or Pine,
And fashion'd like a Trough for Swine. .
The encounter with Susan's herd of pigs:
This put me in a pannick Fright,
Lest I should be devour'd quite. .
His lawful wife the swine-maiden herself:
. .by her loose and sluttish Dress,
She rather seem'd a Bedlam-Bess. .
His fruitless vigil in the barnyard:
Where, riding on a Limb astride,
Night and the Branches did me hide,
And I the De'el and Snake defy'd..
The spectacle of the open-air assizes:
. .the Crowds did there resort,
Which Justice made, and Law, their Sport,
In their Sagacious County Court. .
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The planting Rabble being met,
Their drunken Worships likewise sat,
Cryer proclaims the Noise shou'd cease,
And streight the Lawyers broke the Peace,
Wrangling for Plaintiff and Defendant,
I thought they ne'er wou'd make an End on't,
With Nonsense, Stuff, and false Quotations
With brazen Lies, and Allegations. .
Judge Hammaker himself:
. .who, to the Shame,
Of all the Bench, cou'd write his Name. .
His night in the corncrib:
I lay me down secur'd from Fray,
And soundly snor'd till break o' Day;
When waking fresh, I sat upright,
And found my Shoes were vanish'd quite,
Hat, Wig, and Stockings, all were fled,
From this extended Indian Bed. .
The kitchen-whores at Malden:
. .a jolly Female Crew,
Were deep engag'd at Lanterloo,
In Nightrails white, with dirty Mien,
Such Sights are scarce in England seen:
I thought them first some Witches, bent
On black Designs, in dire Convent;
. .who, with affected Air,
Had nicely learn'd to Curse and Swear. .
His illness:
A fiery Pulse beat in my Veins,
From cold I felt resembling Pains;
This cursed Seasoning I remember
Lasted. . till cold December;
Nor cou'd it then it's Quarter shift.
Until by Carduus turn'd adrift:
And had my doct'ress wanted Skill,
Or Kitch'n-Physick at her Will,
My Father's Son had lost his Lands. .
And his exploitation by the versatile Sowter:
. . and ambodexter Quack,
Who learnedly had got the Knack
Of giving Clysters, making Pills,
Of filing Bonds, and forging Wills. .
When at last he had recounted the sum of his misfortunes by means of the sot-weed-factor conceit, he imagined himself fleeing to an outbound ship, and so concluded ferociously:
Embarqu'd and waiting for a Wind,
I leave this dreadful Curse behind.
May Canniballs transported o'er the Sea
Prey on these Slaves, as they have done on me;
May never Merchant's trading Sails explore
This cruel, this Inhospitable Shoar;
But left abandon'd by the World to starve,
May they sustain the Fate they well deserve:
May they turn Salvage, or as Indians wild,
From Trade, Converse, and Happiness exil'd;
Recreant to Heaven, may they adore the Sun,
And into Pagan Superstitions run
For Vengeance ripe —
May Wrath Divine then lay these Regions wast
Where no Man's Faithful, nor a Woman chast!
The heat of his sustained creative passion must have either enlarged his talent or softened his critical acumen, for never before had he felt so potent, assured, and poetic as in the composition of this satire. During the first two weeks of December he smoothed and polished it — adjusting an iamb here, tuning the clatter of a Hudibrastic there, until on St. Lucy's day, December 13, he was prepared to deem the piece truly finished. At its head he wrote: The Sot-Weed Factor: Or, a Voyage to Maryland. A Satyr. In which is describ'd, the Laws, Government, Courts and Constitutions of the Country; and also the Buildings, Feasts, Frolicks. Entertainments and Drunken Humours of the Inhabitants of that Port of America. And at the foot, with grand contempt, he affixed his full title — Ebenezer Cooke, Gentleman, Poet & Laureat of the Province of Maryland- in full recognition that with the poem's publication, should he ever send it to a printer, he would forfeit any chance of receiving that title in fact.