Hannah Griffitts was part of the literary circle that also included Susanna Wright. A Quaker, like Wright and Hannah Callender, Griffitts never married. She was close to her extended family, many of whom were very wealthy and politically powerful. She wrote poems about a wide variety of topics. Most of the surviving poems are memorials to friends and family who had recently died. She wrote an annual memorial on the anniversary of her mother’s death. But she also wrote intensely political pieces. During the American Revolution, when Quakers remained neutral or loyal to the king because they opposed military violence, she wrote an encomium to a Quaker patriot. In the below poem, she uses a teasing tone—even calling out the prime minister, George Grenville—to make several very pointed observations about the role of women in the nonimportation movements. She wrote this poem during the pre-Revolutionary conflicts, just as Britain’s restrictive policies were adding taxes on some of the imported items Griffitts mentions such as paint and, of course, tea.
The female Patriots. Address’d to the Daughters of Liberty in America.
Since the Men from a Party, on fear of a Frown,
Are kept by a Sugar-Plumb, quietly down.
Supinely asleep, & depriv’d of their Sight
Are strip’d of their Freedom, and rob’d of their Right.
If the Sons (so degenerate) the Blessing despise,
Let the Daughters of Liberty, nobly arise,
And tho’ we’ve no Voice, but a negative here.
The use of the Taxables, let us forebear,
(Then Merchants import till yr. Stores are all full
May the Buyers be few & yr. Traffick be dull.)
Stand firmly resolved & bid Grenville to see
That rather than Freedom, we’ll part with our Tea
And well as we love the dear Draught when a dry,
As American Patriots,—our Taste we deny,
Sylvania’s, gay Meadows, can richly afford,
To pamper our Fancy, or furnish our Board,
And Paper sufficient (at home) still we have,
To assure the Wise-acre, we will not sign Slave.
When this Homespun shall fail, to remonstrate our Grief
We can speak with the Tongue or scratch on a Leaf.
Refuse all their Colours, the richest of Dye,
The juice of a Berry—our Paint can supply,
To humour our Fancy—& as for our Houses,
They’ll do without painting as well as our Spouses,
While to keep out the Cold of a keen winter Morn
We can screen the Northwest, with a well polish’d Horn,
And trust me a Woman by honest Invention
Might give this State Doctor a Dose of Prevention.
Join mutual in this, & but small as it seems
We may Jostle a Grenville & puzzle his Schemes
But a motive more worthy our patriot Pen,
Thus acting—we point out their Duty to Men,
And should the bound Pensioners, tell us to hush
We can throw back the Satire by biding them blush.
Source: Catherine La Courreye Blecki and Karin A. Wulf, eds., Milcah Martha Moore’s Book: A Commonplace Book from Revolutionary America (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997), 172–73.
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