The Rise Of The America Ground

1
Dragged up high, far from the waves
A half hull on the shore
The wreck of the Polymina lay
Rotting forever more
But on a fine spring day, 1805
Here’s Thomas Page and Jonny Prior
Made the Polymina their new home
Straw beds and an open fire

2
Johnny would learn the brewer’s trade
Tom would be a rope man
They'd live here more than 20 years
And see an empire grow up about them
In this no man’s land of the Priory Valley
Outside the Corporation
Up sprang the lodgings, sheds and alleys
Of an independent nation

3
Then after the Battle of Waterloo
When the war with the French was won
Hastings dreamed of a posh resort
For London’s wealth to come
But when the rich come visiting
You need the poor to do the work
And they’re gonna find them a place to dwell
And squalid holes to lurk

4
Down came Mark and Thomas Breeds
Their fortune had been sealed
By late December 1815
They’d bought the Priory Field
So now they’re big men around these parts
With a hand in every trade
Outside the law of the Corporation
There’s profit to be made

5
From lodging house and gin soaked den
From the valley to the shore
Hastings looks on horrified
As we fill up with the poor
There’s Frenchmen anchored by the beach
With food and booze to sell
There’s free trade smugglers after dark
Drunk on the tales they tell
Or the day when two men fought so hard
They tore down both their houses
And even Byron walks on down
Goes home without his trousers





6
By ’22 a thousand souls
Lived on the edge of the law
Now Townsfolk calls them ‘Americans’
From the war 30 years before
The insult lingers in the memory
That flag is still taboo
And so we got the name The America Ground
In 1822

7
By February 1824
The whole town held a meeting
To call for watchmen to stand guard
and give these scum a beating
They hired nine men, all brutal thugs,
paid by for by donations
But all they did was brought more grift
To the independent nation

8
After the riots on Christmas Day
The leaders had enough
These people don’t pay tithe or rent
And they’re always causing fuss
Too much noise and fights and stink
Too many darkened corners
The Corporation tells the Crown
And nobody will warn us

9
They found a way to bring us down
As every empire falls
The Corporation tells the Crown
And begs them change the law
Just as quick as we grew fat
Our time will come much leaner
But still Tom Page and old John Prior
In the wreck of the Polymina.