Pompey and his associates

While no execution has taken place yet in this broadside, it is essentially a clerical “good night” text in ballad meter. The opening verse echoes the language of Chevy Chase  and, like many “good nights,” it would fit that tune comfortably. The lyric essentially bemoans the fact that the local population is increasingly secular: “Vice now prevails, and virtue fails, / and piety decays” (verse 7). Using the news of a coming execution, the author exhorts the populace to turn back to religion.

A man named Pompey and his “associates” have been arrested for sodomy and sentenced to death. There is no further identification. Classical names such as Pompey, Scipio, or Cato were often given to African Americans (Windley). There is no indication that he was a slave. The author of the text suggests that these culprits were not the only people in the community guilty of such a sin—that many more could be indicted.