Very Rare - the present example is the only known copy. ESTC records one location at the General Theological Seminary in New York, this collection was recently dispersed and the present broadside was bought by Maggs in 2025. ESTC is also entirely wrong in supposing that this broadside was printed in Philadelphia as Jacob Duché had fled America in 1777 and did not return until 1792.
This touching hymn sung by the children of the Foundling Hospital in London includes the following solo verse:
“The helpless Babe, by Hunger prest,
Clings to the famish’d Mother’s Breast:
In vain it ev’ry Effort tries;
Life’s Fountains yield it no Supplies“
The Foundling Hospital was established in London in 1739 to care for abandoned children. Funds were raised through philanthropic donations stimulated by artistic contributions by artists such as William Hogarth and George Frideric Handel who made the Hospital a fashionable place for the wealthy to be seen to be doing good.
This broadside advertises a charity sermon by Jacob Duché (1737-1798) who had been a hero of the American Revolutionary cause when he openly supported the Declaration of Independence in 1776 only to later encourage Washington to lay down arms and negotiate peace with the British. Duché fled America and became the chaplain of Lambeth orphan asylum in London and did not return to London until 1792.
Duché’s charity sermon was advertised in the Gazetteer and New Daily Advertiser on May 16th 1781 noting that in addition to the sermon, “An anthem will be sung, both morning and afternoon, by the children [of the Foundling Hospital], and a collection made for the benefit of the Charity.”
