Americans are quick to forget (or embarrassed to remenber) that during The War of Independence, whole cities remained loyal to the British Crown.  "Murrain" is (literally) a disease of livestock but came to mean a more general malady, as might "pox" these days.

 

They fled from the murrain that fell on East Ham

By Plymouth and Boston they brought us

And on to this place they called New Amsterdam

To sire we grandsons and daughters.

 

We’re sons of our forefathers, sons of this land

Good settlers they now try to banish

Not Albion’s enemy with whom they stand –

Their allies, the French and the Spanish.

 

They pressed us to fight against kith and our kin

But what would have victory bought us?

A cheap independence so pyrrhic and thin

And the blood of those brothers who fought us.

 

But whether his crown be of gold or of thorn

Or whether his crown be of laurel

As subjects of his in America-born

With country or King we’ve no quarrel.

 

So damn all the rebels of Washington’s crew

Who sit in that treacherous caucus

They may speak for Boston and Baltimore too

We’re loyal to King George; we’re New Yorkers.