The history of Key's poem and the resulting song, "The Star-Spangled Banner," which today traditionally includes only the poem's first stanza, has a complex history and has been the subject of many controversies, including its relative musical difficulty, its alleged origins as a drinking song, anti-British sentiment in the lyrics, and the much-discussed third stanza, which includes the couplet, "No refuge could save the hireling and slave from the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave," in which the slave-holding poet seems to reference formerly enslaved persons who were enticed by the promise of freedom to join the British army's " Corps of Colonial Marines External." It is also possible that Key was referring to the British army as a whole. He wrote the poem in the correct meter to fit the popular English song " Anacreon in Heaven." On their way back to Baltimore, Key showed the poem to Skinner, who is probably the person who eventually passed it along to a young printer's assistant named Samuel Sands, who typeset and printed the poem just a few days later. The next morning, on September 14th, Key was inspired to write the poem "Defence of Fort McHenry" when he saw the American flag still flying over Fort McHenry. They witnessed the battle from the deck of their American truce ship. Their ship was tethered to a British ship to prevent them from returning to Baltimore due to the information they had gathered during the negotiation. Key, Skinner, and Barnes were then transferred to the HMS Surprise and then to their own ship on September 13th. Many days of negotiation eventually led to Barnes' release. Key and Skinner arrived in the Chesapeake Bay on an American truce ship and boarded the HMS Tonnant, commanded by Admiral Alexander Cochrane. William Beanes, an American physician arrested as a spy. Key witnessed the battle after he and John Stuart Skinner, a lawyer, publisher, and prisoner of war exchange officer, had been permitted by President James Madison to negotiate the freedom of Dr. On September 14, 1814, after witnessing the failed bombardment of Fort McHenry by the British, Francis Scott Key, a Georgetown lawyer and poet, wrote the contrafactum song, " Defence of Fort McHenry," a four stanza poem to be sung to the popular tune " Anacreon in Heaven" by English composer John Stafford Smith which would later be known as the Star-Spangled Banner. Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division.