XVII.
"So my golden dreams have vanished,
All my hopes of gain are lost;
Fresh accounts of glutted markets
Come with each successive post.
And I hear the clodpoles mutter
As they pass me in the street,
That they can't afford to purchase,
At the present rate of wheat.
XVIII.
"Well, I care not—'tis no matter!
My machines won't eat me up;
And the people on the poor-rates
Have my perfect leave to sup.
Let the land provide subsistence
For the children of the soil,
I am forced to feed my engines
With a daily cruise of oil.
XIX.
"Ha! a bright idea strikes me!
'Tis the very thing, huzzay!
I have somewhere heard that cotton
May be cultured in Bombay.
Zooks! it is a splendid notion!
Dicky Cobden is an ass.
Wherefore should we pay the Yankees
Whilst Great Britain holds Madras?
XX.
"Cotton would again be cultured
If, with a benignant hand,
Fair protection were afforded
To the tillers of the land.
'Tis a sin and shame, we know not
Where our real riches lie;
Yes! they shall have just protection,
Else I'll know the reason why.
XXI.
"Surely some obscene oppression,
Weighs the natives' labour down,
Or their energies are palsied
By a tyrant master's frown.
To my heart the blood is gushing—
Righteous tears bedew my cheek—
Parliament shall know their burdens,
Ere I'm older by a week!
XXII.
"Ha! those fine devoted fellows!
'Twere a black and burning shame,
If we let the Yankees swamp them
In their mean exclusive game.
I have always held the doctrine,
Since my public life begun,
That it was our bounden duty
To take care of Number One.
XXIII.
"What!—allow the faithful Indian
To be crushed in cotton-growing?
O forbid it, truthful Wilson!
O refuse it, saintly Owen!
Have their claims been disregarded?
There is life within a mussel;
And I've got a kind of bridle
On the neck of Johnny Russell.
XXIV.
"I shall move a special motion,
Touching this o'erlooked affair:
El-Dorado would be nothing
To the wealth that waits us there.
Let us get a fair protection
For our native Indian niggers,
And, I think, the Rochdale mill-book
Would display some startling figures!
XXV.
"Ha! I've got another notion!
Things are rather dull at home,
And I feel no fixed objection,
In my country's cause to roam.
It is needful that some cautious
Hand should undertake the task,
Hum—there must be a commission—
Well—I've only got to ask.