For tackling Gausden isn’t a child’s play]
When next that gentleman shall court the town,
The populace, not I, shall knock him down.”
Next, biting Winter – “Will the worthy Mayor,
Supposing Gausden’s law be provéd clear,
Inform the court respective of the votes,
So nicely dotted in the Council’s notes,
Be worthless or be valid, here or there? –
I humbly plead an answer from the chair.”
Confusion worse confounded now ensued,
The pot was boiling and the caldron brewed.
Then Ginner spake, - unawed by stern rebuff,
Spake wisely to the point, and spake enough.-
Spake oily?, as became a major god,
And scorned reproaches, spurned the Mayor’s rod.
No alderman is he, nor worth his soup,
Who shrinks from duty when the minors whoop –
“Your great majority was only two,
And this, our Gausden says, will never do;
Deduct the four – th’ illegal four, I mean
And your majority is nowhere seen.”
“Speak to the question!” quoth the angry Mayor,
“I bow, said Ginner, “to your Worship’s chair.”
The question was, regardless quite of pelf[a].
Eleven settled, each one self to self,
To lease and release, puff the harbour up,
And home returning, on their oyster sup.
“I cannot, will not, dare not ever shrink,
And duty stern forbids me, sir, to blink
This serious question; for, it clearly seems,
These gents proposed to back illegal schemes.
While Ginner lives and Ginner’s shdows(sic) grows,
With one eye open he will ever doze.
I move, your Worship, that a note be made,
And sent forthwith unto the Board of Trade,
Sealed with our seal, and humbly begging grace
For all our peccadilloes taken place.
And thanks to Gausden; also to our clerk
Who left these poor eleven in the dark.
-
Cite error: <ref> tags exist for a group named "Notes", but no corresponding <references group="Notes"/> tag was found
