Genre:

Poetry

Subjects:

Military Technology, Steamships

    Remembers 'the good old days of Joseph Hume', when the expenditure on defences was low and France was not stronger than Britain. Compares these halcyon days to the present, when the Brown Bess no longer suffices, and the nation must be defended by Rifle volunteers, soldiers armed with Enfield and Armstrong guns, and ironclad steamships rather than those 'wooden walls'.