Genre:

Poetry

Subjects:

Military Technology, Steamships, Government, Politics, Commerce, Morality

    Describes the fate of two iron-clads from Woolwich Dockyard as if they were twins, raised by their uncle, the First Lord of the Admiralty, George J Goschen, who, unable to 'maintain' the infants considered it 'best to murder them [...] by accident'. Despite a bloody struggle, Goschen succeeds in drowning his infants near Chatham Dockyard, 'in ancient Medway's arms'. The author thinks it a 'shame for Merry England that her Children should thus drown' and points out that there are 'thirty thousand Englishmen' who would throw Goschen overboard. It ends on a happier note, however, with the Royal Humane Society exacting its revenge on Goschen by hoisting the vessels to the surface and returning them to Woolwich.