Yet they are not so liberal as they appear; they could afford
ninety per cent. You understand me, gentlemen. Would you lend to a man
that came to you under an alias like a Newgate thief? Cast your eye
over this prospectus. It is the Poyais loan. There is no such place as
Poyais."
"Good heavens!"
"It is a loan to an anonymous swamp by the Mosquito River. But
Mosquito suggests a bite. So the vagabonds that brought the proposal
over put their heads together as they crossed the Atlantic, and
christened the place Poyais; and now fools that are not fools enough
to lend sixpence to Zahara, are going to lend 200,000 pounds to rushes
and reeds."
"Why, Richard, what are you talking about? 'The air is soft and balmy;
the climate fructifying; the soil is spontaneous'--what does that
mean? mum! mum! 'The water runs over sands of gold.' Why, it is a
description of Paradise. And, now I think of it, is not all this taken
from John Milton?"
"Very likely. It is written by thieves."
"It seems there are tortoise-shell, diamonds, pearls--"
"In the prospectus, but not in the morass. It is a good,
straightforward morass, with no pretensions but to great damp. But
don't be alarmed, gentlemen, our countrymen's money will not be
swamped there. It will all be sponged up in Threadneedle Street by the
poetic swindlers whose names, or aliases, you hold in your hand. The
Greek, Mexican, and Brazilian loans may be translated from Prospectish
into English thus: At a date when every sovereign will be worth five
to us in sustaining shriveling paper and collapsing credit, we are
going to chuck a million sovereigns into the Hellespont, five million
sovereigns into the Gulf of Mexico, and two millions into the Pacific
Ocean.
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