Explore "The Free Trader's Lament" by Ambrose Bierce on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Oft from a trading-boat I purchased spice / And shells and corals, brought for my inspection / From the fair tropics -- paid a Christian price / And was content in my fool's paradise, / Where never had been heard the word "Protection."
'T was my sole island; there I dwelt alone -- / No customs-house, collector nor collection, / But a man came, who, in a pious tone / Condoled with me that I had never known / The manifest advantage of Protection.