But he turned up his nose at their murmuring and stammering, And cared (shall I say?) not a d—— for their damming; So they first read him out of their church, and next minute Turned round and declared he had never been in it.

It's also possible that this Dennis is based on the real-life Labour firebrand, Denis Healey (b. 1917), the shadow of Chancellor of the Exchequer 1972-1974. In the run-up to the 1974 general election, Healey was particularly on point, promising that when Labour took back the government ten days later (Febrary 28), he'd “squeeze property speculators until the pips squeak,” as well as “wring the neck of the Housing Finance Act.”

Here they live by fishing on the most plentiful coasts in the world; there they fell trees, by the sides of large rivers, for masts and lumber […] .

Unversed in financial projects and calculations and budgets, his approbation of them was bottomed on his confidence in the man. But Hamilton was not only a monarchist, but for a monarchy bottomed on corruption.