For these reasons the faults of men, who are most trusted in public
business, are, of all others, the most difficult to be defended. A man
may be persuaded into a wrong opinion, wherein he hath small concern:
but no oratory can have the power over a sober man against the
conviction of his own senses: and therefore, as I take it, the money
thrown away on such advocates might be more prudently spared, and kept
in such a minister's own pocket, than lavished in hiring a corporation
of pamphleteers to defend his conduct, and prove a kingdom to be
flourishing in trade and wealth, which every particular subject (except
those few already excepted) can lawfully swear, and, by dear experience
knows, to be a falsehood.
Give me leave, noble sir, in the way of argument, to suppose this to be
your case; could you in good conscience, or moral justice, chide your
paper-advocates for their ill success in persuading the world against
manifest demonstration? Their miscarriage is owing, alas! to want of
matter. Should we allow them to be masters of wit, raillery, or
learning, yet the subject would not admit them to exercise their
talents; and, consequently, they can have no recourse but to impudence,
lying, and scurrility.
I must confess, that the author of your letter to me hath carried this
last qualification to a greater height than any of his fellows: but he
hath, in my opinion, failed a little in point of politeness from the
original which he affects to imitate. If I should say to a prime
minister, "Sir, you have sufficiently provided that Dunkirk should be
absolutely demolished and never repaired; you took the best advantages
of a long and general peace to discharge the immense debts of the
nation; you did wonders with the fleet; you made the Spaniards submit to
our quiet possession of Gibraltar and Portmahon; you never enriched
yourself and family at the expense of the public."--Such is the style of
your supposed letter, which however, if I am well informed, by no means
comes up to the refinements of a fishwife in Billingsgate. "You never
had a bastard by Tom the waterman; you never stole a silver tankard; you
were never whipped at the cart's tail."
In the title of your letter, it is said to be "occasioned by the late
invectives on the King, her Majesty, and all the Royal Family:" and the
whole contents of the paper (stripped from your eloquence) goes on upon
a supposition affectedly serious, that their Majesties, and the whole
Royal Family, have been lately bitterly and publicly inveighed against
in the most enormous and treasonable manner. Now, being a man, as you
well know, altogether out of business, I do sometimes lose an hour in
reading a few of those controversial papers upon politics, which have
succeeded for some years past to the polemical tracts between Whig and
Tory: and in this kind of reading (if it may deserve to be so called)
although I have been often but little edified, or entertained, yet hath
it given me occasion to make some observations. First, I have observed,
that however men may sincerely agree in all the branches of the Low
Church principle, in a tenderness for dissenters of every kind, in a
perfect abhorrence of Popery and the Pretender, and in the most firm
adherence to the Protestant succession in the royal house of Hanover;
yet plenty of matter may arise to kindle their animosities against each
other from the various infirmities, follies, and vices inherent in
mankind.
Secondly, I observed, that although the vulgar reproach which charges
the quarrels between ministers, and their opposers, to be only a
contention for power between those who are in, and those who would be in
if they could; yet as long as this proceeds no further than a scuffle of
ambition among a few persons, it is only a matter of course, whereby the
public is little affected. But when corruptions are plain, open, and
undisguised, both in their causes and effects, to the hazard of a
nation's ruin, and so declared by all the principal persons and the bulk
of the people, those only excepted who are gainers by those corruptions:
and when such ministers are forced to fly for shelter to the throne,
with a complaint of disaffection to majesty against all who durst
dislike their administration: such a general disposition in the minds of
men, cannot, I think, by any rules of reason, be called the "clamour of
a few disaffected incendiaries," gasping[217] after power. It is the
true voice of the people; which must and will at last be heard, or
produce consequences that I dare not mention.
I have observed thirdly, that among all the offensive printed papers
which have come to my hand, whether good or bad, the writers have taken
particular pains to celebrate the virtues of our excellent King and
Queen, even where these were, strictly speaking, no part of the subject:
nor can it be properly objected that such a proceeding was only a blind
to cover their malice towards you and your assistants; because to
affront the King, Queen, or the Royal Family, as it would be directly
opposite to the principles that those kind of writers have always
professed, so it would destroy the very end they have in pursuit. And it
is somewhat remarkable, that those very writers against you, and the
regiment you command, are such as most distinguish themselves upon all,
or upon no occasions, by their panegyrics on their prince; and, as all
of them do this without favour or hire, so some of them continue the
same practice under the severest prosecution by you and your janizaries.
You seem to know, or at least very strongly to conjecture, who those
persons are that give you so much weekly disquiet. Will you dare to
assert that any of these are Jacobites, endeavour to alienate the hearts
of the people, to defame the prince, and then dethrone him (for these
are your expressions) and that I am their patron, their bulwark, their
hope, and their refuge? Can you think I will descend to vindicate myself
against an aspersion so absurd? God be thanked, we have had many a
change of ministry without changing our prince: for if it had been
otherwise, perhaps revolutions might have been more frequent. Heaven
forbid that the welfare of a great kingdom, and of a brave people,
should be trusted with the thread of a single subject's life; for I
suppose it is not yet in your view to entail the ministryship in your
family. Thus I hope we may live to see different ministers and different
measures, without any danger to the succession in the royal Protestant
line of Hanover.
You are pleased to advance a topic, which I could never heartily approve
of in any party, although they have each in their turn advanced it while
they had the superiority. You tell us, "It is hard that while every
private man shall have the liberty to choose what servants he pleaseth,
the same privilege should be refused to a king." This assertion, crudely
understood, can hardly be supported. If by servants be only meant those
who are purely menial, who provide for their master's food and clothing,
or for the convenience and splendour of his family, the point is not
worth debating. But the bad or good choice of a chancellor, a secretary,
an ambassador, a treasurer, and many other officers, is of very high
consequence to the whole kingdom; so is likewise that amphibious race of
courtiers between servants and ministers; such as the steward,
chamberlain, treasurer of the household and the like, being all of the
privy council, and some of the cabinet, who according to their talents,
their principles, and their degree of favour, may be great instruments
of good or evil, both to the subject and the prince; so that the
parallel is by no means adequate between a prince's court and a private
family. And yet if an insolent footman be troublesome in the
neighbourhood; if he breaks the people's windows, insults their
servants, breaks into other folk's houses to pilfer what he can find,
although he belong to a duke, and be a favourite in his station, yet
those who are injured may, without just offence, complain to his lord,
and for want of redress get a warrant to send him to the stocks, to
Bridewell, or to Newgate, according to the nature and degree of his
delinquencies. Thus the servants of the prince, whether menial or
otherwise, if they be of his council, are subject to the enquiries and
prosecutions of the great council of the nation, even as far as to
capital punishment; and so must ever be in our constitution, till a
minister can procure a majority even of that council to shelter him;
which I am sure you will allow to be a desperate crisis under any party
of the most plausible denomination.
The only instance you produce, or rather insinuate, to prove the late
invectives against the King, Queen, and Royal Family, is drawn from that
deduction of the English history, published in several papers by the
_Craftsman_; wherein are shewn the bad consequences to the public, as
well as to the prince, from the practices of evil ministers in most
reigns, and at several periods, when the throne was filled by wise
monarchs as well as by weak. This deduction, therefore, cannot
reasonably give the least offence to a British king, when he shall
observe that the greatest and ablest of his predecessors, by their own
candour, by a particular juncture of affairs, or by the general
infirmity of human nature, have sometimes put too much trust in
confident, insinuating, and avaricious ministers.
Wisdom, attended by virtue and a generous nature, is not unapt to be
imposed on. Thus Milton describes Uriel, "the sharpest-sighted spirit in
heaven," and "regent of the sun," deceived by the dissimulation and
flattery of the devil, for which the poet gives a philosophical reason,
but needless here to quote.[218] Is anything more common, or more
useful, than to caution wise men in high stations against putting too
much trust in undertaking servants, cringing flatterers, or designing
friends? Since the Asiatic custom of governing by prime ministers hath
prevailed in so many courts of Europe, how careful should every prince
be in the choice of the person on whom so great a trust is devolved,
whereon depend the safety and welfare of himself and all his subjects.
Queen Elizabeth, whose administration is frequently quoted as the best
pattern for English princes to follow, could not resist the artifices of
the Earl of Leicester, who, although universally allowed to be the most
ambitious, insolent, and corrupt person of his age, was yet her
greatest, and almost her only favourite: (his religion indeed being
partly puritan and partly infidel, might have better tallied with
present times) yet this wise queen would never suffer the openest
enemies of that overgrown lord to be sacrificed to his vengeance; nor
durst he charge them with a design of introducing Popery or the Spanish
pretender.
How many great families do we all know, whose masters have passed for
persons of good abilities, during the whole course of their lives, and
yet the greatest part of whose estates have sunk in the hands of their
stewards and receivers; their revenues paid them in scanty portions, at
large discount, and treble interest, though they did not know it; while
the tenants were daily racked, and at the same time accused to their
landlords of insolvency. Of this species are such managers, who, like
honest Peter Waters, pretend to clear an estate, keep the owner
penniless, and, after seven years, leave him five times more in debt,
while they sink half a plum into their own pockets.
Those who think themselves concerned, may give you thanks for that
gracious liberty you are pleased to allow them of "taking vengeance on
the ministers, and there shooting their envenomed arrows." As to myself;
I neither owe you vengeance, nor make use of such weapons: but it is
your weakness, or ill fortune, or perhaps the fault of your
constitution, to convert wholesome remedies into poison; for you have
received better and more frequent instructions than any minister of your
age and country, if God had given you the grace to apply them.
I dare promise you the thanks of half the kingdom, if you will please to
perform the promise you have made of suffering the _Craftsman_ and
company, or whatever other "infamous wretches and execrable villains"
you mean, to take their vengeance only on your own sacred ministerial
person, without bringing any of your brethren, much less the most remote
branch of the Royal Family, into the debate. This generous offer I
suspected from the first; because there were never heard of so many, so
unnecessary, and so severe prosecutions as you have promoted during your
ministry, in a kingdom where the liberty of the press is so much
pretended to be allowed. But in reading a page or two, I found you
thought it proper to explain away your grant; for there you tell us,
that "these miscreants" (meaning the writers against you) "are to
remember that the laws have ABUNDANTLY LESS generous, less mild
and merciful sentiments" than yourself, and into their secular hands the
poor authors must be delivered to fines, prisons, pillories, whippings,
and the gallows. Thus your promise of impunity, which began somewhat
jesuitically, concludes with the mercy of a Spanish inquisitor.
If it should so happen that I am neither "abettor, patron, protector,"
nor "supporter" of these imaginary invectives "against the King, her
Majesty, or any of the Royal Family," I desire to know what
satisfaction I am to get from you, or the creature you employed in
writing the libel which I am now answering? It will be no excuse to
say, that I differ from you in every particular of your political
reason and practise; because that will be to load the best, the
soundest, and most numerous part of the kingdom with the denominations
you are pleased to bestow upon me, that they are "Jacobites, wicked
miscreants, infamous wretches, execrable villains, and defamers of the
King, Queen, and all the Royal Family," and "guilty of high treason."
You cannot know my style; but I can easily know your works, which are
performed in the sight of the sun. Your good inclinations are
visible; but I begin to doubt the strength of your credit, even at
court, that you have not power to make his Majesty believe me the
person which you represent in your libel: as most infallibly you have
often attempted, and in vain, because I must otherwise have found it
by the marks of his royal displeasure. However, to be angry with you
to whom I am indebted for the greatest obligation I could possibly
receive, would be the highest ingratitude. It is to YOU I owe that
reputation I have acquired for some years past of being a lover of my
country and its constitution: to YOU I owe the libels and scurrilities
conferred upon me by the worst of men, and consequently some degree of
esteem and friendship from the best. From YOU I learned the skill of
distinguishing between a patriot and a plunderer of his country: and
from YOU I hope in time to acquire the knowledge of being a loyal,
faithful, and useful servant to the best of princes, King George the
Second; and therefore I can conclude, by your example, but with
greater truth, that I am not only with humble submission and respect,
but with infinite gratitude, Sir, your most obedient and most obliged
servant,
W. P.
INDEX
Acheson, Sir Arthur, 246.
Alberoni's expedition, 207.
Allen, Joshua, Lord, his attack on Swift, 168, 169, 175, 176, 236, 237;
account of, 175.
America, emigration from Ireland to, 120.
Arachne, fable of, 21.
Ballaquer, Carteret's secretary, 242.
Bank, proposal for a national, in Ireland, 27, 31, 38, 42, 43;
subscribers to the, 49-51.
Barbou, Dr Nicholas, 69.
Barnstaple, the chief market for Irish wool, 18.
Beggars in Ireland, 70;
Proposal for giving Badges to, 323-335;
reason for the number of, 341.
Birch, Colonel John, 6.
Bishops, Swift's proposal to sell the lands of the, 252 _et seq._
Bladon, Colonel, 23.
Bolingbroke, Lord, his contributions to the "Craftsman," 219, 375, 377.
Boulter, Archbishop, his scheme for lowering the gold coinage, 353;
opposed by Swift, 353, 354.
Browne, Sir John, his "Scheme of the money matters of Ireland," 66;
Swift's answer to his "Memorial," 109-116.
Burnet, William, 121.
Carteret, John, Lord, 227;
Swift's Vindication of, 229-249.
Coinage, McCulla's proposal about, 179-190;
Swift's counter-proposal, 183.
Coining, forbidden in Ireland, 88, 134.
Compton, Sir Spencer, 387.
Corn, imported into Ireland from England, 17.
"Cossing," explained, 271.
Cotter, ballad upon, 23.
"Craftsman," the, 219, 375, 397, 399.
Davenport, Colonel, 280.
Delany, Dr. Patrick, 244.
Dublin, thieves and roughs in, 56;
Examination of certain Abuses, etc, in, 263-282;
Advice to the Freemen of, in the Choice of
a Member of Parliament, 311-316;
Considerations in the Choice of a Recorder of, 319, 320.
Dunkin, Rev. William, Swift's efforts in behalf of, 364, 368.
Dutton-Colt, Sir Harry, 280.
Elliston, Ebenezer, Last Speech of, 56 _et seq._
Esquire, the title of, 49.
Footmen, Petition of the, 307.
French, Humphry, Lord Mayor of Dublin, 310, 311.
French army, recruited in Ireland, 218, 220.
Frogs, propagation of, in Ireland, 340.
Galway, Earl of, 235.
Grafton, Duke of, 194.
Grimston, Lord, his "Lawyer's Fortune, or Love in a Hollow Tree," 24.
Gwythers, Dr., introduces frogs into Ireland, 340.
Hanmer, Sir Thomas, 387.
Hospital for Incurables, Scheme for a, 283-303.
Hutcheson, Hartley, 234.
Injured Lady, Story of the, 97-103;
Answer to the, 107-109.
Ireland, the Test Act in, 2, 5 _et seq._;
exportation of wool from, forbidden, 17, 18, 110, 111, 157, 158;
absentee landlords, 25, 69, 71, 101, 162;
Sheridan's account of the state of, 26-30;
proposal for establishing a National Bank in, 31, 38, 42, 43;
maxims controlled in, 65;
poverty of, 25, 66, 87, 89, 90, 122;
increase of rents in, 67, 163;
begging and thieving in, 70;
Short view of the State of, 83-91;
importation of cattle into England prohibited, 86, 100, 110, 221;
encouragement of the linen manufactures in, 102, 158;
luxury and extravagance among the women in, 124, 139, 198, 199, 219;
condition of the roads in, 130;
bad management of the bogs in, 131;
dishonesty of tradesmen in, 142, 147;
the National Debt of, 196;
famine in, 203;
population of, 208;
persecution of Roman Catholics in, 263.
Irish brogue, the, 346.
Irish eloquence, 361.
Irish language, proposal to abolish the, 133.
Irish peers, titles of, 349.
Japan, Account of the Court and Empire of, 382-391.
King, Archbishop, 21, 119, 136, 244, 326.
Lindsay, Robert, 259.
Linen trade in Ireland, the, 88, 102, 158.
Littleton, Sir Thomas, 7.
Lorrain, Paul, ordinary of Newgate, 34.
Macarrell, John, 310, 311.
McCulla's Project about halfpence, 179-190.
Manufactures, Irish, Proposal for the Universal use of, 17-30;
Proposal that all Ladies should appear constantly in, 193-199.
_See also_ "Woollen Manufactures."
Mar, Earl of, 164.
Maxwell, Henry, his pamphlets in favour of a bank in Ireland, 38.
Mist, Nathaniel, 194.
National Debt, Proposal to pay off the, 251-258.
Navigation Act, the effect of, in Ireland, 66, 86.
Norton, Richard, 301.
"Orange, the squeezing of the," 275.
Penn, William, 120.
Perron, Cardinal, anecdote of, 238.
Peterborough, Lord, letter of Swift to, April 28, 1726, 154-156.
Phipps, Sir Constantine, 244.
"Pistorides" (Richard Tighe), 233, 235.
Poor, Considerations about maintaining the, 339-342.
Poyning's Law, 103, 105.
Psalmanazar, George, his Description of the Island of Formosa, 211.
Pulteney, William, the "Craftsman" founded by, 219, 375;
"Answer of, to Robert Walpole," 392-400.
Quilca, life at, 74, 75-77.
Rents, raising of, in Ireland, 163.
Roads, in Ireland, condition of the, 130.
Roman Catholics, legislation against, 5;
petty persecution of, in Ireland, 263.
Rowley, Hercules, his pamphlets against
the establishment of a bank in Ireland, 38.
Savoy, Duke of, 277.
Scotland, description of, 97, 98.
Scots in Sweden, 9.
Scottish colonists in Ulster, 104.
Sheridan, Dr. Thomas, 74;
his account of the state of Ireland, 26-30;
given a chaplaincy by Carteret, 232, 241;
anecdote of Carteret, related by, 232;
informed against by Tighe, 233, 242.
Stanley, Sir John, Commissioner of Customs, 197.
Stannard, Eaton, elected Recorder of Dublin, 319, 366.
Stopford, Dr. James, Bishop of Cloyne, 243.
Street cries explained, 268-270, 275-281.
Swan, Mr., 280.
Swandlingbar, origin of the name of, 347.
Swearer's Bank, the, 41.
Swift, Godwin, 347.
Swift, Jonathan, the freedom of the City of Dublin conferred on, 168;
his speech on the occasion, 169-172;
confesses the authorship of the "Drapier's Letters," 171;
born in Dublin, 267;
his opposition to Archbishop Boulter, 353, 354;
his speech on the lowering of the coin, 357;
his efforts in behalf of Mr. Dunkin, 364-368;
receives the freedom of the City of Cork, 367;
appoints Dr. Wynne Sub-dean of St. Patrick's, 370.
Temple, Sir William, his comparison of Holland and Ireland, 164.
Test Act, in Ireland, 2, 5 _et seq._
Thompson, Edward, Commissioner of the Revenue in Ireland, 315.
Tickell, T., 242.
Tighe, Richard, informs against Sheridan, 74, 233, 242;
attacks Carteret, 228;
ridiculed as "Pistorides," 233, 235.
"Traulus" (Lord Allen), 176, 236.
Trees, planting of, in Ireland, 132.
Violante, Madam, 234.
Wallis, Dr., 280.
Walpole, Sir Robert, interview of Swift with, in 1726, 153;
his views on Ireland, 154;
satire on, 276;
his literary assistants, 379, 393 _et seq._;
character of, 384 _et seq._
Waters, Edward, Swift's printer, 171, 193.
Whitshed, Lord Chief Justice, 14, 86, 115, 129, 171, 193, 194.
Wine, proposed tax on, 196, 197.
Wool, Irish, exportation of,
forbidden by law, 17, 18, 110, 111, 157, 158;
effect of the prohibition on England, 160.
Woollen manufactures, Irish people should use their own, 137 _et seq._;
Observations on the case of the, 147-150.
Wynne, Rev. Dr. John, Sub-dean of St. Patrick's, 370.
~FOOTNOTES:~
[1] "Unpublished Letters of Swift," edited by Dr. Birkbeck Hill, 1899.
[2] Mr. Murray's MSS., quoted by Craik.
[3] It appeared almost impossible for Swift to see the injustice of this
test clause. In reality, it had been the outcome of the legislation
against the Irish Roman Catholics. In 1703 the Irish parliament had
passed a bill by which it was enacted, "that all estates should be
equally divided among the children of Roman Catholics, notwithstanding
any settlements to the contrary, unless the persons to whom they were to
descend, would qualify, by taking the oaths prescribed by government,
and conform to the established church" (Crawford's "History of Ireland,"
1783, vol. ii., p. 256). The bill was transmitted to England, for
approval there, at a time when Anne was asking the Emperor for his
indulgence towards the Protestants of his realms. This placed the Queen
in an awkward position, since she could hardly expect indulgence from a
Roman Catholic monarch towards Protestants when she, a Protestant
monarch, was persecuting Roman Catholics. To obviate this dilemma, the
Queen's ministers added a clause to the bill, "by which all persons in
Ireland were rendered incapable of any employment under the crown, or,
of being magistrates in any city, who, agreeably to the English test
act, did not receive the sacrament as prescribed by the Church of
England" (_ibid._). Under this clause, of course, came all the
Protestant Dissenters, including the Presbyterians "from the north." The
bill so amended passed into law; but its iniquitous influence was a
disgrace to the legislators of the day, and his advocacy of it, however
much he was convinced of its expediency, proves Swift a short-sighted
statesman wherever the enemies of the Church of England were concerned.
[T. S.]
[4] Colonel John Birch (1616-1691) was of Lancashire. Swift calls him
"of Herefordshire," because he had been appointed governor of the city
of Hereford, after he had captured it by a stratagem, in 1654. Devotedly
attached to Presbyterian principles, Birch was a man of shrewd business
abilities and remarkable oratorical gifts. On the restoration of Charles
II., in which he took a prominent part on account of Charles's
championship of Presbyterianism, Birch held important business posts. He
sat in parliament for Leominster and Penrhyn, and his plans for the
rebuilding of London after the Great Fire, though they were not adopted,
were yet such as would have been extremely salutary had they been
accepted. Of his eloquence, Burnet says: "He was the roughest and
boldest speaker in the house, and talked in the language and phrases of
a carrier, but with a beauty and eloquence, that was always acceptable."
The reference to the carrier is purposely made, since Birch did not hide
the fact that he had once pursued that occupation. Swift was twenty-four
years of age when Birch died, so that he must have been a very young man
when he heard Birch make the remark he quotes. [T. S.]
[5] Sir Thomas Littleton (1647?-1710) was chosen Speaker of the English
House of Commons by the junto in 1698. Onslow, in a note to Burnet's
"History," speaks of the good work he did as treasurer of the navy.
Macky describes him as "a stern-looked man, with a brown complexion,
well shaped" (see "Characters"). At the time of Swift's writing the
above letter, Littleton was member for Portsmouth. [T. S.]
[6] Viscount Molesworth, in his "Considerations for promoting the
Agriculture of Ireland" (1723), pointed out, that even with the added
expense of freight, it was cheaper to import corn from England, than to
grow it in Ireland itself. [T. S.]
[7] Mr. Lecky points out that in England, after the Revolution, the
councils were directed by commercial influence. At that time there was
an important woollen industry in England which, it was feared, the
growing Irish woollen manufactures would injure. The English
manufacturers petitioned for their total destruction, and the House of
Lords, in response to the petition, represented to the King that "the
growing manufacture of cloth in Ireland, both by the cheapness of all
sorts of necessaries of life, and goodness of materials for making all
manner of cloth, doth invite your subjects of England, with their
families and servants, to leave their habitations to settle there, to
the increase of the woollen manufacture in Ireland, which makes your
loyal subjects in this kingdom very apprehensive that the further growth
of it may greatly prejudice the said manufacture here." The Commons went
further, and suggested the advisability of discouraging the industry by
hindering the exportation of wool from Ireland to other countries and
limiting it to England alone. The Act of 10 and 11 Will. III. c. 10,
made the suggestion law and even prohibited entirely the exportation of
Irish wool anywhere. Thus, as Swift puts it, "the politic gentlemen of
Ireland have depopulated vast tracts of the best land, for the feeding
of sheep." See notes to later tracts in this volume on "Observations on
the Woollen Manufactures" and "Letter on the Weavers." [T. S.]
[8] That Swift did not exaggerate may be gathered from the statute
books, and, more immediately, from Hely Hutchinson's "Commercial
Restraints of Ireland" (1779), Arthur Dobbs's "Trade and Improvement of
Ireland," Lecky's "History of Ireland," vols. i. and ii., and Monck
Mason's notes in his "History of St. Patrick's Cathedral," p. 320 _et
seq._ [T. S.]
[9] Barnstaple was, at that time, the chief market in England for Irish
wool. [T. S.]
[10] In 1726, Swift presented some pieces of Irish manufactured silk to
the Princess of Wales and to Mrs. Howard. In sending the silk to Mrs.
Howard he wrote also a letter in which he remarked: "I beg you will not
tell any parliament man from whence you had that plaid; otherwise, out
of malice, they will make a law to cut off all our weavers' fingers."
[T. S.]
[11] This last sentence is as the original edition has it. In Faulkner's
first collected edition and in the fifth volume of the "Miscellanies"
(London, 1735), the following occurs in its place: "I must confess, that
as to the former, I should not be sorry if they would stay at home; and
for the latter, I hope, in a little time we shall have no occasion for
them."
Swift knew what he was advising when he suggested that the people of
Ireland should not import their goods from England. He was well aware
that English manufactures were not really necessary. Sir William Petty
had, a half century before, pointed out that a third of the manufactures
then imported into Ireland could be produced by its own factories,
another third could as easily and as cheaply be obtained from countries
other than England, and "consequently, that it was scarce necessary at
all for Ireland to receive any goods of England, and not convenient to
receive above one-fourth part, from thence, of the whole which it
needeth to import" ("Polit. Anatomy of Ireland," 1672). [T. S.]
[12] Faulkner and the "Miscellanies" (London, 1735) print, instead of,
"as any prelate in Christendom," the words, "as if he had not been born
among us." The Archbishop was Dr. William King, with whom Swift had had
much correspondence. See "Letters" in Scott's edition (1824).
Dr. William King, who succeeded Narcissus Marsh as Archbishop of Dublin
in March, 1702-3. Swift had not always been on friendly terms with King,
but, at this time, they were in sympathy as to the wrongs and grievances
of Ireland. King strongly supported the agitation against Wood's
halfpence, but later, when he attempted to interfere with the affairs of
the Deanery of St. Patrick's, Swift and he came to an open rupture. See
also volume on the Drapier's Letters, in this edition. [T. S.]
[13] Faulkner and the "Miscellanies" of 1735 print this amount as "three
thousand six hundred." This was the sum paid by the lord-lieutenant to
the lords-justices, who represented him in the government of Ireland.
The lord-lieutenant himself did not then, as the viceroy of Ireland does
now, take up his residence in the country. Although in receipt of a
large salary, he only came to Dublin to deliver the speeches at the
openings of parliament, or on some other special occasion. [T. S.]
[14] The Dublin edition of this pamphlet has a note stating that Cotter
was a gentleman of Cork who was executed for committing a rape on a
Quaker. [T. S.]
[15] Said to be Colonel Bladon (1680-1746), who translated the
Commentaries of Cæsar. He was a dependant of the Duke of Marlborough, to
whom he dedicated this translation. [T. S.]
[16] Lord Grimston. William Luckyn, first Viscount Grimston (1683-1756),
was created an Irish peer with the title Baron Dunboyne in 1719. The
full title of the play to which Swift refers, is "The Lawyer's Fortune,
or, Love in a Hollow Tree." It was published in 1705. Swift refers to
Grimston in his verses "On Poetry, a Rhapsody." Pope, in one of his
satires, calls him "booby lord." Grimston withdrew his play from
circulation after the second edition, but it was reprinted in Rotterdam
in 1728 and in London in 1736. Dr. Johnson told Chesterfield a story
which made the Duchess of Marlborough responsible for this London
reprint, which had for frontispiece the picture of an ass wearing a
coronet. [T. S.]
[17] The original edition prints "ministers" instead of "chief
governors." [T. S.]
[18] In 1720 Bishop Nicholson of Derry, writing to the Archbishop of
Canterbury, describes the wretched condition of the towns and the
country districts, and the misery of their population:
"Our trade of all kind is at a stand, insomuch as that our most eminent
merchants, who used to pay bills of _1,000l._ at sight, are hardly able
to raise _100l._ in so many days. Spindles of yarn (our daily bread) are
fallen from _2s. 6d._ to _15d._, and everything also in proportion.
Our best beef (as good as I ever ate in England) is sold under _3/4d._ a
pound, and all this not from any extraordinary plenty of commodities,
but from a perfect dearth of money. Never did I behold even in Picardy,
Westphalia, or Scotland, such dismal marks of hunger and want as
appeared in the countenances of most of the poor creatures I met with on
the road." (Brit. Mus. Add. MSS. 6116, quoted by Lecky.) [T. S.]
[19] The "absentee" landlord was an evil to Ireland on which much has
been written. It was difficult to keep the country in order when the
landed proprietors took so little interest in their possessions as to do
nothing but exact rents from their tenants and spend the money so
obtained in England. Two, and even three, hundred years before Swift's
day "absenteeism" had been the cause of much of the rebellion in Ireland
which harassed the English monarchs, who endeavoured to put a stop to
the evil by confiscating the estates of such landlords. Acts were passed
by Richard II. and Henry VIII. to this effect; but in later times, the
statutes were ignored and not enforced, and the Irish landlord, in
endeavours to obtain for himself social recognition and standing in
England which, because of his Irish origin, were denied him, remained in
England indulging himself in lavish expenditure and display. The
consequences of this were the impoverishment of his estates and their
eventual management by rack-renters. These rack-renters, whose only
interest lay in squeezing money out of the impoverished tenants, became
the bane of the agricultural holder.
Unfortunately, the spirit of "absenteeism" extended itself to the
holders of offices in Ireland, and even the lord-lieutenant rarely took
up his residence in Dublin for any time longer than necessitated by the
immediate demands of his installation and speech-making, although he
drew his emoluments from the Irish revenues. In the "List of Absentees"
instances are given where men appointed to Irish offices would land on
Saturday night, receive the sacrament on Sunday, take the oath in court
on Monday morning, and be on their way back to England by Monday
afternoon.
It has been calculated that out of a total rental of ВЈ1,800,000, as much
as 33-1/3 per cent. was sent out of the country. [T. S.]
[20] Sheridan, in the sixth number of "The Intelligencer," contributes
an account of the state of Ireland, written to the text, "O patria! O
divГ»m domus!"
"When I travel through any part of this unhappy kingdom, and I have now
by several excursions made from Dublin, gone through most counties of
it, it raises two passions in my breast of a different kind; an
indignation against those vile betrayers and insulters of it, who
insinuate themselves into favour, by saying, it is a rich nation; and a
sincere passion for the natives, who are sunk to the lowest degree of
misery and poverty, whose houses are dunghills, whose victuals are the
blood of their cattle, or the herbs in the field; and whose clothing, to
the dishonour of God and man, is nakedness. Yet notwithstanding all the
dismal appearances, it is the common phrase of our upstart race of
people, who have suddenly sprang up like the dragon's teeth among us,
_That Ireland was never known to be so rich as it is now_; by which, as
I apprehend, they can only mean themselves, for they have skipped over
the channel from the vantage ground of a dunghill upon no other merit,
either visible or divineable, than that of not having been born among
us.
"This is the modern way of planting Colonies--Et ubi solitudinem
faciunt, id Imperium vocant. When those who are so unfortunate to be
born here, are excluded from the meanest preferments, and deemed
incapable of being entertained even as common soldiers, whose poor
stipend is but four pence a day. No trade, no emoluments, no
encouragement for learning among the natives, who yet by a perverse
consequence are divided into factions, with as much violence and
rancour, as if they had the wealth of the Indies to contend for. It puts
me in mind of a fable which I read in a monkish author. He quotes for it
one of the Greek mythologists that once upon a time a colony of large
dogs (called the Molossi) transplanted themselves from Epirus to Г†tolia,
where they seized those parts of the countries, most fertile in flesh of
all kinds, obliging the native dogs to retire from their best kennels,
to live under ditches and bushes, but to preserve good neighbourhood and
peace; and finding likewise, that the Г†tolian dogs might be of some use
in the low offices of life, they passed a decree, that the natives
should be entitled to the short ribs, tops of back, knuckle-bones, and
guts of all the game, which they were obliged by their masters to run
down. This condition was accepted, and what was a little singular, while
the Molossian dogs kept a good understanding among themselves, living in
peace and luxury, these Г†tolian curs were perpetually snarling,
growling, barking and tearing at each other's throats: Nay, sometimes
those of the best quality among them, were seen to quarrel with as much
rancour for a rotten gut, as if it had been a fat haunch of venison. But
what need we wonder at this in dogs, when the same is every day
practised among men?
"Last year I travelled from Dublin to Dundalk, through a country
esteemed the most fruitful part of the kingdom, and so nature intended
it. But no ornaments or improvements of such a scene were visible. No
habitation fit for gentlemen, no farmers' houses, few fields of corn,
and almost a bare face of nature, without new plantations of any kind,
only a few miserable cottages, at three or four miles' distance, and one
Church in the centre between this city and Drogheda. When I arrived at
this last town, the first mortifying sight was the ruins of several
churches, battered down by that usurper, Cromwell, whose fanatic zeal
made more desolation in a few days, than the piety of succeeding
prelates or the wealth of the town have, in more than sixty years,
attempted to repair.
"Perhaps the inhabitants, through a high strain of virtue, have, in
imitation of the Athenians, made a solemn resolution, never to rebuild
those sacred edifices, but rather leave them in ruins, as monuments, to
perpetuate the detestable memory of that hellish instrument of
rebellion, desolation, and murder. For the Athenians, when Mardonius had
ravaged a great part of Greece, took a formal oath at the Isthmus, to
lose their lives rather than their liberty, to stand by their leaders to
the last, to spare the cities of such barbarians as they conquered. And
what crowned all, the conclusion of their oath was, We will never repair
any of the Temples, which they have burned and destroyed, lest they may
appear to posterity as so many monuments of these wicked barbarians.
This was a glorious resolution; and I am sorry to think, that the
poverty of my countrymen will not let the world suppose, they have acted
upon such a generous principle; yet upon this occasion I cannot but
observe, that there is a fatality in some nations, to be fond of those
who have treated them with the least humanity. Thus I have often heard
the memory of Cromwell, who has depopulated, and almost wholly destroyed
this miserable country, celebrated like that of a saint, and at the same
time the sufferings of the royal martyr turned into ridicule, and his
murder justified even from the pulpit, and all this done with an intent
to gain favour, under a monarchy; which is a new strain of politics that
I shall not pretend to account for.
"Examine all the eastern towns of Ireland, and you will trace this
horrid instrument of destruction, in defacing of Churches, and
particularly in destroying whatever was ornamental, either within or
without them. We see in the several towns a very few houses scattered
among the ruins of thousands, which he laid level with their streets;
great numbers of castles, the country seats of gentlemen then in being,
still standing in ruin, habitations for bats, daws, and owls, without
the least repairs or succession of other buildings. Nor have the country
churches, as far as my eye could reach, met with any better treatment
from him, nine in ten of them lying among their graves and God only
knows when they are to have a resurrection. When I passed from Dundalk
where this cursed usurper's handy work is yet visible, I cast mine eyes
around from the top of a mountain, from whence I had a wide and a waste
prospect of several venerable ruins. It struck me with a melancholy, not
unlike that expressed by Cicero in one of his letters which being much
upon the like prospect, and concluding with a very necessary reflection
on the uncertainty of things in this world, I shall here insert a
translation of what he says: 'In my return from Asia, as I sailed from
Г†gina, towards Megara, I began to take a prospect of the several
countries round me. Behind me was Г†gina; before me Megara; on the right
hand the Piræus; and on the left was Corinth; which towns were formerly
in a most flourishing condition; now they lie prostrate and in ruin.
"'Thus I began to think with myself: Shall we who have but a trifling
existence, express any resentment, when one of us either dies a natural
death, or is slain, whose lives are necessarily of a short duration,
when at one view I beheld the carcases of so many great cities?' What if
he had seen the natives of those free republics, reduced to all the
miserable consequences of a conquered people, living without the common
defences against hunger and cold, rather appearing like spectres than
men? I am apt to think, that seeing his fellow creatures in ruin like
this, it would have put him past all patience for philosophic
reflection.
"As for my own part, I confess, that the sights and occurrences which I
had in this my last journey, so far transported me to a mixture of rage
and compassion, that I am not able to decide, which had the greater
influence upon my spirits; for this new cant, of a rich and flourishing
nation, was still uppermost in my thoughts; every mile I travelled,
giving me such ample demonstrations to the contrary. For this reason, I
have been at the pains to render a most exact and faithful account of
all the visible signs of riches, which I met with in sixty miles' riding
through the most public roads, and the best part of the kingdom. First,
as to trade, I met nine cars loaden with old musty, shrivelled hides;
one car-load of butter; four jockeys driving eight horses, all out of
case; one cow and calf driven by a man and his wife; six tattered
families flitting to be shipped off to the West Indies; a colony of a
hundred and fifty beggars, all repairing to people our metropolis, and
by encreasing the number of hands, to encrease its wealth, upon the old
maxim, that people are the riches of a nation, and therefore ten
thousand mouths, with hardly ten pair of hands, or hardly any work to
employ them, will infallibly make us a rich and flourishing people.
Secondly, Travellers enough, but seven in ten wanting shirts and
cravats; nine in ten going bare foot, and carrying their brogues and
stockings in their hands; one woman in twenty having a pillion, the rest
riding bare backed: Above two hundred horsemen, with four pair of boots
amongst them all; seventeen saddles of leather (the rest being made of
straw) and most of their garrons only shod before. I went into one of
the principal farmer's houses, out of curiosity, and his whole furniture
consisted of two blocks for stools, a bench on each side the fire-place
made of turf, six trenchers, one bowl, a pot, six horn spoons, three
noggins, three blankets, one of which served the man and maid servant;
the other the master of the family, his wife and five children; a small
churn, a wooden candlestick, a broken stick for a pair of tongs. In the
public towns, one third of the inhabitants walking the streets bare
foot; windows half built up with stone, to save the expense of glass,
the broken panes up and down supplied by brown paper, few being able to
afford white; in some places they were stopped with straw or hay.
Another mark of our riches, are the signs at the several inns upon the
road, viz. In some, a staff stuck in the thatch, with a turf at the end
of it; a staff in a dunghill with a white rag wrapped about the head; a
pole, where they can afford it, with a besom at the top; an oatmeal cake
on a board at the window; and, at the principal inns of the road, I have
observed the signs taken down and laid against the wall near the door,
being taken from their post to prevent the shaking of the house down by
the wind. In short, I saw not one single house, in the best town I
travelled through, which had not manifest appearances of beggary and
want. I could give many more instances of our wealth, but I hope these
will suffice for the end I propose.
"It may be objected, what use it is of to display the poverty of the
nation, in the manner I have done. I answer, I desire to know for what
ends, and by what persons, this new opinion of our flourishing state has
of late been so industriously advanced: One thing is certain, that the
advancers have either already found their own account, or have been
heartily promised, or at least have been entertained with hopes, by
seeing such an opinion pleasing to those who have it in their power to
reward.
"It is no doubt a very generous principle in any person to rejoice in
the felicities of a nation, where themselves are strangers or
sojourners: But if it be found that the same persons on all other
occasions express a hatred and contempt of the nation and people in
general, and hold it for a maxim--'That the more such a country is
humbled, the more their own will rise'; it need be no longer a secret,
why such an opinion, and the advantages of it are encouraged. And
besides, if the bayliff reports to his master, that the ox is fat and
strong, when in reality it can hardly carry its own legs, is it not
natural to think, that command will be given, for a greater load to be
put upon it?" [T. S.]
[21] This was a project for the establishment of a national bank for
Ireland. Swift ridiculed the proposal (see p. 31), no doubt, out of
suspicion of the acts of stock-jobbers and the monied interests which
were enlisted on the side of the Whigs. His experience, also, of the
abortive South Sea Schemes would tend to make his opposition all the
stronger. But the plans for the bank were not ill-conceived, and had
Swift been in calmer temper he might have seen the advantages which
attached to the proposals. [T. S.]
[22] Thus in original edition. In Faulkner and the "Miscellanies" of
1735 the words are, "altogether imaginary." [T. S.]
[23] The motto round a crown piece, which was the usual price of
permits. [_Orig. edit._]
[24] The Dean of St. Patrick's. [F.]
[25] Paul Lorrain, who was appointed ordinary of Newgate in 1698,
compiled numerous confessions and dying speeches of prisoners condemned
to be hanged. A letter to Swift, from Pope and Bolingbroke, dated
December, 1725, mentions him as "the great historiographer," and Steele,
in the "Tatler" and "Spectator," refers to "Lorrain's Saints." Lorrain
attended some famous criminals to the scaffold, including Captain Kidd
and Jack Sheppard. [T. S.]
[26] The following is an account of the proceedings of both the houses
of the Irish parliament upon the subject of this proposed bank.
In the year 1720, James, Earl of Abercorn, Gustavus, Viscount Boyne, Sir
Ralph Gore, Bart., Oliver St. George, and Michael Ward, Esqs., in behalf
of themselves and others, presented a petition to his Majesty for a
charter of incorporation, whereby they might be established as a bank,
under the name and title of the Bank of Ireland. They proposed to raise
a fund of ВЈ500,000 to supply merchants, etc., with money at five per
cent., and agreed to contribute ВЈ50,000 to the service of government in
consideration of their obtaining a charter. In their petition they
state, that "the raising of a million for that purpose is creating a
greater fund than the nation can employ." Soon after the above-mentioned
petition was lodged, a second application was made by Lord Forbes and
others, who proposed raising a million for that purpose, and offered to
discharge "the ВЈ50,000 national debt of that kingdom, in five years from
the time they should obtain a charter." The latter application, being
subsequent in point of date, was withdrawn, Lord Forbes and his friends
having acquainted the Lord-lieutenant that, "rather than, by a
competition, obstruct a proposal of so general advantage, they were
willing to desist from their application." The former was accordingly
approved of, and the King, on the 29th of July, 1721, issued letters of
Privy Seal, directing that a charter of incorporation should pass the
Great Seal of Ireland. ("Comm. Journ.," vol. iii, Appendix ix, page cc,
etc.)
When the parliament of Ireland met, on the 12th of September following,
the Duke of Grafton, lord lieutenant, in his speech from the throne,
communicated the intention of his Majesty to both houses, and concluded
by saying, "As this is a matter of general and national concern, his
Majesty leaves it to the wisdom of Parliament to consider what
advantages the public may receive by erecting a bank, and in what manner
it may be settled upon a safe foundation, so as to be beneficial to the
kingdom." The commons, in their address, which was voted unanimously on
the 14th, expressed their gratitude for his Majesty's goodness and royal
favour in directing a commission to establish a bank, and on the 21st
moved for the papers to be laid before them; they even, on the 29th,
agreed to the following resolution of the committee they had appointed,
"that the establishment of a bank upon a solid and good foundation,
under proper regulations and restrictions, will contribute to restoring
of credit, and support of the trade and manufacture of the kingdom;"
but, when the heads of a bill for establishing the bank came to be
discussed, a strenuous opposition was raised to it. On the 9th of
December Sir Thomas Taylor, chairman of the committee to whom the matter
had been referred, reported "that they had gone through the first
enacting paragraph, and disagreed to the same." Accordingly, the
question being proposed and put, the house (after a division, wherein
there appeared 150 for the question and 80 against it) voted that "they
could not find any safe foundation for establishing a public bank," and
resolved that an address, conformable to this resolution, should be
presented to the lord-lieutenant. (Comm. Journ., vol. iii, pp.
247-289.)
