If I am possessed of an hundred pounds a year, and by some misfortune it
sinks to fifty, without a possibility of ever being retrieved; does it
remain a question, in such an exigency, what I am to do? Must not I
retrench one-half in every article of expense, or retire to some cheap,
distant part of the country, where necessaries are at half value?
Is there any mortal who can shew me, under the circumstances we stand
with our neighbours, under their inclinations towards us, under laws
never to be repealed, under the desolation caused by absentees, under
many other circumstances not to be mentioned, that this kingdom can ever
be a nation of trade, or subsist by any other method than that of a
reduced family, by the utmost parsimony, in the manner I have already
prescribed?
I am tired with letters from many unreasonable, well-meaning people, who
are daily pressing me to deliver my thoughts in this deplorable
juncture, which, upon many others, I have so often done in vain. What
will it import, that half a score people in a coffee-house may happen to
read this paper, and even the majority of those few differ in every
sentiment from me? If the farmer be not allowed to sow his corn; if half
the little money among us be sent to pay rents to Irish absentees, and
the rest for foreign luxury and dress for the women, what will our
charitable dispositions avail, when there is nothing left to be given?
When, contrary to all custom and example, all necessaries of life are so
exorbitant; when money of all kinds was never known to be so scarce, so
that gentlemen of no contemptible estates are forced to retrench in
every article, (except what relates to their wives,) without being able
to shew any bounty to the poor?
AN ANSWER
TO SEVERAL LETTERS SENT ME FROM
UNKNOWN HANDS.[94]
WRITTEN IN THE YEAR 1729.
I am very well pleased with the good opinion you express of me; and wish
it were any way in my power to answer your expectations, for the service
of my country. I have carefully read your several schemes and proposals,
which you think should be offered to the Parliament. In answer, I will
assure you, that, in another place, I have known very good proposals
rejected with contempt by public assemblies, merely because they were
offered from without doors; and yours, perhaps, might have the same
fate, especially if handed into the public by me, who am not acquainted
with three members, nor have the least interest with one. My printers
have been twice prosecuted, to my great expense, on account of
discourses I writ for the public service, without the least reflection
on parties or persons; and the success I had in those of the Drapier,
was not owing to my abilities, but to a lucky juncture, when the fuel
was ready for the first hand that would be at the pains of kindling it.
It is true, both those envenomed prosecutions were the workmanship of a
judge, who is now gone _to his own place_.[95] But, let that be as it
will, I am determined, henceforth, never to be the instrument of leaving
an innocent man at the mercy of that bench.
It is certain there are several particulars relating to this kingdom (I
have mentioned a few of them in one of my Drapier's letters,[96]) which
it were heartily to be wished that the Parliament would take under
their consideration, such as will nowise interfere with England,
otherwise than to its advantage.
The first I shall mention, is touched at in a letter which I received
from one of you, gentlemen, about the highways; which, indeed, are
almost everywhere scandalously neglected. I know a very rich man in this
city, a true lover and saver of his money, who, being possessed of some
adjacent lands, hath been at great charge in repairing effectually the
roads that lead to them; and has assured me that his lands are thereby
advanced four or five shillings an acre, by which he gets treble
interest. But, generally speaking, all over the kingdom the roads are
deplorable; and, what is more particularly barbarous, there is no sort
of provision made for travellers on foot; no, not near this city, except
in a very few places, and in a most wretched manner: whereas the English
are so particularly careful in this point, that you may travel there an
hundred miles with less inconvenience than one mile here. But, since
this may be thought too great a reformation, I shall only speak of roads
for horses, carriages, and cattle.[97]
Ireland is, I think, computed to be one-third smaller than England; yet,
by some natural disadvantages, it would not bear quite the same
proportion in value, with the same encouragement. However, it hath so
happened, for many years past, that it never arrived to above
one-eleventh part in point of riches; and of late, by the continual
decrease of trade, and increase of absentees, with other circumstances
not here to be mentioned, hardly to a fifteenth part; at least, if my
calculations be right, which I doubt are a little too favourable on our
side.
Now, supposing day-labour to be cheaper by one half here than in
England, and our roads, by the nature of our carriages, and the
desolation of our country, to be not worn and beaten above one-eighth
part so much as those of England, which is a very moderate computation,
I do not see why the mending of them would be a greater burthen to this
kingdom than to that.
There have been, I believe, twenty acts of Parliament, in six or seven
years of the late King, for mending long tracts of impassable ways in
several counties of England, by erecting turnpikes, and receiving
passage-money, in a manner that everybody knows. If what I have advanced
be true, it would be hard to give a reason against the same practice
here; since the necessity is as great, the advantage, in proportion,
perhaps much greater, the materials of stone and gravel as easy to be
found, and the workmanship, at least, twice as cheap. Besides, the work
may be done gradually, with allowances for the poverty of the nation, by
so many perch a year; but with a special care to encourage skill and
diligence, and to prevent fraud in the undertakers, to which we are too
liable, and which are not always confined to those of the meaner sort:
but against these, no doubt, the wisdom of the nation may and will
provide.
Another evil, which, in my opinion, deserves the public care, is the ill
management of the bogs; the neglect whereof is a much greater mischief
to this kingdom than most people seem to be aware of.
It is allowed, indeed, by those who are esteemed most skilful in such
matters, that the red, swelling mossy bog, whereof we have so many large
tracts in this island, is not by any means to be fully reduced; but the
skirts, which are covered with a green coat, easily may, being not an
accretion, or annual growth of moss, like the other.
Now, the landlords are generally too careless that they suffer their
tenants to cut their turf in these skirts, as well as the bog adjoined;
whereby there is yearly lost a considerable quantity of land throughout
the kingdom, never to be recovered.
But this is not the greatest part of the mischief: for the main bog,
although, perhaps, not reducible to natural soil, yet, by continuing
large, deep, straight canals through the middle, cleaned at proper times
as low as the channel or gravel, would become a secure summer-pasture;
the margins might, with great profit and ornament, be filled with
quickens, birch, and other trees proper for such a soil, and the canals
be convenient for water-carriage of the turf, which is now drawn upon
sled-cars, with great expense, difficulty, and loss of time, by reason
of the many turf-pits scattered irregularly through the bog, wherein
great numbers of cattle are yearly drowned. And it hath been, I confess,
to me a matter of the greatest vexation, as well as wonder, to think how
any landlord could be so absurd as to suffer such havoc to be made.
All the acts for encouraging plantations of forest-trees are, I am told,
extremely defective;[98] which, with great submission, must have been
owing to a defect of skill in the contrivers of them. In this climate,
by the continual blowing of the west-south-west wind, hardly any tree of
value will come to perfection that is not planted in groves, except very
rarely, and where there is much land-shelter. I have not, indeed, read
all the acts; but, from enquiry, I cannot learn that the planting in
groves is enjoined. And as to the effects of these laws, I have not seen
the least, in many hundred miles riding, except about a very few
gentlemen's houses, and even those with very little skill or success. In
all the rest, the hedges generally miscarry, as well as the larger
slender twigs planted upon the tops of ditches, merely for want of
common skill and care.
I do not believe that a greater and quicker profit could be made, than
by planting large groves of ash a few feet asunder, which in seven years
would make the best kind of hop-poles, and grow in the same or less time
to a second crop from their roots.
It would likewise be of great use and beauty in our desert scenes, to
oblige all tenants and cottagers to plant ash or elm before their
cabins, and round their potato-gardens, where cattle either do not or
ought not to come to destroy them.
The common objections against all this, drawn from the laziness, the
perverseness, or thievish disposition, of the poor native Irish, might
be easily answered, by shewing the true reasons for such accusations,
and how easily those people may be brought to a less savage manner of
life: but my printers have already suffered too much for my
speculations. However, supposing the size of a native's understanding
just equal to that of a dog or horse, I have often seen those two
animals to be civilized by rewards, at least as much as by punishments.
It would be a noble achievement to abolish the Irish language in this
kingdom, so far at least as to oblige all the natives to speak only
English on every occasion of business, in shops, markets, fairs, and
other places of dealing: yet I am wholly deceived, if this might not be
effectually done in less than half an age, and at a very trifling
expense; for such I look upon a tax to be of only six thousand pounds a
year, to accomplish so great a work.[99] This would, in a great measure,
civilize the most barbarous among them, reconcile them to our customs
and manner of living, and reduce great numbers to the national religion,
whatever kind may then happen to be established. The method is plain and
simple; and although I am too desponding to produce it, yet I could
heartily wish some public thoughts were employed to reduce this
uncultivated people from that idle, savage, beastly, thievish manner of
life, in which they continue sunk to a degree, that it is almost
impossible for a country gentleman to find a servant of human capacity,
or the least tincture of natural honesty; or who does not live among his
own tenants in continual fear of having his plantations destroyed, his
cattle stolen, and his goods pilfered.
The love, affection, or vanity of living in England, continuing to carry
thither so many wealthy families, the consequences thereof, together
with the utter loss of all trade, except what is detrimental, which hath
forced such great numbers of weavers, and others, to seek their bread in
foreign countries; the unhappy practice of stocking such vast quantities
of land with sheep and other cattle, which reduceth twenty families to
one: these events, I say, have exceedingly depopulated this kingdom for
several years past. I should heartily wish, therefore, under this
miserable dearth of money, that those who are most concerned would think
it advisable to save a hundred thousand pounds a year, which is now sent
out of this kingdom, to feed us with corn. There is not an older or more
uncontroverted maxim in the politics of all wise nations, than that of
encouraging agriculture: and therefore, to what kind of wisdom a
practice so directly contrary among us may be reduced, I am by no means
a judge. If labour and people make the true riches of a nation, what
must be the issue where one part of the people are forced away, and the
other part have nothing to do?
If it should be thought proper by wiser heads, that his Majesty might be
applied to in a national way, for giving the kingdom leave to coin
halfpence for its own use, I believe no good subject will be under the
least apprehension that such a request could meet with refusal, or the
least delay. Perhaps we are the only kingdom upon earth, or that ever
was or will be upon earth, which did not enjoy that common right of
civil society, under the proper inspection of its prince or legislature,
to coin money of all usual metals for its own occasions. Every petty
prince in Germany, vassal to the Emperor, enjoys this privilege. And I
have seen in this kingdom several silver pieces, with the inscription of
CIVITAS WATERFORD, DROGHEDAGH, and other towns.
A LETTER
TO THE ARCHBISHOP OF DUBLIN,
CONCERNING THE WEAVERS.
WRITTEN IN THE YEAR 1729.
NOTE.
The archbishop to whom Swift wrote was Dr. William King, for many
years his friend. King was a fine patriot and had stood out
strongly against the imposition of Wood's Halfpence. In this
letter, so characteristic of Swift's attitude towards the condition
of Ireland, he aims at a practical and immediate relief. The causes
for this condition discussed so ably by Molesworth, Prior and Dobbs
in their various treatises are too academic for him. His "Proposal
for the Universal Use of Irish Manufacture" well illustrates the
kind of practical reform Swift insisted on. Yet the insistence was
more because of the spirit of independence such a course demanded.
To Swift there was no hope for Ireland without a radical change in
the spirit of its people. The change meant the assertion of
manliness, independence, and strength of character. How to attain
these, and how to make the people aware of their power, were always
Swift's aims. All his tracts are assertions of and dilations on
these themes. If the people were but to insist on wearing their own
manufactures, since they were prohibited from exporting them, they
would keep their money in the kingdom. Likewise, if they were to
deny themselves the indulgence in luxuries, they would not have to
send out their money to the countries from which these luxuries
were obtained. There were methods ready at hand, but the practice
in them would result in the cultivation of that respect for
themselves without which a nation is worse than a pauper and lower
than a slave.
* * * * *
The text of this edition is based on the original manuscript, and
collated with that of Scott's second edition of Swift's collected
works.
[T. S.]
A LETTER TO THE ARCHBISHOP OF DUBLIN, CONCERNING THE WEAVERS.
MY LORD,
The corporation of weavers in the woollen manufacture, who have so often
attended your Grace, and called upon me with their schemes and proposals
were with me on Thursday last, when he who spoke for the rest and in the
name of his absent brethren, said, "It was the opinion of the whole
body, that if somewhat were written at this time by an able hand to
persuade the people of the Kingdom to wear their own woollen
manufactures, it might be of good use to the Nation in general, and
preserve many hundreds of their trade from starving." To which I
answered, "That it was hard for any man of common spirit to turn his
thoughts to such speculations, without discovering a resentment which
people are too delicate to bear." For, I will not deny to your Grace,
that I cannot reflect on the singular condition of this Country,
different from all others upon the face of the Earth, without some
emotion, and without often examining as I pass the streets whether those
animals which come in my way with two legs and human faces, clad and
erect, be of the same species with what I have seen very like them in
England, as to the outward shape, but differing in their notions,
natures, and intellectuals, more than any two kinds of brutes in a
forest, which any men of common prudence would immediately discover, by
persuading them to define what they mean by law, liberty, property,
courage, reason, loyalty or religion.
One thing, my Lord, I am very confident of; that if God Almighty for
our sins would most justly send us a pestilence, whoever should dare to
discover his grief in public for such a visitation, would certainly be
censured for disaffection to the Government. For I solemnly profess,
that I do not know one calamity we have undergone this many years,
whereof any man whose opinions were not in fashion dared to lament
without being openly charged with that imputation. And this is the
harder, because although a mother when she hath corrected her child may
sometimes force it to kiss the rod, yet she will never give that power
to the footboy or the scullion.
My Lord, there are two things for the people of this Kingdom to
consider. First their present evil condition; and secondly what can be
done in some degree to remedy it.
I shall not enter into a particular description of our present misery;
It hath been already done in several papers, and very fully in one,
entitled, "A short View of the State of Ireland." It will be enough to
mention the entire want of trade, the Navigation Act executed with the
utmost rigour, the remission of a million every year to England, the
ruinous importation of foreign luxury and vanity, the oppression of
landlords, and discouragement of agriculture.
Now all these evils are without the possibility of a cure except that of
importations, and to fence against ruinous folly will be always in our
power in spite of the discouragements, mortifications, contempt, hatred,
and oppression we can lie under. But our trade will never mend, the
Navigation Act never be softened, our absentees never return, our
endless foreign payments never be lessened, or our landlords ever be
less exacting.
All other schemes for preserving this Kingdom from utter ruin are idle
and visionary, consequently drawn from wrong reasoning, and from general
topics which for the same causes that they may be true in all Nations
are certainly false in ours; as I have told the Public often enough, but
with as little effect as what I shall say at present is likely to
produce.
I am weary of so many abortive projects for the advancement of trade, of
so many crude proposals in letters sent me from unknown hands, of so
many contradictory speculations about raising or sinking the value of
gold and silver: I am not in the least sorry to hear of the great
numbers going to America, though very much so for the causes that drive
them from us, since the uncontrolled maxim, "That people are the riches
of a Nation," is no maxim here under our circumstances. We have neither
[manufactures] to employ them about, nor food to support them.
If a private gentleman's income be sunk irretrievably for ever from a
hundred pounds to fifty, and that he hath no other method to supply the
deficiency, I desire to know, my Lord, whether such a person hath any
other course to take than to sink half his expenses in every article of
economy, to save himself from ruin and the gaol. Is not this more than
doubly the case of Ireland, where the want of money, the irrecoverable
ruin of trade, with the other evils above mentioned, and many more too
well known and felt, and too numerous or invidious to relate, have been
gradually sinking us for above a dozen years past, to a degree that we
are at least by two thirds in a worse condition than was ever known
since the Revolution? Therefore instead of dreams and projects for the
advancing of trade, we have nothing left but to find out some expedient
whereby we may reduce our expenses to our incomes.
Yet this procedure, allowed so necessary in all private families, and in
its own nature so easy to be put in practice, may meet with strong
opposition by the cowardly slavish indulgence of the men to the
intolerable pride arrogance vanity and luxury of the women, who strictly
adhering to the rules of modern education seem to employ their whole
stock of invention in contriving new arts of profusion, faster than the
most parsimonious husband can afford; and to compass this work the more
effectually, their universal maxim is to despise and detest everything
of the growth and manufacture of their own country, and most to value
whatever comes from the very remotest parts of the globe. And I am
convinced, that if the virtuosi could once find out a world in the moon,
with a passage to it, our women would wear nothing but what came
directly from thence.[100]
The prime cost of wine yearly imported to Ireland is valued at thirty
thousand pounds, and the tea (including coffee and chocolate) at five
times that sum. The lace, silks, calicoes, and all other unnecessary
ornaments for women, including English cloths and stuffs, added to the
former articles, make up (to compute grossly), about four hundred
thousand pounds.
Now, if we should allow the thirty thousand pounds for wine, wherein the
women have their share, and which is all we have to comfort us, and
deduct seventy thousand pounds more for over-reckoning, there would
still remain three hundred thousand pounds, annually spent for
unwholesome drugs, and unnecessary finery. Which prodigious sum would be
wholly saved, and many thousands of our miserable shopkeepers and
manufacturers comfortably supported.
Let speculative people busy their brains as much as they please, there
is no other way to prevent this Kingdom from sinking for ever than by
utterly renouncing all foreign dress and luxury.
It is absolutely so in fact that every husband of any fortune in the
Kingdom is nourishing a poisonous, devouring serpent in his bosom with
all the mischief but with none of its wisdom.
If all the women were clad with the growth of their own Country, they
might still vie with each other in the cause of foppery, and still have
room left to vie with each other, and equally shew their wit and
judgment in deciding upon the variety of Irish stuffs; And if they could
be contented with their native wholesome slops for breakfast, we should
hear no more of their spleen, hysterics, colics, palpitations, and
asthmas. They might still be allowed to ruin each other and their
husbands at play, because the money lost would only circulate among
ourselves.
My Lord; I freely own it a wild imagination that any words will cure the
sottishness of men, or the vanity of women, but the Kingdom is in a fair
way of producing the most effectual remedy, when there will not be money
left for the common course of buying and selling the very necessaries of
life in our markets, unless we absolutely change the whole method of our
proceedings.
This Corporation of Weavers in Woollen and Silks, who have so frequently
offered proposals both to your Grace and to me, are the hottest and
coldest generation of men that I have known. About a month ago they
attended your Grace, when I had the honour to be with you, and designed
me then the same favour. They desired you would recommend to your clergy
to wear gowns of Irish stuffs, which might probably spread the example
among all their brethren in the Kingdom, and perhaps among the lawyers
and gentlemen of the University and among the citizens of those
Corporations who appear in gowns on solemn occasions. I then mentioned a
kind of stuff, not above eightpence a yard, which I heard had been
contrived by some of the trade and was very convenient. I desired they
would prepare some of that or any sort of black stuff on a certain day,
when your Grace would appoint as many clergymen as could readily be
found to meet at your Palace, and there give their opinions; and that
your Grace's visitations approaching you could then have the best
opportunity of seeing what could be done in a matter of such
consequence, as they seemed to think, to the woollen manufacture. But
instead of attending, as was expected, they came to me a fortnight
after, with a new proposal; that something should be writ by an
acceptable and able hand to promote in general the wearing of home
manufactures, and their civilities would seem to fix that work upon me.
I asked whether they had prepared the stuffs, as they had promised, and
your Grace expected; but they had not made the least step in the matter,
nor as it appears thought of it more.
I did some years ago propose to the masters and principal dealers in the
home manufactures of silk and wool, that they should meet together, and
after mature consideration, publish advertisements to the following
purpose.[101] That in order to encourage the wearing of Irish
manufactures in silk and woollen, they gave notice to the nobility and
gentry of the Kingdom, That they the undersigned would enter into bonds,
for themselves and for each other, to sell the several sorts of stuffs,
cloths and silks, made to the best perfection they were able, for
certain fixed prices, and in such a manner, that if a child were sent to
any of their shops, the buyer might be secure of the value and goodness,
and measure of the ware, and lest this might be thought to look like a
monopoly any other member of the trade might be admitted upon such
conditions as should be agreed on. And if any person whatsoever should
complain that he was ill used in the value or goodness of what he
bought, the matter should be examined, the person injured be fully
satisfied, by the whole corporation without delay, and the dishonest
seller be struck out of the society, unless it appeared evidently that
the failure proceeded only from mistake.
The mortal danger is, that if these dealers could prevail by the
goodness and cheapness of their cloths and stuffs to give a turn to the
principal people of Ireland in favour of their goods, they would relapse
into the knavish practice peculiar to this Kingdom, which is apt to run
through all trades even so low as a common ale-seller, who as soon as he
gets a vogue for his liquor, and outsells his neighbour, thinks his
credit will put off the worst he can buy; till his customers will come
no more. Thus I have known at London in a general mourning, the drapers
dye black all their old damaged goods, and sell them at double rates,
and then complain and petition the Court, that they are ready to starve
by the continuance of the mourning.
Therefore I say, those principal weavers who would enter in such a
compact as I have mentioned, must give sufficient security against all
such practices; for if once the women can persuade their husbands that
foreign goods besides the finery will be as cheap, and do more service,
our last state will be worse than the first.
I do not here pretend to digest perfectly the method by which these
principal shopkeepers shall proceed in such a proposal; but my meaning
is clear enough, and cannot reasonably be objected against.
We have seen what a destructive loss the Kingdom received by the
detestable fraud of the merchants, or Northern weavers, or both,
notwithstanding all the care of the Governers at that Board; the whole
trade with Spain for our linen, when we had an offer of commerce with
the Spaniards, to the value as I am told of three hundred thousand
pounds a year. But while we deal like pedlars, we shall practise like
pedlars; and sacrifice all honesty to the present urging advantage.
What I have said may serve as an answer to the desire made me by the
Corporation of Weavers, that I would offer my notions to the public. As
to anything further, let them apply themselves to the Parliament in
their next Session. Let them prevail in the House of Commons to grant
one very reasonable request: And I shall think there is still some
spirit left in the Nation, when I read a vote to this purpose:
"Resolved, _nemine contradicente_, That this House will, for the future,
wear no clothes but such as are made of Irish growth, or of Irish
manufacture, nor will permit their wives or children to wear any other;
and that they will to the utmost endeavour to prevail with their
friends, relations, dependants and tenants to follow their example." And
if at the same time they could banish tea and coffee, and china-ware,
out of their families, and force their wives to chat their scandal over
an infusion of sage, or other wholesome domestic vegetables, we might
possibly be able to subsist, and pay our absentees, pensioners,
generals, civil officers, appeals, colliers, temporary travellers,
students, schoolboys, splenetic visitors of Bath, Tunbridge, and Epsom,
with all other smaller drains, by sending our crude unwrought goods to
England, and receiving from thence and all other countries nothing but
what is fully manufactured, and keep a few potatoes and oatmeal for our
own subsistence.
I have been for a dozen years past wisely prognosticating the present
condition of this Kingdom, which any human creature of common sense
could foretell with as little sagacity as myself. My meaning is that a
consumptive body must needs die, which hath spent all its spirits and
received no nourishment. Yet I am often tempted to pity when I hear the
poor farmer and cottager lamenting the hardness of the times, and
imputing them either to one or two ill seasons, which better climates
than ours are more exposed to, or to the scarcity of silver which to a
Nation of Liberty would be only a slight and temporary inconveniency, to
be removed at a month's warning.
Ap., 1729.
OBSERVATIONS,
OCCASIONED BY READING A PAPER ENTITLED, "THE
CASE OF THE WOOLLEN MANUFACTURES
OF DUBLIN," ETC.[102]
The paper called "The Case of the Woollen Manufactures," &c. is very
well drawn up. The reasonings of the authors are just, the facts true,
and the consequences natural. But his censure of those seven vile
citizens, who import such a quantity of silk stuffs and woollen cloth
from England, is an hundred times gentler than enemies to their country
deserve; because I think no punishment in this world can be great enough
for them, without immediate repentance and amendment. But, after all,
the writer of that paper hath very lightly touched one point of the
greatest importance, and very poorly answered the main objection, that
the clothiers are defective both in the quality and quantity of their
goods.
For my own part, when I consider the several societies of handicraftsmen
in all kinds, as well as shopkeepers, in this city, after eighteen
years' experience of their dealings, I am at a loss to know in which of
these societies the most or least honesty is to be found. For instance,
when any trade comes first into my head, upon examination I determine it
exceeds all others in fraud. But after I have considered them all round,
as far as my knowledge or experience reacheth, I am at a loss to
determine, and to save trouble I put them all upon a par. This I chiefly
apply to those societies of men who get their livelihood by the labour
of their hands. For, as to shopkeepers, I cannot deny that I have found
some few honest men among them, taking the word honest in the largest
and most charitable sense. But as to handicraftsmen, although I shall
endeavour to believe it possible to find a fair dealer among their
clans, yet I confess it hath never been once my good fortune to employ
one single workman, who did not cheat me at all times to the utmost of
his power in the materials, the work, and the price. One universal maxim
I have constantly observed among them, that they would rather gain a
shilling by cheating you, than twenty in the honest way of dealing,
although they were sure to lose your custom, as well as that of others,
whom you might probably recommend to them.
This, I must own, is the natural consequence of poverty and oppression.
These wretched people catch at any thing to save them a minute longer
from drowning. Thus Ireland is the poorest of all civilized countries in
Europe, with every natural advantage to make it one of the richest.
As to the grand objection, which this writer slubbers over in so
careless a manner, because indeed it was impossible to find a
satisfactory answer, I mean the knavery of our woollen manufacturers in
general, I shall relate some facts, which I had more opportunities to
observe than usually fall in the way of men who are not of the trade.
For some years, the masters and wardens, with many of their principal
workmen and shopkeepers, came often to the Deanery to relate their
grievances, and to desire my advice as well as my assistance. What
reasons might move them to this proceeding, I leave to public
conjecture. The truth is, that the woollen manufacture of this kingdom
sate always nearest my heart. But the greatest difficulty lay in these
perpetual differences between the shopkeepers and workmen they employed.
Ten or a dozen of these latter often came to the Deanery with their
complaints, which I often repeated to the shopkeepers. As, that they
brought their prices too low for a poor weaver to get his bread by; and
instead of ready money for their labour on Saturdays, they gave them
only such a quantity of cloth or stuff, at the highest rate, which the
poor men were often forced to sell one-third below the rate, to supply
their urgent necessities. On the other side, the shopkeepers complained
of idleness, and want of skill, or care, or honesty, in their workmen;
and probably their accusations on both sides were just.
Whenever the weavers, in a body, came to me for advice, I gave it
freely, that they should contrive some way to bring their goods into
reputation; and give up that abominable principle of endeavouring to
thrive by imposing bad ware at high prices to their customers, whereby
no shopkeeper can reasonably expect to thrive. For, besides the dread of
God's anger, (which is a motive of small force among them,) they may be
sure that no buyer of common sense will return to the same shop where he
was once or twice defrauded. That gentlemen and ladies, when they found
nothing but deceit in the sale of Irish cloths and stuffs, would act as
they ought to do, both in prudence and resentment, in going to those
very bad citizens the writer mentions, and purchase English goods.
I went farther, and proposed that ten or a dozen of the most substantial
woollen-drapers should join in publishing an advertisement, signed with
their names to the following purpose:--That for the better encouragement
of all gentlemen, &c. the persons undernamed did bind themselves
mutually to sell their several cloths and stuffs, (naming each kind) at
the lowest rate, right merchantable goods, of such a breadth, which they
would warrant to be good according to the several prices; and that if a
child of ten years old were sent with money, and directions what cloth
or stuff to buy, he should not be wronged in any one article. And that
whoever should think himself ill-used in any of the said shops, he
should have his money again from the seller, or upon his refusal, from
the rest of the said subscribers, who, if they found the buyer
discontented with the cloth or stuff, should be obliged to refund the
money; and if the seller refused to repay them, and take his goods
again, should publicly advertise that they would answer for none of his
goods any more. This would be to establish credit, upon which all trade
dependeth.
I proposed this scheme several times to the corporation of weavers, as
well as to the manufacturers, when they came to apply for my advice at
the Deanery-house. I likewise went to the shops of several
woollen-drapers upon the same errand, but always in vain; for they
perpetually gave me the deaf ear, and avoided entering into discourse
upon that proposal: I suppose, because they thought it was in vain, and
that the spirit of fraud had gotten too deep and universal a possession
to be driven out by any arguments from interest, reason, or conscience.
THE
PRESENT MISERABLE STATE
OF
IRELAND.
NOTE.
The following tract was taken by Sir Walter Scott "from a little
miscellaneous 12mo volume of pamphlets, communicated by Mr.
Hartsonge, relating chiefly to Irish affairs, the property at one
time of Thomas Kingsbury, Esq., son of Dr. Kingsbury, who attended
Swift in his last illness." The present editor came across a
similar volume while on a visit of research in Dublin, among the
collection of books which belonged to the late Sir W. Gilbert, and
which were being catalogued for auction by the bookseller, Mr.
O'Donoghue. The little 12mo contained this tract which had, as Sir
W. Scott points out, a portrait of Swift at the end, on the recto
of the last leaf.
According to Sir W. Scott, the friend in Dublin to whom the letter
is supposed to be addressed, was Sir Robert Walpole. If Scott be
correct, and there seems little reason to doubt his conjecture, the
tract must have been written in the second half of the year 1726.
In the early part of that year Swift had an interview with Walpole.
Our knowledge of what transpired at that interview is obtained from
Swift's letter of April 28th, 1726, to Lord Peterborough; from
Swift's letter to Dr. Stopford of July 20th, 1726; from Pope's
letter to Swift of September 3rd, 1726; and from Swift's letter to
Lady Betty Germaine of January 8th, 1732/3. From these letters we
learn that Swift was really invited by Walpole to meet him. Swift's
visit to England concerned itself mainly with the publication of
"Gulliver's Travels," but Sir Henry Craik thinks that Swift had
other thoughts. "As regards politics," says this biographer, "he
was encouraged to hope that without loss either of honour or
consistency, it was open to him to make terms with the new powers.
In the end, the result proved that he either over-estimated his own
capacity of surrendering his independence, or under-estimated the
terms that would be exacted." This remark would leave it open for a
reader to conclude that Swift would, at a certain price, have been
ready to join Walpole and his party. But the letters referred to do
not in the least warrant such a conclusion. Swift's thought was for
Ireland, and had he been successful with Walpole in his pleading
for Ireland's cause that minister might have found an ally in
Swift; but the price to be paid was not to the man. From Swift's
letter to Peterborough we are at once introduced to Ireland's case,
and his point of view on this was so opposed to Walpole's
preconceived notions of how best to govern Ireland, as well as of
his settled plans, that Swift found, as he put it, that Walpole
"had conceived opinions ... which I could not reconcile to the
notions I had of liberty." Not at all of his own liberty, but of
that of the liberty of a nation; for, as he says (giving now the
quotation in full): "I had no other design in desiring to see Sir
Robert Walpole, than to represent the affairs of Ireland to him in
a true light, not only without any view to myself, but to any party
whatsoever ... I failed very much in my design; for I saw that he
had conceived opinions, _from the example and practices of the
present, and some former governors_, which I could not reconcile to
the notions I had of liberty." The part given here in italics is
omitted by Sir H. Craik in his quotation.
Swift saw Walpole twice--once at Walpole's invitation at a dinner
at Chelsea, and a second time at his own wish, expressed through
Lord Peterborough. At the first meeting nothing of politics could
be broached, as the encounter was a public one. The second meeting
was private and resulted in nothing. The letter to Peterborough was
written by Swift the day after he had seen Walpole, and
Peterborough was requested to show it to that minister. The letter
is so pertinent to the subject-matter of this volume that it is
printed here:
"_April 28th, 1726._
"SWIFT TO THE EARL OF PETERBOROUGH.
"MY LORD,
"Your lordship having, at my request, obtained for me an hour from
Sir Robert Walpole, I accordingly attended him yesterday at eight
o'clock in the morning, and had somewhat more than an hour's
conversation with him. Your lordship was this day pleased to
inquire what passed between that great minister and me; to which I
gave you some general answers, from whence you said you could
comprehend little or nothing.
"I had no other design in desiring to see Sir Robert Walpole, than
to represent the affairs of Ireland to him in a true light, not
only without any view to myself, but to any party whatsoever: and,
because I understood the affairs of that kingdom tolerably well,
and observed the representations he had received were such as I
could not agree to; my principal design was to set him right, not
only for the service of Ireland, but likewise of England, and of
his own administration.
"I failed very much in my design; for I saw he had conceived
opinions, from the example and practices of the present, and some
former governors, which I could not reconcile to the notions I had
of liberty, a possession always understood by the British nation to
be the inheritance of a human creature.
"Sir Robert Walpole was pleased to enlarge very much upon the
subject of Ireland, in a manner so alien from what I conceived to
be the rights and privileges of a subject of England, that I did
not think proper to debate the matter with him so much as I
otherwise might, because I found it would be in vain. I shall,
therefore, without entering into dispute, make bold to mention to
your lordship some few grievances of that kingdom, as it consists
of a people who, beside a natural right of enjoying the privileges
of subjects, have also a claim of merit from their extraordinary
loyalty to the present king and his family.
"First, That all persons born in Ireland are called and treated as
Irishmen, although their fathers and grandfathers were born in
England; and their predecessors having been conquerors of Ireland,
it is humbly considered they ought to be on as good a foot as any
subjects of Britain, according to the practice of all other
nations, and particularly of the Greeks and Romans.
"Secondly, That they are denied the natural liberty of exporting
their manufactures to any country which is not engaged in a war
with England.
"Thirdly, That whereas there is a university in Ireland, founded by
Queen Elizabeth, where youth are instructed with a much stricter
discipline than either in Oxford or Cambridge, it lies under the
greatest discouragements, by filling all the principal employments,
civil and ecclesiastical, with persons from England, who have
neither interest, property, acquaintance, nor alliance, in that
kingdom; contrary to the practice of all other states in Europe
which are governed by viceroys, at least what hath never been used
without the utmost discontents of the people.
"Fourthly, That several of the bishops sent over to Ireland, having
been clergymen of obscure condition, and without other distinction
than that of chaplains to the governors, do frequently invite over
their old acquaintances or kindred, to whom they bestow the best
preferment in their gift. The like may be said of the judges, who
take with them one or two dependants, to whom they give their
countenance; and who, consequently, without other merit, grow
immediately into the chief business of their courts. The same
practice is followed by all others in civil employments, if they
have a cousin, a valet, or footman in their family, born in
England.
"Fifthly, That all civil employments, granted in reversion, are
given to persons who reside in England.
"The people of Ireland, who are certainly the most loyal subjects
in the world, cannot but conceive that most of these hardships have
been the consequence of some unfortunate representations (at least)
in former times; and the whole body of the gentry feel the effects
in a very sensible part, being utterly destitute of all means to
make provision for their younger sons, either in the Church, the
law, the revenue, or (of late) in the army; and, in the desperate
condition of trade, it is equally vain to think of making them
merchants. All they have left is, at the expiration of leases, to
rack their tenants, which they have done to such a degree, that
there is not one farmer in a hundred through the kingdom who can
afford shoes or stockings to his children, or to eat flesh, or
drink anything better than sour milk or water, twice in a year; so
that the whole country, except the Scottish plantation in the
north, is a scene of misery and desolation hardly to be matched on
this side of Lapland.
"The rents of Ireland are computed to about a million and a half,
whereof one half million at least is spent by lords and gentlemen
residing in England, and by some other articles too long to
mention.
"About three hundred thousand pounds more are returned thither on
other accounts; and, upon the whole, those who are the best versed
in that kind of knowledge agree, that England gains annually by
Ireland a million at least, which even I could make appear beyond
all doubt.
"But, as this mighty profit would probably increase, with tolerable
treatment, to half a million more, so it must of necessity sink,
under the hardships that kingdom lies at present.
"And whereas Sir Robert Walpole was pleased to take notice, how
little the king gets by Ireland, it ought, perhaps to be
considered, that the revenues and taxes, I think, amount to above
four hundred thousand pounds a-year; and, reckoning the riches of
Ireland, compared with England, to be as one to twelve, the king's
revenues there would be equal to more than five millions here;
which, considering the bad payment of rents, from such miserable
creatures as most of the tenants in Ireland are, will be allowed to
be as much as such a kingdom can bear.
"The current coin of Ireland is reckoned, at most, but at five
hundred thousand pounds; so that above four-fifths are paid every
year into the exchequer.
"I think it manifest, that whatever circumstances could possibly
contribute to make a country poor and despicable, are all united
with respect to Ireland. The nation controlled by laws to which
they do not consent, disowned by their brethren and countrymen,
refused the liberty not only of trading with their own
manufactures, but even their native commodities, forced to seek for
justice many hundred miles by sea and land, rendered in a manner
incapable of serving their king and country in any employment of
honour, trust, or profit; and all this without the least demerit;
while the governors sent over thither can possibly have no
affection to the people, further than what is instilled into them
by their own justice and love of mankind, which do not always
operate; and whatever they please to represent hither is never
called in question.
"Whether the representatives of such a people, thus distressed and
laid in the dust, when they meet in a parliament, can do the public
business with that cheerfulness which might be expected from
free-born subjects, would be a question in any other country except
that unfortunate island; the English inhabitants whereof have given
more and greater examples of their loyalty and dutifulness, than
can be shown in any other part of the world.
"What part of these grievances may be thought proper to be
redressed by so wise and great a minister as Sir Robert Walpole, he
perhaps will please to consider; especially because they have been
all brought upon that kingdom since the Revolution; which, however,
is a blessing annually celebrated there with the greatest zeal and
sincerity.
"I most humbly entreat your lordship to give this paper to Sir
Robert Walpole, and desire him to read it, which he may do in a few
minutes. I am, with the greatest respect, my lord,
"Your lordship's
"most obedient and humble servant,
"JON. SWIFT."
Scott thinks that had Swift been anxious for personal favours from
Walpole he could easily have obtained them; "but the minister did
not choose to gain his adherence at the expense of sacrificing the
system which had hitherto guided England in her conduct towards the
sister kingdom, and the patriot of Ireland was not to be won at a
cheaper rate than the emancipation of his country."
The original pamphlet bears neither date nor printer's name.
[T. S.]
THE PRESENT MISERABLE STATE OF IRELAND.
SIR,
By the last packets I had the favour of yours, and am surprised that you
should apply to a person so ill qualified as I am, for a full and
impartial account of the state of our trade. I have always lived as
retired as possible; I have carefully avoided the perplexed honour of
city-offices; I have never minded anybody's business but my own; upon
all which accounts, and several others, you might easily have found
among my fellow-citizens, persons more capable to resolve the weighty
questions you put to me, than I can pretend to be.
