Chapter 27

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.]