Chapter 29

N. B. It being uncertain in what class to place the eight female subscribers, whether in that of nobility, gentry, &c. it is thought proper to insert them here betwixt the officers and traders.

_Traders._

{ Dublin 1 a Frenchman. Aldermen of { Cork 1 { Limerick 1 Waterford 0 Drogheda 0 &c. 0

Merchants 29, _viz._ 10 French, of London 1, of Cork 1, of Belfast 1.

N. B. The place of abode of three of the said merchants, _viz._ of London, Cork and Belfast, being mentioned, the publisher desires to know where the rest may be wrote to, and whether they deal in wholesale or retail, _viz._

Master dealers, &c. 59, cashiers 1, bankers 4, chemist 1, player 1, Popish vintner 1, bricklayer 1, chandler 1, doctors of physic 4, chirurgeons 2, pewterer 1, attorneys 4 (besides one esq. attorney before reckoned), Frenchmen 8, but whether pensioners, barbers, or markees, uncertain. As to the rest of the M----rs, the publisher of this paper, though he has used his utmost diligence, has not been able to get a satisfactory account either as to their country, trade or profession.

N. B. The total of men, women and children in Ireland, besides Frenchmen, is 2,000,000. Total of the land of Ireland acres 16,800,000. (Vide Reasons for a Bank, &c.)

Quære, How many of the said acres are in possession of 1 French baron, 1 French dean, 1 French curate, 1 French alderman, 10 French merchants, 8 Messieurs Frances, 1 esq. projector, 1 esq. attorney, 6 officers of the army, 8 women, 1 London merchant, 1 Cork merchant, 1 Belfast merchant, 18 merchants whose places of abode are not mentioned, 1 cashier, 4 bankers, 1 gentleman projector, 1 player, 1 chemist, 1 Popish vintner, 1 bricklayer, 1 chandler, 4 doctors of physic, 2 chirurgeons, 1 pewterer, 4 gentlemen attorneys, besides 28 gentleman dealers, yet unknown, _ut supra_?

Dublin: Printed by John Harding in Molesworth's Court, in Fishamble Street. (_Reprinted from original broadside, n.d._)

[29] In the capacity of a postillion, no doubt. [T. S.]

[30] Which means that she kept an eating-house or restaurant, and became eventually a bankrupt. [T. S.]

[31] The livery of a footman. [T. S.]

[32] As a constable. [T. S.]

[33] An innkeeper. [T. S.]

[34] This paragraph is printed as given by Faulkner in ed. 1735, vol. iv. [T. S.]

[35] See note on Paul Lorrain, p. 34. It was the duty of the Ordinary of a prison to compose such dying speeches. [T. S.]

[36] His parents were Dissenters, and gave him a good education. [T. S.]

[37] Sir Henry Craik remarks on this title: "In modern language this might well have been entitled, 'The theories of political economy proved to have no application to Ireland.'" The word "controlled" is used in the now obsolete sense of "confuted." [T. S.]

[38] Sir John Browne, in his "Scheme of the Money Matters of Ireland" (Dublin, 1729), calculated that the total currency, including paper, was about £914,000, but the author of "Considerations on Seasonable Remarks" stated that the entire currency could not be more than £600,000. Browne was no reliable authority; he is the writer to whom Swift wrote a reply. See p. 122. [T. S.]

[39] See "A Short View of the State of Ireland," p. 86. [T. S.]

[40] Lecky refers to a remarkable letter written by an Irish peer in the March of 1702, and preserved in the "Southwell Correspondence" in the British Museum, in which the writer complains that the money of the country is almost gone, and the poverty of the towns so great that it was feared the Court mourning for the death of William would be the final blow. (Lecky, vol. i., p. 181, 1892 ed.). [T. S.]

[41] Those of Charles II. and James II. in which, for political reasons on the part of the Crown, Ireland was peculiarly favoured. [S.]

[42] This was Dr. Nicholas Barbou, the friend of John Asgill and author of two works on trade and money. After the Great Fire of London he speculated largely in building, and greatly assisted in making city improvements. He was the founder of fire insurance in England and was active in land and bank speculations. He died in 1698, leaving a will directing that none of his debts should be paid. [T. S.]

[43] The beggars of Ireland are spoken of by Bishop Berkeley. But Arthur Dobbs, in the second part of his "Essay on Trade," published in 1731, gives a descriptive picture of the gangs who travelled over Ireland as professional paupers. In the 2,295 parishes, there was in each an average of at least ten beggars carrying on their trade the whole year round; the total number of these wandering paupers he puts down at over 34,000. Computing 30,000 of them able to work, and assuming that each beggar could earn _4d._ a day in a working year of 284 days, he calculates that their idleness is a loss to the nation of £142,000. (Pp. 444-445 of Thom's reprint; Dublin, 1861) [T. S.]

[44] See Swift's terrible satire on the "Modest Proposal for preventing Children of Poor People from being a burthen." [T. S.]

[45] A small country village about seven miles from Kells. [T. S.]

[46] Esther Johnson. [T. S.]

[47] Stella's companion and Swift's housekeeper. [T. S.]

[48] See Swift's "Directions to Servants." [T. S.]

[49] By Acts 18 Charles II c. 2, and 32 Charles II c. 2, enacted in 1665 and 1680, the importation into England from Ireland of all cattle, sheep, swine, beef, pork, bacon, mutton, cheese and butter, was absolutely prohibited. The land of Ireland being largely pasture land and England being the chief and nearest market, these laws practically destroyed the farming industry. The pernicious acts were passed on complaint from English land proprietors that the competition from Irish cattle had lowered their rents in England. "In this manner," says Lecky, "the chief source of Irish prosperity was annihilated at a single blow." [T. S.]

[50] The original Navigation Act treated Ireland on an equal footing with England. The act, however, was succeeded in 1663 by that of 15 Charles II c. 7, in which it was declared that no European articles, with few exceptions, could be imported into the colonies unless they had been loaded in English-built vessels at English ports. Nor could goods be brought from English colonies except to English ports. By the Acts 22 and 23 of Charles II. c. 26 the exclusion of Ireland was confirmed, and the Acts 7 and 8 of Will. III. c. 22, passed in 1696, actually prohibited any goods whatever from being imported to Ireland direct from the English colonies. These are the reasons for Swift's remark that Ireland's ports were of no more use to Ireland's people "than a beautiful prospect to a man shut up in a dungeon." [T. S.]

[51] See note on page 137 of vol. vi of this edition. "The Drapier's Letters." [T. S.]

[52] Lecky quotes from the MSS. in the British Museum, from a series of letters written by Bishop Nicholson, on his journey to Derry, to the Archbishop of Canterbury. The quotation illustrates the truth of Swift's remark. "Never did I behold," writes Nicholson, "even in Picardy, Westphalia, or Scotland, such dismal marks of hunger and want as appeared in the countenances of the poor creatures I met with on the road." In the "Intelligencer" (No. VI, 1728) Sheridan wrote: "The poor are sunk to the lowest degrees of misery and poverty--their houses dunghills, their victuals the blood of their cattle, or the herbs of the field." Of the condition of the country thirty years later, the most terrible of pictures is given by Burdy in his "Life of Skelton": "In 1757 a remarkable dearth prevailed in Ireland.... Mr. Skelton went out into the country to discover the real state of his poor, and travelled from cottage to cottage, over mountains, rocks, and heath.... In one cabin he found the people eating boiled prushia [a weed with a yellow flower that grows in cornfields] by itself for their breakfast, and tasted this sorry food, which seemed nauseous to him. Next morning he gave orders to have prushia gathered and boiled for his own breakfast, that he might live on the same sort of food with the poor. He ate this for one or two days; but at last his stomach turning against it, he set off immediately for Ballyshannon to buy oatmeal for them.... One day, when he was travelling in this manner through the country, he came to a lonely cottage in the mountains, where he found a poor woman lying in child-bed with a number of children about her. All she had, in her weak, helpless condition to keep herself and her children alive, was blood and sorrel boiled up together. The blood, her husband, who was a herdsman, took from the cattle of others under his care, for he had none of his own. This was a usual sort of food in that country in times of scarcity, for they bled the cows for that purpose, and thus the same cow often afforded both milk and blood.... They were obliged, when the carriers were bringing the meal to Pettigo, to guard it with their clubs, as the people of the adjacent parishes strove to take it by force, in which they sometimes succeeded, hunger making them desperate." (Burdy's Life of Skelton. "Works," vol. i, pp. lxxx-lxxxii.) [T. S.]

[53] See on this subject the agitation against Wood's halfpence in the volume dealing with "The Drapier's Letters." [T. S.]

[54] Faulkner and Scott print this word "irony," but the original edition has it as printed in the text. [T. S.]

[55] The original edition has this as "Island." Scott and the previous editors print it as in the text. Iceland is, no doubt, referred to. [T. S.]

[56] Bishop Nicholson, quoted by Lecky, speaks of the miserable hovels in which the people lived, and the almost complete absence of clothing. [T. S.]

[57] Hely Hutchinson, in his "Commercial Restraints of Ireland" (Dublin, 1779; new edit. 1888) points out that the scheme proposed by the government, and partly executed, by directing a commission under the great seal for receiving voluntary subscriptions in order to establish a bank, was a scheme to circulate paper without money. This and Wood's halfpence seem to have been the nearest approach made at the time for supplying what Swift here calls "the running cash of the nation." [T. S.]

[58] England.

[59] Scotland and Ireland.

[60] The Irish Sea.

[61] The Roman Wall.

[62] The Scottish Highlanders. [T. S]

[63] Charles I, who was delivered by the Scotch into the hands of the Parliamentary party. [T. S]

[64] See note to "A Short View of the State of Ireland." [T. S.]

[65] The King of England. [T. S.]

[66] The Lord-Lieutenant. [T. S.]

[67] The English Government filled all the important posts in Ireland with individuals sent over from England. See "Boulter's Letters" on this subject of the English rule. [T. S.]

[68] See notes to "A Short View of the State of Ireland," on the Navigation Acts and the acts against the exportation of cattle. [T. S.]

[69] The laws against woollen manufacture. [T. S.]

[70] Absentees and place-holders. [T. S.]

[71] The spirit of opposition and enmity to England, declared by the Scottish Act of Security, according to Swift's view of the relations between the countries, left no alternative but an union or a war. [S.]

[72] The Act of Union between England and Scotland. [T. S.]

[73] The reference here is to the linen manufactories of Ireland which were being encouraged by England. [T. S.]

[74] Swift here refers to the sentiment, largely predominant in Scotland, for the return of the Stuarts. [T. S.]

[75] Alliances with France. [T. S.]

[76] Alluding to the 33rd Henry VIII, providing that the King and his successors should be kings imperial of both kingdoms, on which the enemies of Irish independence founded their arguments against it. [S.] Scott cannot be correct in this note. The allusion is surely to the enactments known as Poyning's Law. See vol. vi., p. 77 (note) of this edition of Swift's works. [T. S.]

[77] Disturbances excited by the Scottish colonists in Ulster. [S.]

[78] The subjugation of Scotland by Cromwell. [S.]

[79] That is to say, to interpret Poyning's law in the spirit in which it was enacted, and give to Ireland the right to make its own laws. [T. S.]

[80] Free trade and the repeal of the Navigation Act. [T. S.]

[81] Office-holders should not be absentees. [T. S.]

[82] That the land laws of Ireland shall be free from interference by England, and the produce of the land free to be exported to any place. [T. S.]

[83] The laws prohibiting the importation of live cattle into England, and the restrictions as to the woollen industry, were the ruin of those who held land for grazing purposes. [T. S.]

[84] The Act of 10 and 11 William III., cap. 10, was the final blow to the woollen industry of Ireland. It was enacted in 1699, and prohibited the exportation of Irish wool to any other country. In the fifth letter of Hely Hutchinson's "Commercial Restraints of Ireland" (1779) will be found a full account of the passing of this Act and its consequences. [T. S.]

[85] Edward Waters and John Harding, the printers of Swift's pamphlets. See volume on "The Drapier's Letters." [T. S.]

[86] The text here given is that of the original manuscript in the Forster Collection at South Kensington, collated with that given by Deane Swift in vol. viii. of the 4to edition of 1765. [T. S.]

[87] The letter was written in reply to a letter received from Messrs. Truman and Layfield. [T. S.]

[88] Dr. William King, Archbishop of Dublin. [T. S.]

[89] Swift betrays here a lamentable knowledge of the geography of this part of America. Penn, however, may have known no better. [T. S.]

[90] William Burnet, at this time the Governor of Massachusetts, was the son of Swift's old enemy, Bishop Burnet. [T. S.]

[91] Burnet quarrelled with the Assembly of Massachusetts and New Hampshire because they would not allow him a fixed salary. The Assembly attempted to give him instead a fee on ships leaving Boston, but the English Government refused to allow this. [T. S.]

[92] The original MS. on which this text is based does not contain the passage here given in brackets. [T. S.]

[93] Swift is here supported by Arthur Dobbs, who in his "Essays on Trade," pt. ii. (1731) gives as one of the conditions prejudicial to trade, the luxury of living and extravagance in food, dress, furniture, and equipage by the Irish well-to-do. He describes it "as one of the principal sources of our national evils." His remedy was a tax on expensive dress, and rich equipage and furniture. [T. S.]

[94] The text of this tract is based on that given by Deane Swift in the eighth volume of his edition of Swift's works published in quarto in 1765. [T. S.]

[95] This refers to Whitshed. [T. S.]

[96] The Fourth. See vol. vi. of present edition. [T. S.]

[97] Some ten years after Swift wrote the above, the roads of Ireland were thought to be so good as to attract Whitefield's attention. Lecky quotes Arthur Young, who found Irish roads superior to those of England. (Lecky's "Ireland," vol. i., p. 330, 1892 ed.) [T. S.]

[98] Lecky (vol. i., pp. 333-335, 1892 edit.) gives a detailed account of the destruction of the fine woods in Ireland which occurred during the forty years that followed the Revolution. The melancholy sight of the denuded land drew the attention of a Parliamentary Commission appointed to inquire into the matter. The Act of 10 Will. III. 2, c. 12 ordered the planting of a certain number of trees in every county, "but," remarks Lecky, "it was insufficient to counteract the destruction which was due to the cupidity or the fears of the new proprietors." [T. S.]

[99] Swift always distinguished between the Irish "barbarians" and the Irish who were in reality English settlers in Ireland. Swift, for once, is in accord with the desires of the English Government, who wished to eradicate the Irish language. His friend the Archbishop of Dublin and his own college, that of Trinity, were in favour of keeping the language alive. (See Lecky's "Ireland," vol. i., pp. 331-332.) [T. S.]

[100] See Swift's "Proposal for the Universal Use of Irish Manufactures." [T. S.]

[101] See Swift's "Proposal for the Universal Use of Irish Manufactures." [T. S.]

[102] The text here given is that of Scott read by the "Miscellaneous Pieces" of 1789. The "Observations" were written, probably, in 1729. [T. S.]

[103] Monck Mason has an elaborate note on this subject ("Hist. of St. Patrick's Cathedral," pp. 320-321, ed. 1819), which is well worth reprinting here, since it is an excellent statement of facts, and is fully borne out by Hely Hutchinson's account in his "Commercial Restraints of Ireland," to which reference has already been made:

"In the year 1698 a bill was introduced into the English Parliament, grounded upon complaints, that the woollen manufacture in Ireland prejudiced the staple trade of England; the matter terminated at last in an address to the King, wherein the commons 'implored his majesty's protection and favour on this matter, and that he would make it his royal care, and enjoin all those whom he employed in Ireland, to use their utmost diligence, to hinder the exportation of wool from Ireland (except it be imported into England), and for the discouraging the woollen manufacture, and increasing the linen manufacture of Ireland.' Accordingly, on the 16th July, the King wrote a letter of instructions to the Earl of Galway, in which the following passage appears: 'The chief thing that must be tried to be prevented, is, that the Irish parliament takes no notice of what has passed in this here, and that you make effectual laws for the linen manufacture, and discourage as far as possible the woollen.'--The Earl of Galway and the other justices convened the parliament on the 27th of September; in their speech, they recommended a bill for the encouragement of the manufactures of linen and hemp, 'which,' say they, 'will be found more advantageous to this kingdom than the woollen manufacture, which, being the settled trade of England from whence all foreign markets are supplied, can never be encouraged here.' The house of commons so far concurred with the lords justices' sentiments as to say, in their address of thanks, that they would heartily endeavour to establish the linen manufacture, and to render the same useful to England, and 'we hope,' they add, 'to find such a temperament, with respect to the woollen trade here, that the same may not be injurious to England' ('Cont. Rapin's Hist.,' p. 376). 'And they did,' says Mr. Smith, 'so far come into a temperament in this case, as, hoping it would be accepted by way of compromise, to lay a high duty of ... upon all their woollen manufacture exported; under which, had England acquiesced, I am persuaded it would have been better for the kingdom in general. But the false notion of a possible monopoly, made the English deaf to all other terms of accommodation; by which means they lost the horse rather than quit the stable' ('Memoirs of Wool,' vol. ii., p. 30). The duties imposed by the Irish parliament, at this time, upon the export of manufactured wool, was four shillings on the value of twenty shillings of the old drapery, and two shillings upon the like value of the new, except friezes. But this concurrence of the people of Ireland seemed rather to heighten the jealousy between the two nations, by making the people of England imagine the manufactures of Ireland were arrived at a dangerous pitch of improvement, since they could be supposed capable of bearing so extravagant a duty: accordingly, in the next following year, the English parliament passed an Act (10-11 William III: cap. 10), that no person should export from Ireland wool or woollen goods, except to England or Wales, under high penalties, such goods to be shipped only from certain ports in Ireland, and to certain ports in England: But this was not the whole grievance; the old duties upon the import of those commodities, whether raw or manufactured, into Great Britain, were left in the same state as before, which amounted nearly to a prohibition; thus did the English, although they had not themselves any occasion for those commodities, prohibit, nevertheless, their being sent to any other nation.

"The discouragement of the woollen manufacture of Ireland, affected particularly the English settlers there, for the linen was entirely in the hands of the Scotch, who were established in Ulster, and the Irish natives had no share in either. It is stated in a pamphlet, entitled, 'A Discourse concerning Ireland, etc. in answer to the Exon and Barnstaple petitions,' printed 1697-8, that there were then, in the city and suburbs of Dublin, 12,000 English families, and throughout the nation, 50,000, who were bred to trades connected with the manufacture of wool, 'who could no more get their bread in the linen manufacture, than a London taylor by shoe-making.'

"Mr. Walter Scott says ('Life of Swift,' p. 278) that the Irish woollen manufacture produced an annual million, but this is not the fact; Mr. Dobbs in his 'Essay on the Trade of Ireland,' informs us, from the custom-house books, that in the year 1697 (which immediately preceded the year in which the address above-mentioned was transmitted to the king) the total value of Irish woollen exports, of all sorts, was only _£23,614 9s. 6d._, and in 1687, when they were at the highest, they did not exceed _£70,521 14s. 0d._ It moreover appears, that the greater part of these exports were of a sort which did not interfere with the trade of England, _£56,415 16s. 0d._ was in friezes, and _£2,520 18s. 0d._ coarse stockings, the rest consisted in serges and other stuffs of the new drapery, which affected not the trade of England generally, but only the particular interests of Exeter and its neighbourhood, and a very few other inconsiderable towns.

"But, whatever injury was intended, little prejudice was done to Ireland, except what followed immediately after the passing of this Act. It appears from Mr. Dobbs's pamphlet, that, a few years after, four times the quantity of woollen goods were shipped in each year, clandestinely, than had ever been exported, legally, before: moreover, the Irish vastly increased their manufactures for home consumption, and learned to make fine cloth from Spanish wool: it was only to England itself that any disadvantage redounded; many manufacturers who were unsettled by this measure, passed over to Germany, Spain, and to Rouen and other parts of France, 'from these beginnings they have, in many branches, so much improved the woollen manufactures of France, as to vie with the English in foreign markets.--Upon the whole, those nations may be justly said to have deprived Britain of millions since that time, instead of the thousands Ireland might possibly have made.'--What Mr. Dobbs has here asserted, relative to the removal of the manufacturers, has been confirmed by another tract, 'Letter from a Clothier a Member of Parliament,' printed in 1731, which informs us that, for some years after, the English seemed to engross all the woollen trade, 'but this appearance of benefit abated, as the foreign factories, raised on the ruin of the Irish, acquired strength': he shows too, that the importation of unmanufactured wool from Ireland to England had been gradually decreasing since that time, which was probably on account of the increase of the illicit trade to foreign parts, towards the encouragement of which the duties, or legal transportation, served to act as a bounty of 36 per cent. 'So true it is, that England can never fall into measures for unreasonably cramping the industry of the people of Ireland, without doing herself the greatest prejudice.'" (Note g, pp. 320-321). [T. S.]