Chapter 7

As to the first cause of a Nation's riches, being the fertility of the soil, as well as temperature of climate, we have no reason to complain; for although the quantity of unprofitable land in this Kingdom, reckoning bog, and rock, and barren mountain, be double in proportion to what it is in England, yet the native productions which both Kingdoms deal in, are very near on equality in point of goodness, and might with the same encouragement be as well manufactured. I except mines and minerals, in some of which however we are only defective in point of skill and industry.

In the second, which is the industry of the people, our misfortune is not altogether owing to our own fault, but to a million of discouragements.

The conveniency of ports and havens which Nature bestowed us so liberally is of no more use to us, than a beautiful prospect to a man shut up in a dungeon.

As to shipping of its own, this Kingdom is so utterly unprovided, that of all the excellent timber cut down within these fifty or sixty years, it can hardly be said that the Nation hath received the benefit of one valuable house to dwell in, or one ship to trade with.

Ireland is the only Kingdom I ever heard or read of, either in ancient or modern story, which was denied the liberty of exporting their native commodities and manufactures wherever they pleased, except to countries at war with their own Prince or State, yet this by the superiority of mere power is refused us in the most momentous parts of commerce,[49] besides an Act of Navigation to which we never consented, pinned down upon us, and rigorously executed,[50] and a thousand other unexampled circumstances as grievous as they are invidious to mention. To go unto the rest.

It is too well known that we are forced to obey some laws we never consented to, which is a condition I must not call by its true uncontroverted name for fear of my Lord Chief Justice Whitshed's ghost with his _Libertas et natale solum_, written as a motto on his coach, as it stood at the door of the court, while he was perjuring himself to betray both.[51] Thus, we are in the condition of patients who have physic sent them by doctors at a distance, strangers to their constitution, and the nature of their disease: And thus, we are forced to pay five hundred _per cent._ to divide our properties, in all which we have likewise the honour to be distinguished from the whole race of mankind.

As to improvement of land, those few who attempt that or planting, through covetousness or want of skill, generally leave things worse than they were, neither succeeding in trees nor hedges, and by running into the fancy of grazing after the manner of the Scythians, are every day depopulating the country.

We are so far from having a King to reside among us, that even the Viceroy is generally absent four-fifths of his time in the Government.

No strangers from other countries make this a part of their travels, where they can expect to see nothing but scenes of misery and desolation.[52]

Those who have the misfortune to be born here, have the least title to any considerable employment to which they are seldom preferred, but upon a political consideration.

One third part of the rents of Ireland is spent in England, which with the profit of employments, pensions, appeals, journeys of pleasure or health, education at the Inns of Court, and both Universities, remittances at pleasure, the pay of all superior officers in the army and other incidents, will amount to a full half of the income of the whole Kingdom, all clear profit to England.

We are denied the liberty of coining gold, silver, or even copper. In the Isle of Man, they coin their own silver, every petty Prince, vassal to the Emperor, can coin what money he pleaseth.[53] And in this as in most of the articles already mentioned, we are an exception to all other States or Monarchies that were ever known in the world.

As to the last, or fourteenth article, we take special care to act diametrically contrary to it in the whole course of our lives. Both sexes, but especially the women, despise and abhor to wear any of their own manufactures, even those which are better made than in other countries, particularly a sort of silk plaid, through which the workmen are forced to run a sort of gold thread that it may pass for Indian. Even ale and potatoes in great quantity are imported from England as well as corn, and our foreign trade is little more than importation of French wine, for which I am told we pay ready money.

Now if all this be true, upon which I could easily enlarge, I would be glad to know by what secret method it is that we grow a rich and flourishing people, without liberty, trade, manufactures, inhabitants, money, or the privilege of coining; without industry, labour or improvement of lands, and with more than half of the rent and profits of the whole Kingdom, annually exported, for which we receive not a single farthing: And to make up all this, nothing worth mentioning, except the linen of the North, a trade casual, corrupted, and at mercy, and some butter from Cork. If we do flourish, it must be against every law of Nature and Reason, like the thorn at Glastonbury, that blossoms in the midst of Winter.

Let the worthy Commissioners who come from England ride round the Kingdom, and observe the face of Nature, or the face of the natives, the improvement of the land, the thriving numerous plantations, the noble woods, the abundance and vicinity of country seats, the commodious farmers houses and barns, the towns and villages, where everybody is busy and thriving with all kind of manufactures, the shops full of goods wrought to perfection, and filled with customers, the comfortable diet and dress, and dwellings of the people, the vast numbers of ships in our harbours and docks, and shipwrights in our sea-port towns. The roads crowded with carriers laden with rich manufactures, the perpetual concourse to and fro of pompous equipages.

With what envy and admiration would these gentlemen return from so delightful a progress? What glorious reports would they make when they went back to England?

But my heart is too heavy to continue this journey[54] longer, for it is manifest that whatever stranger took such a journey, would be apt to think himself travelling in Lapland or Ysland,[55] rather than in a country so favoured by Nature as ours, both in fruitfulness of soil, and temperature of climate. The miserable dress, and diet, and dwelling of the people. The general desolation in most parts of the Kingdom. The old seats of the nobility and gentry all in ruins, and no new ones in their stead. The families of farmers who pay great rents, living in filth and nastiness upon butter-milk and potatoes, without a shoe or stocking to their feet, or a house so convenient as an English hog-sty to receive them.[56] These indeed may be comfortable sights to an English spectator, who comes for a short time only to learn the language, and returns back to his own country, whither he finds all our wealth transmitted.

_Nostrâ miseriâ magnus es._

There is not one argument used to prove the riches of Ireland, which is not a logical demonstration of its poverty. The rise of our rents is squeezed out of the very blood and vitals, and clothes, and dwellings of the tenants who live worse than English beggars. The lowness of interest, in all other countries a sign of wealth, is in us a proof of misery, there being no trade to employ any borrower. Hence alone comes the dearness of land, since the savers have no other way to lay out their money. Hence the dearness of necessaries for life, because the tenants cannot afford to pay such extravagant rates for land (which they must take, or go a-begging) without raising the price of cattle, and of corn, although they should live upon chaff. Hence our increase of buildings in this City, because workmen have nothing to do but employ one another, and one half of them are infallibly undone. Hence the daily increase of bankers, who may be a necessary evil in a trading country, but so ruinous in ours, who for their private advantage have sent away all our silver, and one third of our gold, so that within three years past the running cash of the Nation, which was about five hundred thousand pounds, is now less than two, and must daily diminish unless we have liberty to coin, as well as that important Kingdom the Isle of Man, and the meanest Prince in the German Empire, as I before observed.[57]

I have sometimes thought, that this paradox of the Kingdom growing rich, is chiefly owing to those worthy gentlemen the BANKERS, who, except some custom-house officers, birds of passage, oppressive thrifty squires, and a few others that shall be nameless, are the only thriving people among us: And I have often wished that a law were enacted to hang up half a dozen bankers every year, and thereby interpose at least some short delay, to the further ruin of Ireland.

"Ye are idle, ye are idle," answered Pharaoh to the Israelites, when they complained to his Majesty, that they were forced to make bricks without straw.

England enjoys every one of these advantages for enriching a Nation, which I have above enumerated, and into the bargain, a good million returned to them every year without labour or hazard, or one farthing value received on our side. But how long we shall be able to continue the payment, I am not under the least concern. One thing I know, that _when the hen is starved to death, there will be no more golden eggs_.

I think it a little unhospitable, and others may call it a subtile piece of malice, that, because there may be a dozen families in this Town, able to entertain their English friends in a generous manner at their tables, their guests upon their return to England, shall report that we wallow in riches and luxury.

Yet I confess I have known an hospital, where all the household officers grew rich, while the poor for whose sake it was built, were almost starving for want of food and raiment.

To conclude. If Ireland be a rich and flourishing Kingdom, its wealth and prosperity must be owing to certain causes, that are yet concealed from the whole race of mankind, and the effects are equally invisible. We need not wonder at strangers when they deliver such paradoxes, but a native and inhabitant of this Kingdom, who gives the same verdict, must be either ignorant to stupidity, or a man-pleaser at the expense of all honour, conscience and truth.

THE STORY

OF THE

INJURED LADY.

WRITTEN BY HERSELF.

AND

THE ANSWER TO THE

INJURED LADY.

NOTE.

Under the guises of a gentleman and two ladies, Swift represents England, Scotland, and Ireland--England being the gentleman and Scotland and Ireland the two mistresses for whom he is affecting an honourable love. The Injured Lady is Ireland, who represents her rival, Scotland, as unworthy of her lover's attention. She expatiates on her own attractions and upbraids him also on his treatment of her. This affords Swift an opportunity for some searching and telling criticism on England's conduct towards Ireland. The fiction is admirably maintained throughout the story.

In "The Answer to the Injured Lady" which follows "The Story," Swift takes it upon himself to give her proper advice for her future conduct towards her lover. In this advice he reiterates what he has always been saying to the people of Ireland, but formulates it in the language affected by the lady herself. He tells her that she should look to it that her "family and tenants have no dependence upon the said gentleman farther than by the old agreement [the Act of Henry VII], which obliges you to have the same steward, and to regulate your household by such methods as you should both agree to"; that she shall be free to carry her goods to any market she pleases; that she shall compel the servants to whom she pays wages to remain at home; and that if she make an agreement with a tenant, it shall not be in his power to break it. If she will only show a proper spirit, he assures her that there are gentlemen who would be glad of an occasion to support her in her resentment.

* * * * *

The text of both the tracts here given is based on that of the earliest edition I could find, namely, that of 1746, collated with that given by Faulkner.

[T. S.]

THE

STORY

OF THE

INJURED LADY.

Being a true PICTURE of SCOTCH Perfidy, IRISH Poverty, and ENGLISH Partiality.

WITH

LETTERS and POEMS

Never before Printed.

* * * * *

By the Rev. Dr. SWIFT, D. S. P. D.

* * * * *

_LONDON_,

Printed for M. COOPER, at the _Globe_ in

_Pater-Noster-Row_. MDCCXLVI.

[Price One Shilling.]

SIR,

Being ruined by the inconstancy and unkindness of a lover, I hope, a true and plain relation of my misfortunes may be of use and warning to credulous maids, never to put too much trust in deceitful men.

A gentleman[58] in the neighbourhood had two mistresses, another and myself;[59] and he pretended honourable love to us both. Our three houses stood pretty near one another; his was parted from mine by a river,[60] and from my rival's by an old broken wall.[61] But before I enter into the particulars of this gentleman's hard usage of me, I will give a very just impartial character of my rival and myself.

As to her person she is tall and lean, and very ill shaped; she hath bad features, and a worse complexion; she hath a stinking breath, and twenty ill smells about her besides; which are yet more insufferable by her natural sluttishness; for she is always lousy, and never without the itch. As to other qualities, she hath no reputation either for virtue, honesty, truth, or manners; and it is no wonder, considering what her education hath been. Scolding and cursing are her common conversation. To sum up all; she is poor and beggarly, and gets a sorry maintenance by pilfering wherever she comes. As for this gentleman who is now so fond of her, she still beareth him an invincible hatred; revileth him to his face, and raileth at him in all companies. Her house is frequented by a company of rogues and thieves, and pickpockets, whom she encourageth to rob his hen-roosts, steal his corn and cattle, and do him all manner of mischief.[62] She hath been known to come at the head of these rascals, and beat her lover until he was sore from head to foot, and then force him to pay for the trouble she was at. Once, attended with a crew of ragamuffins, she broke into his house, turned all things topsy-turvy, and then set it on fire. At the same time she told so many lies among his servants, that it set them all by the ears, and his poor _Steward_ was knocked on the head;[63] for which I think, and so doth all the Country, that she ought to be answerable. To conclude her character; she is of a different religion, being a Presbyterian of the most rank and virulent kind, and consequently having an inveterate hatred to the Church; yet, I am sure, I have been always told, that in marriage there ought to be an union of minds as well as of persons.

I will now give my own character, and shall do it in few words, and with modesty and truth.

I was reckoned to be as handsome as any in our neighbourhood, until I became pale and thin with grief and ill usage. I am still fair enough, and have, I think, no very ill feature about me. They that see me now will hardly allow me ever to have had any great share of beauty; for besides being so much altered, I go always mobbed and in an undress, as well out of neglect, as indeed for want of clothes to appear in. I might add to all this, that I was born to a good estate, although it now turneth to little account under the oppressions I endure, and hath been the true cause of all my misfortunes.[64]

Some years ago, this gentleman taking a fancy either to my person or fortune, made his addresses to me; which, being then young and foolish, I too readily admitted; he seemed to use me with so much tenderness, and his conversation was so very engaging, that all my constancy and virtue were too soon overcome; and, to dwell no longer upon a theme that causeth such bitter reflections, I must confess with shame, that I was undone by the common arts practised upon all easy credulous virgins, half by force, and half by consent, after solemn vows and protestations of marriage. When he had once got possession, he soon began to play the usual part of a too fortunate lover, affecting on all occasions to shew his authority, and to act like a conqueror. First, he found fault with the government of my family, which I grant, was none of the best, consisting of ignorant illiterate creatures; for at that time, I knew but little of the world. In compliance to him, therefore, I agreed to fall into his ways and methods of living; I consented that his steward[65] should govern my house, and have liberty to employ an under-steward,[66] who should receive his directions. My lover proceeded further, turning away several old servants and tenants, and supplying me with others from his own house. These grew so domineering and unreasonable, that there was no quiet, and I heard of nothing but perpetual quarrels, which although I could not possibly help, yet my lover laid all the blame and punishment upon me; and upon every falling out, still turned away more of my people, and supplied me in their stead with a number of fellows and dependents of his own, whom he had no other way to provide for.[67] Overcome by love and to avoid noise and contention, I yielded to all his usurpations, and finding it in vain to resist, I thought it my best policy to make my court to my new servants, and draw them to my interests; I fed them from my own table with the best I had, put my new tenants on the choice parts of my land, and treated them all so kindly, that they began to love me as well as their master. In process of time, all my old servants were gone, and I had not a creature about me, nor above one or two tenants but what were of his choosing; yet I had the good luck by gentle usage to bring over the greatest part of them to my side. When my lover observed this, he began to alter his language; and, to those who enquired about me, he would answer, that I was an old dependant upon his family, whom he had placed on some concerns of his own; and he began to use me accordingly, neglecting by degrees all common civility in his behaviour. I shall never forget the speech he made me one morning, which he delivered with all the gravity in the world. He put me in the mind of the vast obligations I lay under to him, in sending me so many of his people for my own good, and to teach me manners: That it had cost him ten times more than I was worth, to maintain me: That it had been much better for him, if I had been damned, or burnt, or sunk to the bottom of the sea: That it was but reasonable I should strain myself as far as I was able, to reimburse him some of his charges: That from henceforward he expected his word should be a law to me in all things: That I must maintain a parish-watch against thieves and robbers, and give salaries to an overseer, a constable, and others, all of his own choosing, whom he would send from time to time to be spies upon me: That to enable me the better in supporting these expenses, my tenants shall be obliged to carry all their goods cross the river to his town-market, and pay toll on both sides, and then sell them at half value.[68] But because we were a nasty sort of people, and that he could not endure to touch anything we had a hand in, and likewise, because he wanted work to employ his own folks, therefore we must send all our goods to his market just in their naturals;[69] the milk immediately from the cow without making it into cheese or butter; the corn in the ear, the grass as it is mowed; the wool as it cometh from the sheep's back, and bring the fruit upon the branch, that he might not be obliged to eat it after our filthy hands: That if a tenant carried but a piece of bread and cheese to eat by the way, or an inch of worsted to mend his stockings, he should forfeit his whole parcel: And because a company of rogues usually plied on the river between us, who often robbed my tenants of their goods and boats, he ordered a waterman of his to guard them, whose manner was to be out of the way until the poor wretches were plundered; then to overtake the thieves, and seize all as lawful prize to his master and himself. It would be endless to repeat a hundred other hardships he hath put upon me; but it is a general rule, that whenever he imagines the smallest advantage will redound to one of his footboys by any new oppression of me and my whole family and estate, he never disputeth it a moment. All this hath rendered me so very insignificant and contemptible at home, that some servants to whom I pay the greatest wages, and many tenants who have the most beneficial leases, are gone over to live with him; yet I am bound to continue their wages, and pay their rents;[70] by which means one third part of my whole income is spent on his estate, and above another third by his tolls and markets; and my poor tenants are so sunk and impoverished, that, instead of maintaining me suitably to my quality, they can hardly find me clothes to keep me warm, or provide the common necessaries of life for themselves.

Matters being in this posture between me and my lover; I received intelligence that he had been for some time making very pressing overtures of marriage to my rival, until there happened some misunderstandings between them; she gave him ill words, and threatened to break off all commerce with him. He, on the other side, having either acquired courage by his triumphs over me, or supposing her as tame a fool as I, thought at first to carry it with a high hand; but hearing at the same time, that she had thoughts of making some private proposals to join with me against him, and doubting, with very good reason, that I would readily accept them, he seemed very much disconcerted.[71] This I thought was a proper occasion to shew some great example of generosity and love, and so, without further consideration, I sent him word, that hearing there was likely to be a quarrel between him and my rival; notwithstanding all that had passed, and without binding him to any conditions in my own favour, I would stand by him against her and all the world, while I had a penny in my purse, or a petticoat to pawn. This message was subscribed by all my chief tenants; and proved so powerful, that my rival immediately grew more tractable upon it. The result of which was, that there is now a treaty of marriage concluded between them,[72] the wedding clothes are bought, and nothing remaineth but to perform the ceremony, which is put off for some days, because they design it to be a public wedding. And to reward my love, constancy, and generosity, he hath bestowed on me the office of being sempstress to his grooms and footmen, which I am forced to accept or starve.[73] Yet, in the midst of this my situation, I cannot but have some pity for this deluded man, to cast himself away on an infamous creature, who, whatever she pretendeth, I can prove, would at this very minute rather be a whore to a certain great man, that shall be nameless, if she might have her will.[74] For my part, I think, and so doth all the country too, that the man is possessed; at least none of us are able to imagine what he can possibly see in her, unless she hath bewitched him, or given him some powder.