Chapter 9

TO SEVERAL LETTERS FROM UNKNOWN

PERSONS.[86]

WRITTEN IN THE YEAR 1729.

ANSWER TO SEVERAL LETTERS FROM UNKNOWN PERSONS.[87]

GENTLEMEN,

I am inclined to think that I received a letter from you two, last summer, directed to Dublin, while I was in the country, whither it was sent me; and I ordered an answer to it to be printed, but it seems it had little effect, and I suppose this will have not much more. But the heart of this people is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed. And, gentlemen, I am to tell you another thing: That the world is so regardless of what we write for the public good, that after we have delivered our thoughts, without any prospect of advantage, or of reputation, which latter is not to be had but by subscribing our names, we cannot prevail upon a printer to be at the charge of sending it into the world, unless we will be at all or half the expense; and although we are willing enough to bestow our labours, we think it unreasonable to be out of pocket; because it probably may not consist with the situation of our affairs.

I do very much approve your good intentions, and in a great measure your manner of declaring them; and I do imagine you intended that the world should not only know your sentiments, but my answer, which I shall impartially give.

That great prelate, to whose care you directed your letter, sent it to me this morning;[88] and I begin my answer to-night, not knowing what interruption I may meet with.

I have ordered your letter to be printed, as it ought to be, along with my answer; because I conceive it will be more acceptable and informing to the kingdom.

I shall therefore now go on to answer your letter in all manner of sincerity.

Although your letter be directed to me, yet I take myself to be only an imaginary person; for, although I conjecture I had formerly one from you, yet I never answered it otherwise than in print; neither was I at a loss to know the reasons why so many people of this kingdom were transporting themselves to America. And if this encouragement were owing to a pamphlet written, giving an account of the country of Pennsylvania, to tempt people to go thither, I do declare that those who were tempted, by such a narrative, to such a journey, were fools, and the author a most impudent knave; at least, if it be the same pamphlet I saw when it first came out, which is above 25 years ago, dedicated to Will Penn (whom by a mistake you call "Sir William Penn,") and styling him, by authority of the Scripture, "Most Noble Governor." For I was very well acquainted with Penn, and did, some years after, talk with him upon that pamphlet, and the impudence of the author, who spoke so many things in praise of the soil and climate, which Penn himself did absolutely contradict. For he did assure me that his country wanted the shelter of mountains, which left it open to the northern winds from Hudson's Bay and the Frozen Sea, which destroyed all plantations of trees, and was even pernicious to all common vegetables. But, indeed, New York, Virginia, and other parts less northward, or more defended by mountains, are described as excellent countries: but, upon what conditions of advantage foreigners go thither, I am yet to seek.[89]

What evils do our people avoid by running from hence, is easier to be determined. They conceive themselves to live under the tyranny of most cruel exacting landlords, who have no view further than increasing their rent-rolls. Secondly, you complain of the want of trade, whereof you seem not to know the reason. Thirdly, you lament most justly the money spent by absentees in England. Fourthly, you complain that your linen manufacture declines. Fifthly, that your tithe-collectors oppress you. Sixthly, that your children have no hopes of preferment in the church, the revenue, or the army; to which you might have added the law, and all civil employments whatsoever. Seventhly, you are undone for silver, and want all other money.

I could easily add some other motives, which, to men of spirit, who desire and expect, and think they deserve the common privileges of human nature, would be of more force, than any you have yet named, to drive them out of this kingdom. But, as these speculations may probably not much affect the brains of your people, I shall choose to let them pass unmentioned. Yet I cannot but observe, that my very good and virtuous friend, his excellency Burnet, (_O fili, nec tali indigne parente!_)[90] hath not hitherto been able to persuade his vassals, by his oratory in the style of a command, to settle a revenue on his viceroyal person.[91] I have been likewise assured, that in one of those colonies on the continent, which nature hath so far favoured, as (by the industry of the inhabitants) to produce a great quantity of excellent rice, the stubbornness of the people, who having been told that the world is wide, took it into their heads that they might sell their own rice at whatever foreign markets they pleased, and seem, by their practice, very unwilling to quit that opinion.

But, to return to my subject: I must confess to you both, that if one reason of your people's deserting us be, the despair of things growing better in their own country, I have not one syllable to answer; because that would be to hope for what is impossible; and so I have been telling the public these ten years. For there are three events which must precede any such blessing: First, a liberty of trade; secondly, a share of preferments in all kinds, to the British natives; and thirdly, a return of those absentees, who take almost one half of the kingdom's revenues. As to the first, there is nothing left us but despair; and for the third, it will never happen till the kingdom hath no money to send them; for which, in my own particular, I should not be sorry.

The exaction of landlords hath indeed been a grievance of above twenty years' standing. But as to what you object about the severe clauses relating to improvement, the fault lies wholly on the other side: for the landlords, either by their ignorance, or greediness of making large rent-rolls, have performed this matter so ill, as we see by experience, that there is not one tenant in five hundred who hath made any improvement worth mentioning. For which I appeal to any man who rides through the kingdom, where little is to be found among the tenants but beggary and desolation; the cabins of the Scotch themselves, in Ulster, being as dirty and miserable as those of the wildest Irish. Whereas good firm penal clauses for improvement, with a tolerable easy rent, and a reasonable period of time, would, in twenty years, have increased the rents of Ireland at least a third part in the intrinsic value.

I am glad to hear you speak with some decency of the clergy, and to impute the exactions you lament to the managers or farmers of the tithes. But you entirely mistake the fact; for I defy the most wicked and most powerful clergymen in the kingdom to oppress the meanest farmer in the parish; and I likewise defy the same clergyman to prevent himself from being cheated by the same farmer, whenever that farmer shall be disposed to be knavish or peevish. For, although the Ulster tithing-teller is more advantageous to the clergy than any other in the kingdom, yet the minister can demand no more than his tenth; and where the corn much exceeds the small tithes, as, except in some districts, I am told it always doth, he is at the mercy of every stubborn farmer, especially of those whose sect as well as interest incline them to opposition. However, I take it that your people bent for America do not shew the best part of their prudence in making this one part of their complaint: yet they are so far wise, as not to make the payment of tithes a scruple of conscience, which is too gross for any Protestant dissenter, except a Quaker, to pretend. But do your people indeed think, that if tithes were abolished, or delivered into the hands of the landlord, after the blessed manner in the Scotch spiritual economy, that the tenant would sit easier in his rent under the same person, who must be lord of the soil and of the tithe together?

I am ready enough to grant, that the oppression of landlords, the utter ruin of trade, with its necessary consequence the want of money, half the revenues of the kingdom spent abroad, the continued dearth of three years, and the strong delusion in your people by false allurement from America, may be the chief motives of their eagerness after such an expedition. [But there is likewise another temptation, which is not of inconsiderable weight; which is their itch of living in a country where their sect is predominant, and where their eyes and consciences would not be offended by the stumbling-block of ceremonies, habits, and spiritual titles.[92]]

But I was surprised to find that those calamities, whereof we are innocent, have been sufficient to drive many families out of their country, who had no reason to complain of oppressive landlords. For, while I was last year in the northern parts, a person of quality, whose estate was let above 20 years ago, and then at a very reasonable rent, some for leases of lives, and some perpetuities, did, in a few months, purchase eleven of those leases at a very inconsiderable price, although they were, two years ago, reckoned to pay but half value. From whence it is manifest, that our present miserable condition, and the dismal prospect of worse, with other reasons above assigned, are sufficient to put men upon trying this desperate experiment, of changing the scene they are in, although landlords should, by a miracle, become less inhuman.

There is hardly a scheme proposed for improving the trade of this kingdom, which doth not manifestly shew the stupidity and ignorance of the proposer; and I laugh with contempt at those weak wise heads, who proceed upon general maxims, or advise us to follow the examples of Holland and England. These empirics talk by rote, without understanding the constitution of the kingdom: as if a physician, knowing that exercise contributed much to health, should prescribe to his patient under a severe fit of the gout, to walk ten miles every morning. The directions for Ireland are very short and plain; to encourage agriculture and home consumption, and utterly discard all importations which are not absolutely necessary for health or life. And how few necessities, conveniences, or even comforts of life, are denied us by nature, or not to be attained by labour and industry! Are those detestable extravagancies of Flanders lace, English cloths of our own wool, and other goods, Italian or Indian silks, tea, coffee, chocolate, china-ware, and that profusion of wines, by the knavery of merchants growing dearer every season, with a hundred unnecessary fopperies, better known to others than me; are these, I say, fit for us, any more than for the beggar who could not eat his veal without oranges? Is it not the highest indignity to human nature, that men should be such poltroons as to suffer the kingdom and themselves to be undone, by the vanity, the folly, the pride, and wantonness of their wives,[93] who, under their present corruptions, seem to be a kind of animal, suffered, for our sins, to be sent into the world for the destruction of families, societies, and kingdoms; and whose whole study seems directed to be as expensive as they possibly can, in every useless article of living; who, by long practice, can reconcile the most pernicious foreign drugs to their health and pleasure, provided they are but expensive, as starlings grow fat with henbane; who contract a robustness by mere practice of sloth and luxury; who can play deep several hours after midnight, sleep beyond noon, revel upon Indian poisons, and spend the revenue of a moderate family to adorn a nauseous, unwholesome living carcase? Let those few who are not concerned in any part of this accusation, suppose it unsaid; let the rest take it among them. Gracious God, in His mercy, look down upon a nation so shamefully besotted!

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.