Part 28

[14] The Dublin edition of this pamphlet has a note stating that Cotter was a gentleman of Cork who was executed for committing a rape on a Quaker. [T. S.]

[15] Said to be Colonel Bladon (1680-1746), who translated the Commentaries of Cæsar. He was a dependant of the Duke of Marlborough, to whom he dedicated this translation. [T. S.]

[16] Lord Grimston. William Luckyn, first Viscount Grimston (1683-1756), was created an Irish peer with the title Baron Dunboyne in 1719. The full title of the play to which Swift refers, is "The Lawyer's Fortune, or, Love in a Hollow Tree." It was published in 1705. Swift refers to Grimston in his verses "On Poetry, a Rhapsody." Pope, in one of his satires, calls him "booby lord." Grimston withdrew his play from circulation after the second edition, but it was reprinted in Rotterdam in 1728 and in London in 1736. Dr. Johnson told Chesterfield a story which made the Duchess of Marlborough responsible for this London reprint, which had for frontispiece the picture of an ass wearing a coronet. [T. S.]

[17] The original edition prints "ministers" instead of "chief governors." [T. S.]

[18] In 1720 Bishop Nicholson of Derry, writing to the Archbishop of Canterbury, describes the wretched condition of the towns and the country districts, and the misery of their population:

"Our trade of all kind is at a stand, insomuch as that our most eminent merchants, who used to pay bills of _1,000l._ at sight, are hardly able to raise _100l._ in so many days. Spindles of yarn (our daily bread) are fallen from _2s. 6d._ to _15d._, and everything also in proportion. Our best beef (as good as I ever ate in England) is sold under _3/4d._ a pound, and all this not from any extraordinary plenty of commodities, but from a perfect dearth of money. Never did I behold even in Picardy, Westphalia, or Scotland, such dismal marks of hunger and want as appeared in the countenances of most of the poor creatures I met with on the road." (Brit. Mus. Add. MSS. 6116, quoted by Lecky.) [T. S.]

[19] The "absentee" landlord was an evil to Ireland on which much has been written. It was difficult to keep the country in order when the landed proprietors took so little interest in their possessions as to do nothing but exact rents from their tenants and spend the money so obtained in England. Two, and even three, hundred years before Swift's day "absenteeism" had been the cause of much of the rebellion in Ireland which harassed the English monarchs, who endeavoured to put a stop to the evil by confiscating the estates of such landlords. Acts were passed by Richard II. and Henry VIII. to this effect; but in later times, the statutes were ignored and not enforced, and the Irish landlord, in endeavours to obtain for himself social recognition and standing in England which, because of his Irish origin, were denied him, remained in England indulging himself in lavish expenditure and display. The consequences of this were the impoverishment of his estates and their eventual management by rack-renters. These rack-renters, whose only interest lay in squeezing money out of the impoverished tenants, became the bane of the agricultural holder.

Unfortunately, the spirit of "absenteeism" extended itself to the holders of offices in Ireland, and even the lord-lieutenant rarely took up his residence in Dublin for any time longer than necessitated by the immediate demands of his installation and speech-making, although he drew his emoluments from the Irish revenues. In the "List of Absentees" instances are given where men appointed to Irish offices would land on Saturday night, receive the sacrament on Sunday, take the oath in court on Monday morning, and be on their way back to England by Monday afternoon.

It has been calculated that out of a total rental of £1,800,000, as much as 33-1/3 per cent. was sent out of the country. [T. S.]

[20] Sheridan, in the sixth number of "The Intelligencer," contributes an account of the state of Ireland, written to the text, "O patria! O divûm domus!"

"When I travel through any part of this unhappy kingdom, and I have now by several excursions made from Dublin, gone through most counties of it, it raises two passions in my breast of a different kind; an indignation against those vile betrayers and insulters of it, who insinuate themselves into favour, by saying, it is a rich nation; and a sincere passion for the natives, who are sunk to the lowest degree of misery and poverty, whose houses are dunghills, whose victuals are the blood of their cattle, or the herbs in the field; and whose clothing, to the dishonour of God and man, is nakedness. Yet notwithstanding all the dismal appearances, it is the common phrase of our upstart race of people, who have suddenly sprang up like the dragon's teeth among us, _That Ireland was never known to be so rich as it is now_; by which, as I apprehend, they can only mean themselves, for they have skipped over the channel from the vantage ground of a dunghill upon no other merit, either visible or divineable, than that of not having been born among us.

"This is the modern way of planting Colonies--Et ubi solitudinem faciunt, id Imperium vocant. When those who are so unfortunate to be born here, are excluded from the meanest preferments, and deemed incapable of being entertained even as common soldiers, whose poor stipend is but four pence a day. No trade, no emoluments, no encouragement for learning among the natives, who yet by a perverse consequence are divided into factions, with as much violence and rancour, as if they had the wealth of the Indies to contend for. It puts me in mind of a fable which I read in a monkish author. He quotes for it one of the Greek mythologists that once upon a time a colony of large dogs (called the Molossi) transplanted themselves from Epirus to Ætolia, where they seized those parts of the countries, most fertile in flesh of all kinds, obliging the native dogs to retire from their best kennels, to live under ditches and bushes, but to preserve good neighbourhood and peace; and finding likewise, that the Ætolian dogs might be of some use in the low offices of life, they passed a decree, that the natives should be entitled to the short ribs, tops of back, knuckle-bones, and guts of all the game, which they were obliged by their masters to run down. This condition was accepted, and what was a little singular, while the Molossian dogs kept a good understanding among themselves, living in peace and luxury, these Ætolian curs were perpetually snarling, growling, barking and tearing at each other's throats: Nay, sometimes those of the best quality among them, were seen to quarrel with as much rancour for a rotten gut, as if it had been a fat haunch of venison. But what need we wonder at this in dogs, when the same is every day practised among men?

"Last year I travelled from Dublin to Dundalk, through a country esteemed the most fruitful part of the kingdom, and so nature intended it. But no ornaments or improvements of such a scene were visible. No habitation fit for gentlemen, no farmers' houses, few fields of corn, and almost a bare face of nature, without new plantations of any kind, only a few miserable cottages, at three or four miles' distance, and one Church in the centre between this city and Drogheda. When I arrived at this last town, the first mortifying sight was the ruins of several churches, battered down by that usurper, Cromwell, whose fanatic zeal made more desolation in a few days, than the piety of succeeding prelates or the wealth of the town have, in more than sixty years, attempted to repair.

"Perhaps the inhabitants, through a high strain of virtue, have, in imitation of the Athenians, made a solemn resolution, never to rebuild those sacred edifices, but rather leave them in ruins, as monuments, to perpetuate the detestable memory of that hellish instrument of rebellion, desolation, and murder. For the Athenians, when Mardonius had ravaged a great part of Greece, took a formal oath at the Isthmus, to lose their lives rather than their liberty, to stand by their leaders to the last, to spare the cities of such barbarians as they conquered. And what crowned all, the conclusion of their oath was, We will never repair any of the Temples, which they have burned and destroyed, lest they may appear to posterity as so many monuments of these wicked barbarians. This was a glorious resolution; and I am sorry to think, that the poverty of my countrymen will not let the world suppose, they have acted upon such a generous principle; yet upon this occasion I cannot but observe, that there is a fatality in some nations, to be fond of those who have treated them with the least humanity. Thus I have often heard the memory of Cromwell, who has depopulated, and almost wholly destroyed this miserable country, celebrated like that of a saint, and at the same time the sufferings of the royal martyr turned into ridicule, and his murder justified even from the pulpit, and all this done with an intent to gain favour, under a monarchy; which is a new strain of politics that I shall not pretend to account for.

"Examine all the eastern towns of Ireland, and you will trace this horrid instrument of destruction, in defacing of Churches, and particularly in destroying whatever was ornamental, either within or without them. We see in the several towns a very few houses scattered among the ruins of thousands, which he laid level with their streets; great numbers of castles, the country seats of gentlemen then in being, still standing in ruin, habitations for bats, daws, and owls, without the least repairs or succession of other buildings. Nor have the country churches, as far as my eye could reach, met with any better treatment from him, nine in ten of them lying among their graves and God only knows when they are to have a resurrection. When I passed from Dundalk where this cursed usurper's handy work is yet visible, I cast mine eyes around from the top of a mountain, from whence I had a wide and a waste prospect of several venerable ruins. It struck me with a melancholy, not unlike that expressed by Cicero in one of his letters which being much upon the like prospect, and concluding with a very necessary reflection on the uncertainty of things in this world, I shall here insert a translation of what he says: 'In my return from Asia, as I sailed from Ægina, towards Megara, I began to take a prospect of the several countries round me. Behind me was Ægina; before me Megara; on the right hand the Piræus; and on the left was Corinth; which towns were formerly in a most flourishing condition; now they lie prostrate and in ruin.

"'Thus I began to think with myself: Shall we who have but a trifling existence, express any resentment, when one of us either dies a natural death, or is slain, whose lives are necessarily of a short duration, when at one view I beheld the carcases of so many great cities?' What if he had seen the natives of those free republics, reduced to all the miserable consequences of a conquered people, living without the common defences against hunger and cold, rather appearing like spectres than men? I am apt to think, that seeing his fellow creatures in ruin like this, it would have put him past all patience for philosophic reflection.

"As for my own part, I confess, that the sights and occurrences which I had in this my last journey, so far transported me to a mixture of rage and compassion, that I am not able to decide, which had the greater influence upon my spirits; for this new cant, of a rich and flourishing nation, was still uppermost in my thoughts; every mile I travelled, giving me such ample demonstrations to the contrary. For this reason, I have been at the pains to render a most exact and faithful account of all the visible signs of riches, which I met with in sixty miles' riding through the most public roads, and the best part of the kingdom. First, as to trade, I met nine cars loaden with old musty, shrivelled hides; one car-load of butter; four jockeys driving eight horses, all out of case; one cow and calf driven by a man and his wife; six tattered families flitting to be shipped off to the West Indies; a colony of a hundred and fifty beggars, all repairing to people our metropolis, and by encreasing the number of hands, to encrease its wealth, upon the old maxim, that people are the riches of a nation, and therefore ten thousand mouths, with hardly ten pair of hands, or hardly any work to employ them, will infallibly make us a rich and flourishing people. Secondly, Travellers enough, but seven in ten wanting shirts and cravats; nine in ten going bare foot, and carrying their brogues and stockings in their hands; one woman in twenty having a pillion, the rest riding bare backed: Above two hundred horsemen, with four pair of boots amongst them all; seventeen saddles of leather (the rest being made of straw) and most of their garrons only shod before. I went into one of the principal farmer's houses, out of curiosity, and his whole furniture consisted of two blocks for stools, a bench on each side the fire-place made of turf, six trenchers, one bowl, a pot, six horn spoons, three noggins, three blankets, one of which served the man and maid servant; the other the master of the family, his wife and five children; a small churn, a wooden candlestick, a broken stick for a pair of tongs. In the public towns, one third of the inhabitants walking the streets bare foot; windows half built up with stone, to save the expense of glass, the broken panes up and down supplied by brown paper, few being able to afford white; in some places they were stopped with straw or hay. Another mark of our riches, are the signs at the several inns upon the road, viz. In some, a staff stuck in the thatch, with a turf at the end of it; a staff in a dunghill with a white rag wrapped about the head; a pole, where they can afford it, with a besom at the top; an oatmeal cake on a board at the window; and, at the principal inns of the road, I have observed the signs taken down and laid against the wall near the door, being taken from their post to prevent the shaking of the house down by the wind. In short, I saw not one single house, in the best town I travelled through, which had not manifest appearances of beggary and want. I could give many more instances of our wealth, but I hope these will suffice for the end I propose.

"It may be objected, what use it is of to display the poverty of the nation, in the manner I have done. I answer, I desire to know for what ends, and by what persons, this new opinion of our flourishing state has of late been so industriously advanced: One thing is certain, that the advancers have either already found their own account, or have been heartily promised, or at least have been entertained with hopes, by seeing such an opinion pleasing to those who have it in their power to reward.

"It is no doubt a very generous principle in any person to rejoice in the felicities of a nation, where themselves are strangers or sojourners: But if it be found that the same persons on all other occasions express a hatred and contempt of the nation and people in general, and hold it for a maxim--'That the more such a country is humbled, the more their own will rise'; it need be no longer a secret, why such an opinion, and the advantages of it are encouraged. And besides, if the bayliff reports to his master, that the ox is fat and strong, when in reality it can hardly carry its own legs, is it not natural to think, that command will be given, for a greater load to be put upon it?" [T. S.]

[21] This was a project for the establishment of a national bank for Ireland. Swift ridiculed the proposal (see p. 31), no doubt, out of suspicion of the acts of stock-jobbers and the monied interests which were enlisted on the side of the Whigs. His experience, also, of the abortive South Sea Schemes would tend to make his opposition all the stronger. But the plans for the bank were not ill-conceived, and had Swift been in calmer temper he might have seen the advantages which attached to the proposals. [T. S.]

[22] Thus in original edition. In Faulkner and the "Miscellanies" of 1735 the words are, "altogether imaginary." [T. S.]

[23] The motto round a crown piece, which was the usual price of permits. [_Orig. edit._]

[24] The Dean of St. Patrick's. [F.]

[25] Paul Lorrain, who was appointed ordinary of Newgate in 1698, compiled numerous confessions and dying speeches of prisoners condemned to be hanged. A letter to Swift, from Pope and Bolingbroke, dated December, 1725, mentions him as "the great historiographer," and Steele, in the "Tatler" and "Spectator," refers to "Lorrain's Saints." Lorrain attended some famous criminals to the scaffold, including Captain Kidd and Jack Sheppard. [T. S.]

[26] The following is an account of the proceedings of both the houses of the Irish parliament upon the subject of this proposed bank.

In the year 1720, James, Earl of Abercorn, Gustavus, Viscount Boyne, Sir Ralph Gore, Bart., Oliver St. George, and Michael Ward, Esqs., in behalf of themselves and others, presented a petition to his Majesty for a charter of incorporation, whereby they might be established as a bank, under the name and title of the Bank of Ireland. They proposed to raise a fund of £500,000 to supply merchants, etc., with money at five per cent., and agreed to contribute £50,000 to the service of government in consideration of their obtaining a charter. In their petition they state, that "the raising of a million for that purpose is creating a greater fund than the nation can employ." Soon after the above-mentioned petition was lodged, a second application was made by Lord Forbes and others, who proposed raising a million for that purpose, and offered to discharge "the £50,000 national debt of that kingdom, in five years from the time they should obtain a charter." The latter application, being subsequent in point of date, was withdrawn, Lord Forbes and his friends having acquainted the Lord-lieutenant that, "rather than, by a competition, obstruct a proposal of so general advantage, they were willing to desist from their application." The former was accordingly approved of, and the King, on the 29th of July, 1721, issued letters of Privy Seal, directing that a charter of incorporation should pass the Great Seal of Ireland. ("Comm. Journ.," vol. iii, Appendix ix, page cc, etc.)

When the parliament of Ireland met, on the 12th of September following, the Duke of Grafton, lord lieutenant, in his speech from the throne, communicated the intention of his Majesty to both houses, and concluded by saying, "As this is a matter of general and national concern, his Majesty leaves it to the wisdom of Parliament to consider what advantages the public may receive by erecting a bank, and in what manner it may be settled upon a safe foundation, so as to be beneficial to the kingdom." The commons, in their address, which was voted unanimously on the 14th, expressed their gratitude for his Majesty's goodness and royal favour in directing a commission to establish a bank, and on the 21st moved for the papers to be laid before them; they even, on the 29th, agreed to the following resolution of the committee they had appointed, "that the establishment of a bank upon a solid and good foundation, under proper regulations and restrictions, will contribute to restoring of credit, and support of the trade and manufacture of the kingdom;" but, when the heads of a bill for establishing the bank came to be discussed, a strenuous opposition was raised to it. On the 9th of December Sir Thomas Taylor, chairman of the committee to whom the matter had been referred, reported "that they had gone through the first enacting paragraph, and disagreed to the same." Accordingly, the question being proposed and put, the house (after a division, wherein there appeared 150 for the question and 80 against it) voted that "they could not find any safe foundation for establishing a public bank," and resolved that an address, conformable to this resolution, should be presented to the lord-lieutenant. (Comm. Journ., vol. iii, pp. 247-289.)

The proceedings of the House of Lords resembled that of the Commons; on the 8th of November they concurred with the resolution of their committee, which was unfavourable to the establishment of a bank. A protest was, however, entered, signed by four temporal and two spiritual peers, and when an address to his Majesty, grounded on that resolution, was proposed, a long debate ensued, which occupied two days. On the 9th December a list of the subscriptions was called for, and on the 16th they resolved, that if any lord, spiritual or temporal, should attempt to obtain a charter to erect a bank, "he should be deemed a contemnor of the authority of that house, and a betrayer of the liberty of his country." They ordered, likewise, that this resolution should be presented by the chancellor to the lord lieutenant. ("Lord's Journal," vol. ii, pp. 687-720.) _Monck Mason's "Hist. St. Patrick's Cathedral_," p. 325, note 3. [T. S.]

[27] The title, Esquire, according to a high authority, was anciently applied "to the younger sons of nobility and their heirs in the immediate line, to the eldest sons of knights and their heirs, to the esquire of the knights and others of that rank in his Majesty's service, and to such as had eminent employment in the Commonwealth, and were not knighted, such as judges, sheriffs, and justices of the peace during their offices, and some others. But now," says Sir Edward Walker, "in the days of Charles I., the addition is so increased, that he is a very poor and inconsiderable person who writes himself less."

Accordingly, most of the signatures for shares in the projected National Bank of Ireland, were dignified with the addition of Esquire, which, added to the obscurity of the subscribers, incurs the ridicule of our author in the following treatise. [S.]

[28] SUBSCRIBERS TO THE BANK, PLACED ACCORDING TO THEIR ORDER AND QUALITY, WITH NOTES AND QUERIES.

A true and exact account of the nobility, gentry, and traders, of the kingdom of Ireland, who, upon mature deliberation, are of opinion, that the establishing a bank upon real security, would be highly for the advantage of the trade of the said kingdom, and for increasing the current species of money in the same. Extracted from the list of the subscribers to the Bank of Ireland, published by order of the commissioners appointed to receive subscriptions.

_Nobility._

Archbishops 0 Marquisses 0 Earls 0 Viscounts 3 Barons 1 Bishops 2 French Baron 1

N. B.: The temporal Lords of Ireland are 125, the Bishops 22. In all 147, exclusive of the aforesaid French Count.

_Gentry._

Baronets 1 Knights 1

N. B. Total of baronets and knights in Ireland uncertain; but in common computation supposed to be more than two.

Members of the House of Commons--41. One whereof reckoned before amongst the two knights.

N. B. Number of Commoners in all 300.

Esquires not Members of Parliament--37

N. B. There are at least 20 of the said 37 Esquires whose names are little known, and whose qualifications as Esqrs. are referred to the king at arms; and the said king is desired to send to the publisher hereof a true account of the whole number of such real or reputed Esqrs. as are to be found in this kingdom.

_Clergy._

Deans 1 Arch-Deacons 2 Rectors 3 Curates 2

N. B. Of this number one French dean, one French curate, and one bookseller.

Officers not members of Parliament--16

N. B. Of the above number 10 French; but uncertain whether on whole or half pay, broken, or of the militia.

_Women._

Ladies 1 Widows 3 whereof one qualified to be deputy-governor. Maidens 4