_To be completed in 12 volumes, 3s. 6d. each_.
THE PROSE WORKS
OF
JONATHAN SWIFT, D.D.
EDITED BY
TEMPLE SCOTT
VOL. I. A TALE OF A TUB AND OTHER EARLY WORKS.
Edited by TEMPLE SCOTT. With a biographical introduction by
W.E.H. LECKY, M.P. With Portrait and Facsimiles.
VOL. II. THE JOURNAL TO STELLA.
Edited by FREDERICK RYLAND, M.A.
With two Portraits of Stella and a Facsimile of one of the Letters.
VOLS. III. & IV. WRITINGS ON RELIGION AND THE CHURCH.
Edited by TEMPLE SCOTT.
With Portraits and Facsimiles of Title-pages.
VOL. V. HISTORICAL AND POLITICAL TRACTS--ENGLISH.
Edited by TEMPLE SCOTT.
With Portrait and Facsimiles of Title-pages.
VOL. VI. THE DRAPIER'S LETTERS.
Edited by TEMPLE SCOTT.
With Portrait, Reproductions of Wood's Coinage,
and Facsimiles of Title pages.
VOL. VIII. GULLIVER'S TRAVELS.
Edited by G. RAVENSCROFT DENNIS.
With Portrait, Maps and Facsimiles.
VOL. IX. CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE "EXAMINER," "TATLER," "SPECTATOR," &c.
Edited by TEMPLE SCOTT.
With Portrait.
VOL. X. HISTORICAL WRITINGS.
Edited by TEMPLE SCOTT.
With Portrait.
_To be followed by:_
VOL. VII. HISTORICAL AND POLITICAL TRACTS--IRISH.
VOL. XI. LITERARY ESSAYS.
VOL. XII. BIBLIOGRAPHY AND INDEX TO COMPLETE WORKS.
* * * * *
LONDON: GEORGE BELL AND SONS.
BOHN'S STANDARD LIBRARY
* * * * *
THE PROSE WORKS OF JONATHAN SWIFT
VOL. VI
GEORGE BELL AND SONS
LONDON: YORK ST. COVENT GARDEN
CAMBRIDGE: DEIGHTON, BELL & CO.
NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN CO.
BOMBAY: A.H. WHEELER & CO.
[Illustration: Jonathan Swift from a painting in the National Gallery
of Ireland once in the possession of judge Berwick and ascribed to
Francis Bindon]
THE PROSE WORKS
OF
JONATHAN SWIFT, D.D.
EDITED BY
TEMPLE SCOTT
VOL. VI
THE DRAPIER'S LETTERS
LONDON
GEORGE BELL AND SONS
1903
CHISWICK PRESS CHARLES WHITTINGHAM AND CO
TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE, LONDON
INTRODUCTION
In 1714 Swift left England for Ireland, disappointed, distressed, and
worn out with anxiety in the service of the Harley Ministry. On his
installation as Dean of St. Patrick's he had been received in Dublin
with jeering and derision. He had even been mocked at in his walks
abroad. In 1720, however, he entered for the second time the field of
active political polemics, and began with renewed energy the series of
writings which not only placed him at the head and front of the
political writers of the day, but secured for him a place in the
affections of the people of Ireland--a place which has been kept sacred
to him even to the present time. A visitor to the city of Dublin
desirous of finding his way to St. Patrick's Cathedral need but to ask
for the Dean's Church, and he will be understood. There is only one
Dean, and he wrote the "Drapier's Letters." The joy of the people of
Dublin on the withdrawal of Wood's Patent found such permanent
expression, that it has descended as oral tradition, and what was
omitted from the records of Parliament and the proceedings of Clubs and
Associations founded in the Drapier's honour, has been embalmed in the
hearts of the people, whose love he won, and whose homage it was ever
his pride to accept.
The spirit of Swift which Grattan invoked had, even in Grattan's time,
power to stir hearts to patriotic enthusiasm. That spirit has not died
out yet, and the Irish people still find it seasonable and refreshing to
be awakened by it to a true sense of the dignity and majesty of
Ireland's place in the British Empire.
A dispassionate student of the condition of Ireland between the years
of Swift's birth and death--between, say, 1667 and 1745--could rise from
that study in no unprejudiced mood. It would be difficult for him to
avoid the conclusion that the government of Ireland by England had not
only degraded the people of the vassal nation, but had proved a disgrace
and a stigma on the ruling nation. It was a government of the masses by
the classes, for no other than selfish ends. It ended, as all such
governments must inevitably end, in impoverishing the people, in
wholesale emigration, in starvation and even death, in revolt, and in
fostering among those who remained, and among those whom circumstances
exiled, the dangerous spirit of resentment and rebellion which is the
outcome of the sense of injustice. It has also served, even to this day,
to give vitality to those associations that have from time to time
arisen in Ireland for the object of realizing that country's
self-government.
It may be argued that the people of Ireland of that time justified
Swift's petition when he prayed to be removed from "this land of slaves,
where all are fools and all are knaves"; but that is no justification
for the injustice. The injustice from which Ireland suffered was a fact.
Its existence was resented with all the indignation with which an
emotional and spiritual people will always resent material obstructions
to the free play of what they feel to be their best powers.
There were no leaders at the time who could see this, and seeing it,
enforce its truth on the dull English mind to move it to saner methods
of dealing with this people. Nor were there any who could order the
resentment into battalions of fighting men to give point to the demands
for equal rights with their English fellow-subjects.
Had Swift been an Irishman by nature as he was by birth, it might have
been otherwise; but Swift was an Irishman by accident, and only became
an Irish patriot by reason of the humanity in him which found indignant
and permanent expression against oppression. Swift's indignation
against the selfish hypocrisy of his fellow-men was the cry from the
pain which the sight of man's inhumanity to man inflicted on his
sensitive and truth-loving nature. The folly and baseness of his
fellow-creatures stung him, as he once wrote to Pope, "to perfect rage
and resentment." Turn where he would, he found either the knave as the
slave driver, or the slave as a fool, and the latter became even a
willing sacrifice. His indignation at the one was hardly greater than
his contempt for the other, and his different feelings found trenchant
expression in such writings as the "Drapier's Letters," the "Modest
Proposal," and "Gulliver's Travels."
It has been argued that the _saeva indignatio_ which lacerated his heart
was the passion of a mad man. To argue thus seems to us to misunderstand
entirely the peculiar qualities of Swift's nature. It was not the mad
man that made the passion; it was rather the passion that made the man
mad. As we understand him, it seems to us that Swift's was an eminently
majestic spirit, moved by the tenderest of human sympathies, and capable
of ennobling love--a creature born to rule and to command, but with all
the noble qualities which go to make a ruler loved. It happened that
circumstances placed him early in his career into poverty and servitude.
He extricated himself from both in time; but his liberation was due to
an assertion of his best powers, and not to a dissimulation of them. Had
he been less honest, he might have risen to a position of great power,
but it would have been at the price of those very qualities which made
him the great man he was. That assertion cost him his natural vocation,
and Swift lived on to rage in the narrow confines of a Dublin Deanery
House. He might have flourished as the greatest of English statesmen--he
became instead a monster, a master-scourger of men, pitiless to them as
they had been blind to him. But monster and master-scourger as he proved
himself, he always took the side of the oppressed as against the
oppressor. The impulse which sent him abroad collecting guineas for
"poor Harrison" was the same impulse which moved him in his study at the
Deanery to write as "M.B. Drapier." On this latter occasion, however, he
also had an opportunity to lay bare the secret springs of oppression, an
opportunity which he was not the man to let go by.
No doubt Swift was not quite disinterested in the motives which prompted
him to enter the political arena for the second time. He hated the
Walpole Ministry in power; he resented his exile in a country whose
people he despised; and he scorned the men who, while they feared him,
had yet had the power to prevent his advancement. But, allowing for
these personal incentives, there was in Swift such a large sympathy for
the degraded condition of the Irish people, such a tender solicitude for
their best welfare, and such a deep-seated zeal for their betterment,
that, in measuring to him his share in the title of patriot, we cannot
but admit that what we may call his public spirit far outweighed his
private spleen. Above all things Swift loved liberty, integrity,
sincerity and justice; and if it be that it was his love for these,
rather than his love for the country, which inspired him to patriotic
efforts, who shall say that he does not still deserve well of us. If a
patriot be a man who nobly teaches a people to become aware of its
highest functions as a nation, then was Swift a great patriot, and he
better deserves that title than many who have been accorded it.
The matter of Wood's Halfpence was a trivial one in itself; but it was
just that kind of a matter which Swift must instantly have appreciated
as the happiest for his purpose. It was a matter which appealed to the
commonest news-boy on the street, and its meaning once made plain, the
principle which gave vitality to the meaning was ready for enunciation
and was assured of intelligent acceptance. In writing the "Drapier's
Letters," he had, to use his own words, seasonably raised a spirit
among the Irish people, and that spirit he continued to refresh, until
when he told them in his Fourth Letter, "by the Laws of God, of Nature,
of Nations, and of your Country, you are, and ought to be, as free a
people as your brethren in England," the country rose as one man to the
appeal. Neither the suavities of Carteret nor the intrigues of Walpole
had any chance against the set opposition which met them. The question
to be settled was taken away from the consideration of ministers, and
out of the seclusion of Cabinets into the hands of the People, and
before the public eye. There was but one way in which it could be
settled--the way of the people's will--and it went that way. It does not
at all matter that Walpole finally had his way--that the King's mistress
pocketed her _douceur_, and that Wood retired satisfied with the ample
compensation allowed him. What does matter is that, for the first time
in Irish History, a spirit of national life was breathed into an almost
denationalized people. Beneath the lean and starved ribs of death Swift
planted a soul; it is for this that Irishmen will ever revere his
memory.
In the composition of the "Letters" Swift had set himself a task
peculiarly fitting to his genius. Those qualities of mind which enabled
him to enter into the habits of the lives of footmen, servants, and
lackeys found an even more congenial freedom of play here. His knowledge
of human nature was so profound that he instinctively touched the right
keys, playing on the passions of the common people with a deftness far
surpassing in effect the acquired skill of the mere master of oratory.
He ordered his arguments and framed their language, so that his readers
responded with almost passionate enthusiasm to the call he made upon
them. Allied to his gift of intellectual sympathy with his kind was a
consummate ability in expression, into which he imparted the fullest
value of the intended meaning. His thought lost nothing in its
statement. Writing as he did from the point of view of a tradesman, to
the shopkeepers, farmers, and common people of Ireland, his business was
to speak with them as if he were one of them. He had already laid bare
their grievances caused by the selfish legislation of the English
Parliament, which had ruined Irish manufactures; he had written grimly
of the iniquitous laws which had destroyed the woollen trade of the
country; he had not forgotten the condition of the people as he saw it
on his journeys from Dublin to Cork--a condition which he was later to
reveal in the most terrible of his satirical tracts--and he realized
with almost personal anguish the degradation of the people brought about
by the rapacity and selfishness of a class which governed with no
thought of ultimate consequences, and with no apparent understanding of
what justice implied. It was left for him to precipitate his private
opinion and public spirit in such form as would arouse the nation to a
sense of self-respect, if not to a pitch of resentment. The "Drapier's
Letters" was the reagent that accomplished both.
* * * * *
The editor takes this opportunity to express his thanks and obligations
to Mr. G.R. Dennis, to Mr. W. Spencer Jackson, to the late Colonel F.R.
Grant, to Mr. C. Litton Falkiner of Killiney, and to Mr. O'Donoghue of
Dublin. His acknowledgment is here also made to Mr. Strickland, of the
National Gallery of Ireland, to whose kindness and learning he is
greatly indebted.
TEMPLE SCOTT.
NEW YORK, _March_, 1903.
CONTENTS
LETTER I. TO THE SHOPKEEPERS, TRADESMEN, FARMERS, AND COMMON-PEOPLE OF
IRELAND
LETTER II. TO MR. HARDING THE PRINTER
THE REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE OF THE LORDS OF HIS MAJESTY'S MOST
HONOURABLE PRIVY-COUNCIL, IN RELATION TO MR. WOOD'S HALFPENCE AND
FARTHINGS, ETC.
LETTER III. TO THE NOBILITY AND GENTRY OF THE KINGDOM OF IRELAND
LETTER IV. TO THE WHOLE PEOPLE OF IRELAND
SEASONABLE ADVICE TO THE GRAND JURY, CONCERNING THE BILL PREPARING
AGAINST THE PRINTER OF THE DRAPIER'S FOURTH LETTER
LETTER V. TO THE LORD CHANCELLOR MIDDLETON
LETTER VI. TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE THE LORD VISCOUNT MOLESWORTH
LETTER VII. AN HUMBLE ADDRESS TO BOTH HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT
APPENDIXES
I. ADDRESSES TO THE KING
II. REPORT OF THE ASSAY ON WOOD'S COINAGE, MADE BY SIR ISAAC NEWTON,
EDWARD SOUTHWELL, ESQ., AND THOMAS SCROOPE, ESQ.
III. TOM PUNSIBI'S DREAM
IV. A LETTER FROM A FRIEND TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE ----
A SECOND LETTER FROM A FRIEND TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE ----
V. THE PRESENTMENT OF THE GRAND JURY OF THE COUNTY OF THE CITY OF DUBLIN
VI. PROCLAMATION AGAINST THE DRAPIER
VII. REPORT OF THE IRISH PRIVY COUNCIL ON WOOD'S COINAGE
VIII. THE PATENTEE'S COMPUTATION OF IRELAND, IN A LETTER FROM THE
AUTHOR OF THE "WHITEHALL EVENING POST" CONCERNING THE MAKING OF COPPER
COIN
IX. DESCRIPTIONS OF THE VARIOUS SPECIMENS OF WOOD'S COINS
INDEX
PLATES.
JONATHAN SWIFT. From a painting in the National Gallery of Ireland,
ascribed to Francis Bindon
HALFPENCE AND FARTHINGS coined by William Wood, 1722 and 1723
[Illustration: _Half-pence & farthings coined by William Wood, 1722 &
1723_]
LETTER I.
TO THE SHOP-KEEPERS, TRADESMEN, FARMERS, AND COMMON-PEOPLE OF IRELAND.
NOTE
About the year 1720 it was generally acknowledged in Ireland that there
was a want there of the small change, necessary in the transaction of
petty dealings with shopkeepers and tradesmen. It has been indignantly
denied by contemporary writers that this small change meant copper
coins. They asserted that there was no lack of copper money, but that
there was a great want of small silver. Be that as it may, the report
that small change was wanting was sufficiently substantiated to the
English government to warrant it to proceed to satisfy the want. In its
dealings with Ireland, however, English governments appear to have
consistently assumed that attitude which would most likely cause
friction and arouse disturbance. In England coins for currency proceeded
from a mint established under government supervision. In Scotland such a
mint was specially provided for in the Act of Union. But in Ireland, the
government acted otherwise.
The Irish people had again and again begged that they should be
permitted to establish a mint in which coins could be issued of the same
standard and intrinsic value as those used in England. English
parliaments, however, invariably disregarded these petitions. Instead of
the mint the King gave grants or patents by which a private individual
obtained the right to mint coins for the use of the inhabitants. The
right was most often given for a handsome consideration, and held for a
term of years. In 1660 Charles II. granted such a patent to Sir Thomas
Armstrong, permitting him to coin farthings for twenty years. It
appears, however, that Armstrong never actually coined the farthings,
although he had gone to the expense of establishing a costly plant for
the purpose.
Small copper coins becoming scarce, several individuals, without
permission, issued tokens; but the practice was stopped. In 1680 Sir
William Armstrong, son of Sir Thomas, with Colonel George Legg
(afterwards Lord Dartmouth), obtained a patent for twenty-one years,
granting them the right to issue copper halfpence. Coins were actually
struck and circulated, but the patent itself was sold to John Knox in
the very year of its issue. Knox, however, had his patent specially
renewed, but his coinage was interrupted when James II. issued his
debased money during the Revolution (see Monck Mason, p. 334, and the
notes on this matter to the Drapier's Third Letter, in present edition).
Knox sold his patent to Colonel Roger Moore, who overstocked the country
with his coins to such an extent that the currency became undervalued.
When, in 1705, Moore endeavoured to obtain a renewal of his patent, his
application was refused. By 1722, owing either to Moore's bad coinage,
or to the importation of debased coins from other countries, the copper
money had degraded considerably. In a pamphlet[1] issued by George
Ewing in Dublin (1724), it is stated that in that year, W. Trench
presented a memorial to the Lords of the Treasury, complaining of the
condition of the copper coinage, and pointing out that the evil results
had been brought about by the system of grants to private individuals.
Notwithstanding this memorial, it was attempted to overcome the
difficulty by a continuance of the old methods. A new patent was issued
to an English iron merchant, William Wood by name, who, according to
Coxe, submitted proposal with many others, for the amelioration of the
grievance. Wood's proposals, say this same authority, were accepted "as
beneficial to Ireland." The letters patent bear the date July 12th,
1722, and were prepared in accordance with the King's instructions to
the Attorney and Solicitor General sent in a letter from Kensington on
June 16th, 1722. The letter commanded "that a bill should be prepared
for his royal signature, containing and importing an indenture, whereof
one part was to pass the Great Seal of Great Britain." This indenture,
notes Monck Mason,[2] between His Majesty of the one part, "and William
Wood, of Wolverhampton, in the County of Stafford, Esq.," of the other,
signifies that His Majesty
"has received information that, in his kingdom of Ireland, there was a
great want of small money for making small payments, and that retailers
and others did suffer by reason of such want."
[Footnote 1: "A Defence of the Conduct of the People of Ireland in their
unanimous refusal of Mr. Wood's Copper Money," pp. 22-23.]
[Footnote 2: "History of St. Patrick's Cathedral," note v, pp. 326-327.]
By virtue, therefore, of his prerogative royal, and in consideration of
the rents, covenants, and agreements therein expressed, His Majesty
granted to William Wood, his executors, assigns, etc., "full, free,
sole, and absolute power, privilege, licence, and authority," during
fourteen years, from the annunciation of the Blessed Virgin, 1722, to
coin halfpence and farthings of copper, to be uttered and disposed of in
Ireland, and not elsewhere. It was provided that the whole quantity
coined should not exceed 360 tons of copper, whereof 100 tons only were
to be coined in the first year, and 20 tons in each of the last
thirteen, said farthings and halfpence to be of good, pure, and
merchantable copper, and of such size and bigness, that one avoirdupois
pound weight of copper should not be converted into more farthings and
halfpence than would make thirty pence by tale; all the said farthings
and halfpence to be of equal weight in themselves, or as near thereunto
as might be, allowing a remedy not exceeding two farthings over or under
in each pound. The same "to pass and to be received as current money, by
such as shall or will, voluntarily and willingly, and not otherwise,
receive the same, within the said kingdom of Ireland, and not
elsewhere." Wood also covenanted to pay to the King's clerk or
comptroller of the coinage, £200 yearly, and £100 per annum into his
Majesty's treasury.
Most of the accounts of this transaction and its consequent agitation
in Ireland, particularly those given by Sir W. Scott and Earl Stanhope,
are taken from Coxe's "Life of Walpole." Monck Mason, however, in his
various notes appended to his life of Swift, has once and for all placed
Coxe's narrative in its true light, and exposed the specious special
pleading on behalf of his hero, Walpole. But even Coxe cannot hide the
fact that the granting of the patent and the circumstances under which
it was granted, amounted to a disgraceful job, by which an opportunity
was seized to benefit a "noble person" in England at the expense of
Ireland. The patent was really granted to the King's mistress, the
Duchess of Kendal, who sold it to William Wood for the sum of £10,000,
and (as it was reported with, probably, much truth) for a share in the
profits of the coining. The job was alluded to by Swift when he wrote:
"When late a feminine magician,
Join'd with a brazen politician,
Expos'd, to blind a nation's eyes,
A parchment of prodigious size."
Coxe endeavors to exonerate Walpole from the disgrace attached to this
business, by expatiating on Carteret's opposition to Walpole, an
opposition which went so far as to attempt to injure the financial
minister's reputation by fomenting jealousies and using the Wood patent
agitation to arouse against him the popular indignation; but this does
not explain away the fact itself. He lays some blame for the agitation
on Wood's indiscretion in flaunting his rights and publicly boasting of
what the great minister would do for him. At the same time he takes care
to censure the government for its misconduct in not consulting with the
Lord Lieutenant and his Privy Council before granting the patent. His
censure, however, is founded on the consideration that this want of
attention was injudicious and was the cause of the spread of exaggerated
rumours of the patent's evil tendency. He has nothing to say of the
rights and liberties of a people which had thereby been infringed and
ignored.
The English parliament had rarely shown much consideration for Irish
feelings or Irish rights. Its attitude towards the Irish Houses of
Legislation had been high-handed and even dictatorial; so that
constitutional struggles were not at all infrequent towards the end of
the seventeenth and during the first quarter of the eighteenth century.
The efforts of Sir Constantine Phipps towards a non-parliamentary
government,[3] and the reversal by the English House of Lords of the
decision given by the Irish House of Lords in the famous Annesley case,
had prepared the Irish people for a revolt against any further attempts
to dictate to its properly elected representatives assembled in
parliament. Moreover, the wretched material condition of the people, as
it largely had been brought about by a selfish, persecuting legislation
that practically isolated Ireland commercially in prohibiting the
exportation of its industrial products, was a danger and a menace to the
governing country. The two nations were facing each other threateningly.
When, therefore, Wood began to import his coin, suspicion was
immediately aroused.
[Footnote 3: See Lecky's "History of Ireland," vol. i., p. 446, etc.]
The masses took little notice of it at first; but the commissioners of
revenue in Dublin took action in a letter they addressed to the Right
Hon. Edward Hopkins, secretary to the Lord Lieutenant. This letter,
dated August 7th, 1722, began by expressing surprise at the patent
granted to Mr. Wood, and asked the secretary "to lay before the Lord
Lieutenant a memorial, presented by their agent to the Lords of the
Treasury, concerning this patent, and also a report of some former
Commissioners of the revenue on the like occasion, and to acquaint his
Grace, that they concurred in all the objections in those papers, and
were of opinion, that such a patent would be highly prejudicial to the
trade, and welfare of this kingdom, and more particularly to his
Majesty's revenue, which they had formerly found to have suffered very
much, by too great a quantity of such base coin."[4] No reply was
received to this letter.
[Footnote 4: "A Defence of the Conduct of the People of Ireland," etc.,
p. 6.]
Fears began to be generally felt, and the early murmurs of an agitation
to be heard when, on September 19th, 1722, the Commissioners addressed a
second letter, this time to the Lords Commissioners of His Majesty's
Treasury. The letter assured their Lordships "that they had been applied
to by many persons of rank and fortune, and by the merchants and traders
in Ireland, to represent the ill effects of Mr. Wood's patent, and that
they could from former experience assure their Lordships, it would be
particularly detrimental to his Majesty's revenue. They represented that
this matter had made a great noise here, and that there did not appear
the _least want of such small species of coin for change_, and hoped
that the importance of the occasion would excuse their making this
representation of a matter that had not been referred to them."[5]
[Footnote 5: _Ibid_, pp. 6-7.]
To this letter also no reply was vouchsafed. In the meantime, Wood kept
sending in his coins, landing them at most of the ports of the kingdom.
"Then everyone that was not interested in the success of this coinage,"
writes the author of the pamphlet already quoted, "by having contracted
for a great quantity of his halfpence at a large discount, or biassed by
the hopes of immoderate gain to be made out of the ruins of their
country, expressed their apprehensions of the pernicious consequences of
this copper money; and resolved to make use of the _right they had by
law to refuse the same_".[6]
[Footnote 6: _Ibid_, p. 7.]
The Lord Lieutenant, the Duke of Grafton, had arrived in August, 1723,
and parliament sat early in September. Its first attention was paid to
the Wood patent. After the early excitement had subsided, they resolved
to appeal to the King. During the early stages of the discussion,
however, the Commons addressed the Lord Lieutenant, asking that a copy
of the patent and other papers relating to it, be laid before them. This
was on September 13th. On the following day Mr. Hopkins informed the
House that the Lord Lieutenant had no such copy, nor any papers. The
House then unanimously resolved to inquire into the matter on its own
account, and issued orders for several persons to appear before it to
give evidence, fixing the day for examination for September 16th. On
that day, however, Mr. Hopkins appeared before the members with a copy
of the patent, and informed them that the Lord Lieutenant had received
it since his last communication with them. This incident served but to
arouse further ridicule. A broadside, published at the time with the
title "A Creed of an Irish Commoner," amusingly reveals the lameness of
the excuse for this non-production of the exemplification. Coxe says
that the cause for the delay was due to the fact that the copy of the
patent had been delivered to the Lord Lieutenant's servant, instead of
to his private secretary; but this excuse is probably no more happily
founded than the one offered.
On Friday, September 20th, the House resolved itself into a committee
"to take into consideration the state of the nation, particularly in
relation to the importing and uttering of copper halfpence and farthings
in this kingdom." After three days' debate, and after examining
competent witnesses under oath, it passed resolutions to the following
effect
(1) That Wood's patent is highly prejudicial to his Majesty's revenue,
and is destructive of trade and commerce, and most dangerous to the
rights and properties of the subject.
(2) That for the purpose of obtaining the patent Wood had notoriously
misrepresented the state of the nation.
(3) That great quantities of the coin had been imported of different
impressions and of much less weight than the patent called for.
(4) That the loss to the nation by the uttering of this coin would
amount to 150 per cent.
(5) That in coining the halfpence Wood was guilty of a notorious fraud.
(6) "That it is the opinion of this Committee, that it hath been always
highly prejudicial to this kingdom to grant the power or privilege of
coining money to private persons; and that it will, at all times, be of
dangerous consequence to grant any such power to any body politic, or
corporate, or any private person or persons whatsoever."[7]
[Footnote 7: "Comm. Journals," vol. iii., pp. 317-325.]
Addresses to his Majesty in conformity with these resolutions were voted
on September 27th.
The House of Lords passed similar resolutions on September 26th, and
voted addresses embodying them on September 28th.[8]
[Footnote 8: "Lords' Journals," vol. ii., pp. 745-751.]
These Addresses received a better attention than did the letters from
the revenue commissioners. The Houses were courteously informed that
their communications would receive His Majesty's careful consideration.
Walpole kept his promise, but not before he had fought hard to maintain
the English prerogative, as he might have called it. The "secret"
history as narrated in Coxe's lively manner, throws some light on the
situation. Coxe really finds his hero's conduct not marked with "his
usual caution." The Lord Lieutenant was permitted to go to Ireland
without proper instructions; the information on which Walpole acted was
not reliable; and he did not sufficiently appreciate the influence of
Chancellor Midleton and his family. "He bitterly accused Lord Midleton
of treachery and low cunning, of having made, in his speeches,
distinction between the King and his ministers, of caballing with
Carteret, Cadogan, and Roxburgh, and of pursuing that line of conduct,
because he was of opinion the opposite party would gain the ascendency
in the cabinet. He did not believe the disturbances to be so serious as
they were represented, nor was he satisfied with the Duke of Grafton's
conduct, as being solely directed by Conolly, but declared that the part
acted by Conolly, almost excused what the Brodricks had done." Carteret
complained to the King and proved to him that Walpole's policy was a
dangerous one. The King became irritated and Walpole "ashamed." He even
became "uneasy," and it is to be supposed, took a more "cautious"
course; for he managed to conciliate the Brodricks and the powers in
Dublin. But the devil was not ill long. The cabinet crisis resulted in
the triumph of Townshend and Walpole, and the devil got well again.
Carteret must be removed and the patent promoted. But Midleton and the
Brodricks must be kept friendly. So Carteret went to Ireland as Lord
Lieutenant, Midleton remained Chancellor, and constituted a lord
justice, and St. John Brodrick was nominated a member of the Privy
Council. Still farther on his "cautious" way, Ireland must be given some
consideration; hence the Committee of the Privy Council, specially
called to inquire into the grievances complained of by the Irish Houses
of Parliament in their loyal addresses.
The Committee sat for several weeks, and the report it issued forms the
subject of Swift's animadversions in the Drapier's third letter. But the
time spent by the Committee in London was being utilized in quite a
different fashion by Swift in Ireland. "Cautious" as was Walpole, he had
not reckoned with the champion of his political opponents of Queen
Anne's days. Swift had little humour for court intrigues and cabinet
cabals. He came out into the open to fight the good fight of the people
to whom courts and cabinets should be servants and not self-seeking
masters. Whatever doubts the people of Ireland may have had about the
legal validity of their resentment towards Wood and his coins, were
quickly dissipated when they read "A Letter to the Shop Keepers,
Tradesmen, Farmers, and Common People of Ireland, concerning the Brass
Half-pence coined by Mr. Wood," and signed, "M.B. Drapier." The letter,
as Lord Orrery remarked, acted like the sound of a trumpet. At that
sound "a spirit arose among the people, that in the eastern phrase, was
_like unto a trumpet in the day of the whirlwind_. Every person of every
rank, party, and denomination was convinced, that the admission of
Wood's copper must prove fatal to the Commonwealth. The papist, the
fanatic, the Tory, the Whig, all listed themselves volunteers under the
banners of M.B. Drapier, and were all equally zealous to serve the
Common cause."
The present text of the first of the Drapier's letters is based on that
given by Sir W. Scott, carefully collated with two copies of the first
edition which differed from each other in many particulars. One belonged
to the late Colonel F. Grant, and the other is in the British Museum. It
has also been read with the collection of the Drapier's Letters issued
by the Drapier Club in 1725, with the title, "Fraud Detected"; with the
London edition of "The Hibernian Patriot" (1730), and with Faulkner's
text issued in his collected edition of Swift's Works in 1735.
[T.S.]
[Illustration:
A
*LETTER*
TO THE
_Shop-Keepers_, _Tradesmen_, _Farmers_
and _Common-People_ of
*IRELAND*,
Concerning the
*Brass Half-pence*
Coined by
**Mr. Woods,**
WITH
A _Design_ to have them _Pass_ in this
*KINGDOM*.
Wherein is shewn the Power of the said PATENT,
the Value of the HALF-PENCE, and
how far every Person may be oblig'd to take the
same in Payments, and how to behave in Case
such an Attempt shou'd be made by WOODS
or any other Person.
[Very Proper to be kept in every FAMILY.]
By M.B. _Drapier_.
DUBLIN: Printed by _J. Harding_
in _Molesworth's-Court_.
]
LETTER I.
TO THE TRADESMEN, SHOP-KEEPERS, FARMERS, AND COMMON-PEOPLE IN GENERAL OF
IRELAND.
BRETHREN, FRIENDS, COUNTRYMEN AND FELLOW-SUBJECTS,
What I intend now to say to you, is, next to your duty to God, and the
care of your salvation, of the greatest concern to yourselves, and your
children, your bread and clothing, and every common necessary of life
entirely depend upon it. Therefore I do most earnestly exhort you as
men, as Christians, as parents, and as lovers of your country, to read
this paper with the utmost attention, or get it read to you by others;
which that you may do at the less expense, I have ordered the printer to
sell it at the lowest rate.
It is a great fault among you, that when a person writes with no other
intention than to do you good, you will not be at the pains to read his
advices: One copy of this paper may serve a dozen of you, which will be
less than a farthing a-piece. It is your folly that you have no common
or general interest in your view, not even the wisest among you, neither
do you know or enquire, or care who are your friends, or who are your
enemies.
About three[9] years ago, a little book was written, to advise all
people to wear the manufactures of this our own dear country:[10] It had
no other design, said nothing against the King or Parliament, or any
man, yet the POOR PRINTER was prosecuted two years, with the utmost
violence, and even some WEAVERS themselves, for whose sake it was
written, being upon the JURY, FOUND HIM GUILTY. This would be enough to
discourage any man from endeavouring to do you good, when you will
either neglect him or fly in his face for his pains, and when he must
expect only danger to himself and loss of money, perhaps to his
ruin.[11]
[Footnote 9: In his reprint of the Drapier's Letters, issued in 1725
with the title, "Fraud Detected; or the Hibernian Patriot," Faulkner
prints "four" instead of "three"; but this, of course, is a correction
made to agree with the date of the publication of this reprint. The
"Proposal" was published in 1720. [T.S.]]
[Footnote 10: The "little book" was "A Proposal for the Universal Use of
Irish Manufactures." See vol. vii. [T.S.]]
[Footnote 11: Instead of the words "loss of money," Faulkner in the
reprint of 1725 has "to be fined and imprisoned." [T.S.]]
However I cannot but warn you once more of the manifest destruction
before your eyes, if you do not behave yourselves as you ought.
I will therefore first tell you the plain story of the fact; and then I
will lay before you how you ought to act in common prudence, and
according to the laws of your country.
The fact is thus: It having been many years since COPPER HALFPENCE OR
FARTHINGS were last coined in this kingdom, they have been for some time
very scarce,[12] and many counterfeits passed about under the name of
_raps_, several applications were made to England, that we might have
liberty to coin new ones, as in former times we did; but they did not
succeed. At last one Mr. Wood,[13] a mean ordinary man, a hardware
dealer, procured a patent[14]under his Majesty's broad seal to coin
fourscore and ten thousand pounds[15] in copper for this kingdom, which
patent however did not oblige any one here to take them, unless they
pleased. Now you must know, that the halfpence and farthings in England
pass for very little more than they are worth. And if you should beat
them to pieces, and sell them to the brazier you would not lose above a
penny in a shilling. But Mr. Wood made his halfpence of such base metal,
and so much smaller than the English ones, that the brazier would not
give you above a penny of good money for a shilling of his; so that this
sum of fourscore and ten thousand pounds in good gold and silver, must
be given for trash that will not be worth above eight or nine thousand
pounds real value. But this is not the worst, for Mr. Wood when he
pleases may by stealth send over another and another fourscore and ten
thousand pounds, and buy all our goods for eleven parts in twelve, under
the value. For example, if a hatter sells a dozen of hats for five
shillings a-piece, which amounts to three pounds, and receives the
payment in Mr. Wood's coin, he really receives only the value of five
shillings.
[Footnote 12: They had become scarce because they had been undervalued,
and therefore sent out of the country in payment of goods bought. See
Prior's "Observations on Coin," issued in 1729, where it is stated that
this scarcity had occurred only within the last twenty years. [T.S.]]
[Footnote 13: William Wood (1671-1730) was an ironmaster of
Wolverhampton. In addition to the patent for coining copper halfpence
which he obtained for Ireland, and to which full reference is made in
the introductory note to this first Drapier's Letter, Wood also obtained
a patent, in 1722, for coining halfpence, pence and twopence for the
English colonies in America. This latter patent fared no better than the
Irish one. The coins introduced in America bear the dates 1722 and 1723,
and are now much sought after by collectors. They are known as the Rosa
American coinage. A list of the poems and pamphlets on Wood, during the
excitement in Dublin, attending on the Drapier's Letters, will be found
in the bibliography of Swift's works to be given in vol. xi. of this
edition. See also Monck Mason's "History of St. Patrick's Cathedral." In
the original edition of the Letter, Wood's name is mis-spelt Woods. [T.
S.]]
[Footnote 14: See the introductory note for the manner in which this
patent was obtained. [T.S.]]
[Footnote 15: This is how the amount is named in the first edition; but
the amount in reality was £100,800 (the value of 360 tons of copper, as
stated by the patent). Sir W. Scott prints this as £108,000. Coxe, in
his "Memoirs of Sir Robert Walpole" gives the amount as £100,000. Lecky
states it as £108,000. [T.S.]]
Perhaps you will wonder how such an ordinary fellow as this Mr. Wood
could have so much interest as to get His Majesty's broad seal for so
great a sum of bad money, to be sent to this poor country, and that all
the nobility and gentry here could not obtain the same favour, and let
us make our own halfpence, as we used to do. Now I will make that matter
very plain. We are at a great distance from the King's court, and have
nobody there to solicit for us, although a great number of lords and
squires, whose estates are here, and are our countrymen, spending all
their lives and fortunes there. But this same Mr. Wood was able to
attend constantly for his own interest; he is an Englishman and had
great friends, and it seems knew very well where to give money, to
those that would speak to others that could speak to the King and could
tell a fair story. And His Majesty, and perhaps the great lord or lords
who advised him, might think it was for our country's good; and so, as
the lawyers express it, "the King was deceived in his grant," which
often happens in all reigns. And I am sure if His Majesty knew that such
a patent, if it should take effect according to the desire of Mr. Wood,
would utterly ruin this kingdom, which hath given such great proofs of
its loyalty, he would immediately recall it, and perhaps shew his
displeasure to somebody or other. But "a word to the wise is enough."
Most of you must have heard, with what anger our honourable House of
Commons received an account of this Wood's patent.[16] There were
several fine speeches made upon it, and plain proofs that it was all A
WICKED CHEAT from the bottom to the top, and several smart votes were
printed, which that same Wood had the assurance to answer likewise in
print, and in so confident a way, as if he were a better man than our
whole Parliament put together.[17]
[Footnote 16: The Irish House of Commons reported that the loss to the
country, even if the patent were carried out as required, would amount
to about 150 per cent.; and both Irish Houses of Parliament voted
addresses against the coinage, and accused the patentee of fraud and
deceit. They asserted that the terms of the patent had not been
fulfilled and "that the circulation of the halfpence would be highly
prejudicial to the revenue, destructive of the commerce, and of most
dangerous consequences to the rights and properties of the subjects."
See introductory note. [T.S.]]
[Footnote 17: Wood's indiscreet retort was published in the "Flying
Post" October 8th, 1723. Later he boasted that he would, with Walpole's
assistance, "pour the coin down the throats of the people." [T.S.]]
This Wood, as soon as his patent was passed, or soon after, sends over
a great many barrels of these halfpence, to Cork and other sea-port
towns,[18] and to get them off offered an hundred pounds in his coin for
seventy or eighty in silver. But the collectors of the King's customs
very honestly refused to take them, and so did almost everybody else.
And since the Parliament hath condemned them, and desired the King that
they might be stopped, all the kingdom do abominate them.
[Footnote 18: At Dublin, Cork, Waterford and other ports, the merchants
refused to accept the copper coins. Monck Mason notes that "in the
'Dublin Gazette,' No. 2562, we meet with resolutions by the merchants of
Cork, dated the 25th of Aug., 1724, and like resolutions by those of
Waterford, dated 22d Aug. wherein they declare, that, 'they will never
receive or utter in any payment, the halfpence or farthings coined by
William Wood; as they conceive the importing and uttering the same, to
be highly prejudicial to His Majesty's revenue, and to the trade of the
kingdom': these resolutions are declared to be conformable to those of
the Trinity Guild, of merchants, of the city of Dublin, voted at their
guild-hall, on the 18th day of the same month" (Hist. St. Patrick's, p.
346, note r). See also Appendix No. IX. [T.S.]]
But Wood is still working underhand to force his halfpence upon us, and
if he can by help of his friends in England prevail so far as to get an
order that the commissioners and collectors of the King's money shall
receive them, and that the army is to be paid with them, then he thinks
his work shall be done. And this is the difficulty you will be under in
such a case. For the common soldier when he goes to the market or
alehouse will offer this money, and if it be refused, perhaps he will
swagger and hector, and threaten to beat the butcher or alewife, or take
the goods by force, and throw them the bad halfpence. In this and the
like cases, the shopkeeper or victualler, or any other tradesman has no
more to do, than to demand ten times the price of his goods, if it is to
be paid in Wood's money; for example, twenty-pence of that money for a
quart of ale, and so in all things else, and not part with his goods
till he gets the money.
For suppose you go to an alehouse with that base money, and the landlord
gives you a quart for four of these halfpence, what must the victualler
do? His brewer will not be paid in that coin, or if the brewer should be
such a fool, the farmers will not take it from them for their bere,[19]
because they are bound by their leases to pay their rents in good and
lawful money of England, which this is not, nor of Ireland neither, and
the 'squire their landlord will never be so bewitched to take such trash
for his land, so that it must certainly stop somewhere or other, and
wherever it stops it is the same thing, and we are all undone.
[Footnote 19: Bere = barley. Cf. A.S. _baerlic_, Icelandic, _barr_,
meaning barley, the grain used for making malt for the preparation of
beer. [T.S.]]
The common weight of these halfpence is between four and five to an
ounce, suppose five, then three shillings and fourpence will weigh a
pound, and consequently twenty shillings will weigh six pound butter
weight. Now there are many hundred farmers who pay two hundred pound a
year rent. Therefore when one of these farmers comes with his
half-year's rent, which is one hundred pound, it will be at least six
hundred pound weight, which is three horse load.
If a 'squire has a mind to come to town to buy clothes and wine and
spices for himself and family, or perhaps to pass the winter here; he
must bring with him five or six horses loaden with sacks as the farmers
bring their corn; and when his lady comes in her coach to our shops, it
must be followed by a car loaden with Mr. Wood's money. And I hope we
shall have the grace to take it for no more than it is worth.
They say 'Squire Conolly[20] has sixteen thousand pounds a year, now if
he sends for his rent to town, as it is likely he does, he must have two
hundred and forty horses to bring up his half-year's rent, and two or
three great cellars in his house for stowage. But what the bankers will
do I cannot tell. For I am assured, that some great bankers keep by them
forty thousand pounds in ready cash to answer all payments, which sum,
in Mr. Wood's money, would require twelve hundred horses to carry it.
[Footnote 20: William Conolly (d. 1729) was chosen Speaker of the Irish
House of Commons on November 12th, 1715. He held this office until
October 12th, 1729. Swift elsewhere says that Wharton sold Conolly the
office of Chief Commissioner of the Irish Revenue for £3,000. Between
the years 1706 and 1729 Conolly was ten times selected for the office of
a Lord Justice of Ireland. The remark in the text as to Conolly's income
is repeated by Boulter ("Letters," vol. i., p. 334), though the Primate
writes of £17,000 a year. The reference to Conolly is of set purpose,
because Conolly had advocated the patent as against Midleton's
condemnation of it. [T.S.]]
For my own part, I am already resolved what to do; I have a pretty good
shop of Irish stuffs and silks, and instead of taking Mr. Wood's bad
copper, I intend to truck with my neighbours the butchers, and bakers,
and brewers, and the rest, goods for goods, and the little gold and
silver I have, I will keep by me like my heart's blood till better
times, or till I am just ready to starve, and then I will buy Mr. Wood's
money as my father did the brass money in K. James's time,[21] who could
buy ten pound of it with a guinea, and I hope to get as much for a
pistole, and so purchase bread from those who will be such fools as to
sell it me.