THE DRAPIER'S LETTERS.
[Sidenote: 1724--Wood's coinage]
Lord Carteret arrived at the seat of his Viceroyalty in the midst of a
political storm which threatened at one time to blow down a good many
shaky institutions. He found the whole country, and especially the
capital, convulsed by an agitation the like of which was not seen again
until the days of Grattan and the Volunteers. The hero of the
agitation was Swift; the spell-words which gave it life and direction
were found in "The Drapier's Letters."
The copper coinage of Ireland had been for a long time deficient.
Employers of labor had in many cases been obliged to pay their workmen
in tokens; sometimes even with pieces of card, stamped and signed, and
representing each a small amount. During Sunderland's time of power,
the Government set themselves to work to supply the lack of copper, and
invited tenders from the owners of mines for the supply. A Mr. William
Wood, a man who owned iron and copper mines, and iron and copper works,
sent in a tender which was accepted. A patent was given to Wood
permitting him to coin halfpence and farthings to the value of one
hundred and eight thousand pounds. Walpole had not approved of the
scheme himself, but for various reasons he did not venture to upset it.
He had the patent prepared, and consulted Sir Isaac Newton, then Master
of the Mint, with regard to the objects which the Government had in
view, and the weight and fineness of the coin which Wood was to supply.
The halfpence and farthings were to be a little less in weight than the
coin of the same kind {241} current in England. Walpole considered
this necessary because of the difference in exchange between the two
countries. Sir Isaac Newton was of opinion that the Irish coin
exceeded the English in fineness of metal. As to the King's
prerogative for granting such patents, Walpole himself explained in a
letter to Lord Townshend, then in Hanover with the King, that it was
one never disputed and often exercised. The granting of this patent,
and the mode of supplying the deficiency in copper coin, might seem
little open to objection; but the Irish Privy Council at once declared
against the whole transaction. Both Houses of the Irish Parliament
passed addresses to the King, declaring that the introduction of Wood's
coinage would be injurious to the revenue and positively destructive of
trade. The Irish Lord Chancellor set himself sternly against the
patent in private, and urged all his friends, comrades, and dependents,
to act publicly against it. The addresses from the two Houses of
Parliament were sent to Walpole, who transmitted them to Lord
Townshend. Walpole accompanied the addresses with an explanation in
which he vindicated the policy represented by the granting of the
patent, and insisted that no harm whatever could be done to the trade
or revenue of Ireland by the introduction of the new copper coinage.
Walpole advised that the King should return a soothing and a
conciliatory reply to the addresses, and the King acted accordingly.
It seemed at one time probable that a satisfactory compromise would be
arranged between the Irish Parliament and King George's ministers.
This hope, however, was soon dispelled.
One objection felt by the Irish people in general to the patent and the
new coinage was founded on the discovery of the fact that Wood had
agreed to pay a large bribe to the Duchess of Kendal for her influence
in obtaining the patent for him. The objection of the Irish Executive
and the Irish Parliament was mainly based on the fact that Dublin had
not been consulted in the arrangement of the business. The ministers
in London {242} settled the whole affair, and then simply communicated
the nature of the arrangement to Dublin. Wood himself was unpopular,
so far as anything could be known of him, in Ireland. He was a
stranger to Ireland, and he was represented to be a boastful, arrogant
man, who went about saying he could do anything he liked with Walpole,
and that he would cram his copper coins down the throats of the Irish
people. All these objections, however, might have been got over but
for the sudden appearance of an unexpected and a powerful actor on the
scene. One morning appeared in Dublin "A letter to the shopkeepers,
tradesmen, farmers, and common people of Ireland, concerning the brass
halfpence coined by one William Wood, hardwareman, with a design to
have them pass in this kingdom; wherein is shown the power of his
patent, the value of his halfpence, and how far every person may be
obliged to take the same in payments; and how to behave himself in case
such an attempt should be made by Wood or any other person." The
letter was signed "M. B., Drapier." This was the first of those famous
"Drapier's Letters" which convulsed Ireland with a passion like that
preceding a great popular insurrection. It may be questioned whether
the pamphlets of a literary politician ever before or since worked with
so powerful an influence on the mind of a nation as these marvellous
letters.
[Sidenote: 1724--Swift's sincerity]
The author of "The Drapier's Letters," we need hardly say, was Dean
Swift. Swift had for some years withdrawn himself from the political
world. He is described by one of his biographers as having "amused
himself for three or four years with poetry, conversation, and
trifles." Now and then, however, he published some letter which showed
his interest in the condition of the people among whom he lived; his
proposal, for example, "for the universal use of Irish manufacture in
clothes and furniture of houses, etc.," was written in the year 1720.
This letter--the printer of which was subjected to a Government
prosecution--contains a passage which has been, perhaps, {243} more
often and more persistently misquoted than any other observation of any
author we can now remember. It seems to have become an article of
faith with many writers and most readers that Swift said, "Burn
everything that comes from England, except its coals." Without much
hope of correcting that false impression so far as the bulk of the
reading and quoting public is concerned, we may observe that Swift
never said anything of the kind. This is what he did say: "I heard the
late Archbishop of Tuam mention a pleasant observation of somebody's
that 'Ireland would never be happy until a law were made for burning
everything that came from England, except their people and their
coals.' I must confess that, as to the former, I should not be sorry
if they would stay at home, and, for the latter, I hope in a little
time we shall have no occasion for them." Swift was not an Irish
patriot; he was not, indeed, an Irishman at all, except by the accident
of birth, and now by the accident of residence. He did not love the
country; he would not have lived there a week if he could. He had no
affection for the people, and, at first, very little sympathy with
them. He was always angry if anybody regarded him as an Irishman. His
friends were all found among what may be described as the English and
Protestant colony in Ireland. He felt towards the native Irish--the
Irish Catholics--very much as the official of an English Government
might feel towards some savage tribe whom he had been sent out to
govern. But at the same time it is an entire mistake to represent
Swift as insincere in the efforts which he made to ameliorate the
condition of the Irish people, and to redress some of the gross wrongs
which he saw inflicted on them. The administrator of whom we have
already spoken might have gone out to the savage country with nothing
but contempt for its wild natives, but if he were at all a humane and a
just man, it would be natural for him as time went on to feel keenly if
any injustice were inflicted on the poor creatures whom he despised,
and at last to stand up {244} with indignation as their defender and
their champion. So it was with Swift. [Sidenote: 1724--The drapier's
arguments] Little as he liked the Irish people in the beginning, yet he
had a temper and a spirit which made him intolerant of injustice and
oppression. That fierce indignation described by himself, and of which
such store was always laid up in his heart, was roused to its highest
point of heat by the sight of the miseries of the Irish people and of
the frequent acts of neglect and injustice by which their misery was
deepened. He felt the most sincere resentment at the arbitrary manner
in which the Government in London were dealing with Ireland in the
matter of Wood's patent and Wood's copper coin. Swift, of course, knew
well by what influence the patent had been obtained, and he knew that
when obtained it had been simply thrust upon the Irish authorities,
Parliament, and people without any previous sanction or knowledge on
their part. Very likely he was also convinced, or had convinced
himself, that the patent and the new coin would be injurious to the
revenues and the trade of the country. Certainly, if he was not
convinced of this, he gave to all his diatribes against Wood, Wood's
patent, and Wood's halfpence the tones of profoundest conviction. He
assumed the character of a draper for the moment--why he chose to spell
draper "drapier" nobody knew--and he certainly succeeded in putting on
all the semblance of an honest trader driven to homely and robust
indignation by an impudent proposal to injure the business of himself
and his neighbors. In England, he says, "the halfpence and farthings
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 much
above a penny in a shilling." But he goes on to say that Mr. Wood,
whom he describes as "a mean, ordinary man, a hardware dealer"--Wood
was, as we have already seen, a large owner of iron and copper mines
and works, but that was all one to Dean Swift--"made his halfpence of
such base metal, and so much smaller than the English ones, that the
brazier would hardly give you {245} above a penny of good money for a
shilling of his; so that this sum of one hundred and eight thousand
pounds in good gold and silver may be given for trash that will not be
worth above eight or nine thousand pounds real value." Nor is even
this the worst, he contends, "for Mr. Wood, when he pleases, may by
stealth send over another hundred and eight thousand pounds and buy all
our goods for eleven parts in twelve under the value." "For example,"
says Swift, "if a hatter sells a dozen of hats for five shillings
apiece, which amounts to three pounds, and receives the payment in
Wood's coin, he really receives only the value of five shillings." Of
course this is the wildest exaggeration--is, in fact, mere extravagance
and absurdity, if regarded as a financial proposition. But Swift
understood, as hardly any other man understood, the art of employing
exaggeration with such an effect as to make it do the business of
unquestionable fact. He was able to make his literary coins pass for
much more than Wood could do with his halfpence and farthings. The
artistic skill which bade the creatures whom Gulliver saw in his
travels seem real, life-like, and living, made the fantastic
extravagance of the "Drapier's Letters" strike home with all the force
of truth to the minds of an excited populace.
Many biographers and historians have expressed a blank and utter
amazement at the effect which Swift's letters produced. They have
chosen to regard it as a mere historical curiosity, a sort of political
paradox and puzzle. They have described the Irish people at the time
as under the spell of something like sorcery. Even in our own days,
Mr. Gladstone, in a speech delivered to the House of Commons, treated
the convulsion caused by Swift's letters and Wood's halfpence as an
outbreak of national frenzy, called up by the witchery of style
displayed in the "Drapier's Letters." To some of us it is, on the
other hand, a matter of surprise to see how capable writers, and
especially how a man of Mr. Gladstone's genius and political knowledge,
could for a moment be thus deceived. {246} One is almost inclined to
think that Mr. Gladstone could not have been reading the "Drapier's
Letters" recently, when he thus spoke of the effect which they
produced, and thus was willing to explain it. [Sidenote: 1724--The
drapier's victory] Any one who reads the letters with impartial
attention will see that from first to last the anger that burns in
them, the sarcasm that withers and scorches, the passionate eloquence
which glows in even their most carefully measured sentences, are
directed against Wood and his halfpence only because the patent, the
bribe by which it was purchased, and the manner in which it was forced
on Ireland, represented the injustice of the whole system of Irish
administration, and the wrongs of many generations. "It would be very
hard if all Ireland," Swift declares with indignation, "should be put
into one scale, and this sorry fellow Wood into the other." "I have a
pretty good shop of Irish stuffs and silks," the Drapier declares, "and
instead of taking Mr. Wood's bad copper, I intend to truck with my
neighbors, 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 until I am just ready to starve."
"Wood's contract?" he asks. "His contract with whom? Was it with the
Parliament or people of Ireland?" The reader who believes that such a
passage as that, and scores of similar passages, were inspired merely
by disapproval of the introduction of one hundred and eight thousand
pounds in copper coin, must have very little understanding of Swift's
temper or Swift's purpose, or the condition of the times in which Swift
lived. "I will shoot Mr. Wood and his deputies through the head, like
highwaymen or house-breakers, if they dare to force one farthing of
their coin on me in the payment of a hundred pounds. It is no loss of
honor to submit to the lion, but who in the figure of a man can think
with patience of being devoured alive by a rat?" . . . "If the famous
Mr. Hampden rather chose to go to prison than pay a few shillings to
King Charles I., without authority of Parliament, I will {247} rather
choose to be hanged than have all my substance taxed at seventeen
shillings in the pound, at the arbitrary will and pleasure of the
venerable Mr. Wood." Mr. Gladstone, perhaps, did not observe this
allusion to "the famous Mr. Hampden." If he had done so, he would have
better understood the inspiration of the "Drapier's Letters." Mr.
Hampden was not so ignorant a man as to believe that the mere
collection of the ship-money--the mere withdrawal of so much money from
the pockets of certain tax-payers--would really ruin the trade and
imperil the national existence of England. What Mr. Hampden objected
to, and would have resisted to the death, was the unconstitutional and
despotic system which the levy of the ship-money represented. The
American colonists did not rise in rebellion against the Government of
George III. merely because they had eaten of the insane root, and
fancied that a trifling tax upon tea would destroy the trade of Boston
and New York. They rose in arms against the principle represented by
the imposition of the tax. We can all understand why there should have
been a national rebellion against ship-money, and a national rebellion
against a trumpery duty on tea, but English writers and English public
men seem quite unable to explain the national outcry against Wood's
patent, except on the theory that a clever writer, pouring forth
captivating nonsense, bewitched the Irish Parliament and the Irish
people, and sent them out of their senses for a season.
Swift followed up his first letter by others in rapid succession. Lord
Carteret arrived in Ireland when the agitation was at its height. He
issued a proclamation against the "Drapier's Letters," offered a reward
of three hundred pounds for the discovery of the author, and had the
printer arrested. The Grand Jury, however, unanimously threw out the
bill sent up against Harding, the printer. Another Grand Jury passed a
presentment against all persons who should by fraud or otherwise impose
Wood's copper coins upon the public. This {248} presentment is said to
have been drawn up by Swift's own hand. Lord Carteret at last had the
good-sense to perceive, and the spirit to acknowledge, that there was
no alternative between concession and rebellion. He strongly urged his
convictions on the Government, and the Government had the wisdom to
yield. The patent was withdrawn, a pension was given to Wood in
consideration of the loss he had sustained, and Swift was the object of
universal gratitude, enthusiasm, love, and devotion, on the part of the
Irish nation. Many a patriotic Irishman would fain believe to this
very day that Swift, too, was Irish, and an Irish patriot. Ireland
certainly has not yet forgotten, probably never will forget, the
successful stand made by Swift against what he believed to be an insult
to the Irish nation, when he took up his pen to write the first of the
Drapier's immortal Letters.
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