Robert Walpole, and desire him to read it, which he may do in a few
minutes. I am, with the greatest respect, my lord,
"Your lordship's
"most obedient and humble servant,
"JON. SWIFT."
Scott thinks that had Swift been anxious for personal favours from
Walpole he could easily have obtained them; "but the minister did
not choose to gain his adherence at the expense of sacrificing the
system which had hitherto guided England in her conduct towards the
sister kingdom, and the patriot of Ireland was not to be won at a
cheaper rate than the emancipation of his country."
The original pamphlet bears neither date nor printer's name.
[T. S.]
THE PRESENT MISERABLE STATE OF IRELAND.
SIR,
By the last packets I had the favour of yours, and am surprised that you
should apply to a person so ill qualified as I am, for a full and
impartial account of the state of our trade. I have always lived as
retired as possible; I have carefully avoided the perplexed honour of
city-offices; I have never minded anybody's business but my own; upon
all which accounts, and several others, you might easily have found
among my fellow-citizens, persons more capable to resolve the weighty
questions you put to me, than I can pretend to be.
But being entirely at leisure, even at this season of the year, when I
used to have scarce time sufficient to perform the necessary offices of
life, I will endeavour to comply with your requests, cautioning you not
implicitly to rely upon what I say, excepting what belongs to that
branch of trade in which I am more immediately concerned.
The Irish trade is, at present, in the most deplorable condition that
can be imagined; to remedy it, the causes of its languishment must be
inquired into: But as those causes (you may assure yourself) will not be
removed, you may look upon it as a thing past hopes of recovery.
The first and greatest shock our trade received, was from an act passed
in the reign of King William, in the Parliament of England, prohibiting
the exportation of wool manufactured in Ireland. An act (as the event
plainly shews) fuller of greediness than good policy; an act as
beneficial to France and Spain, as it has been destructive to England
and Ireland.[103] At the passing of this fatal act, the condition of
our trade was glorious and flourishing, though no way interfering with
the English; we made no broad-cloths above _6s._ per yard; coarse
druggets, bays and shalloons, worsted damasks, strong draught works,
slight half-works, and gaudy stuffs, were the only product of our looms:
these were partly consumed by the meanest of our people, and partly
sent to the northern nations, from which we had in exchange, timber,
iron, hemp, flax, pitch, tar, and hard dollars. At the time the current
money of Ireland was foreign silver, a man could hardly receive _100l._,
without finding the coin of all the northern powers, and every prince of
the empire among it. This money was returned into England for fine
cloths, silks, &c. for our own wear, for rents, for coals, for hardware,
and all other English manufactures, and, in a great measure, supplied
the London merchants with foreign silver for exportation.
The repeated clamours of the English weavers produced this act, so
destructive to themselves and us. They looked with envious eyes upon our
prosperity, and complained of being undersold by us in those
commodities, which they themselves did not deal in. At their instances
the act was passed, and we lost our profitable northern trade. Have they
got it? No, surely, you have found they have ever since declined in the
trade they so happily possessed; you shall find (if I am rightly
informed) towns without one loom in them, which subsisted entirely upon
the woollen manufactory before the passing of this unhappy bill; and I
will try if I can give the true reasons for the decay of their trade,
and our calamities.
Three parts in four of the inhabitants of that district of the town
where I dwell were English manufacturers, whom either misfortunes in
trade, little petty debts, contracted through idleness, or the pressures
of a numerous family, had driven into our cheap country: These were
employed in working up our coarse wool, while the finest was sent into
England. Several of these had taken the children of the native Irish
apprentices to them, who being humbled by the forfeiture of upward of
three millions by the Revolution, were obliged to stoop to a mechanic
industry. Upon the passing of this bill, we were obliged to dismiss
thousands of these people from our service. Those who had settled their
affairs returned home, and overstocked England with workmen; those whose
debts were unsatisfied went to France, Spain, and the Netherlands, where
they met with good encouragement, whereby the natives, having got a firm
footing in the trade, being acute fellows, soon became as good workmen
as any we have, and supply the foreign manufactories with a constant
recruit of artisans; our island lying much more under pasture than any
in Europe. The foreigners (notwithstanding all the restrictions the
English Parliament has bound us up with) are furnished with the greatest
quantity of our choicest wool. I need not tell you, sir, that a
custom-house oath is held as little sacred here as in England, or that
it is common for masters of vessels to swear themselves bound for one of
the English wool ports, and unload in France or Spain. By this means the
trade in those parts is, in a great measure, destroyed, and we were
obliged to try our hands at finer works, having only our home
consumption to depend upon; and, I can assure you, we have, in several
kinds of narrow goods, even exceeded the English, and I believe we
shall, in a few years more, be able to equal them in broad cloths; but
this you may depend upon, that scarce the tenth part of English goods
are now imported, of what used to be before the famous act.
The only manufactured wares we are allowed to export, are linen cloth
and linen yarn, which are marketable only in England; the rest of our
commodities are wool, restrained to England, and raw hides, skins,
tallow, beef, and butter. Now, these are things for which the northern
nations have no occasion; we are therefore obliged, instead of carrying
woollen goods to their markets, and bringing home money, to purchase
their commodities.
In France, Spain, and Portugal, our wares are more valuable, though it
must be owned, our fraudulent trade in wool is the best branch of our
commerce; from hence we get wines, brandy, and fruit, very cheap, and
in great perfection; so that though England has constrained us to be
poor, they have given us leave to be merry. From these countries we
bring home moydores, pistoles, and louisdores, without which we should
scarce have a penny to turn upon.
To England we are allowed to send nothing but linen cloth, yarn, raw
hides, skins, tallow, and wool. From thence we have coals, for which we
always pay ready money, India goods, English woollen and silks, tobacco,
hardware, earthenware, salt, and several other commodities. Our
exportations to England are very much overbalanced by our importations;
so that the course of exchange is generally too high, and people choose
rather to make their remittances to England in specie, than by a bill,
and our nation is perpetually drained of its little running cash.
Another cause of the decay of trade, scarcity of money, and swelling of
exchange, is the unnatural affectation of our gentry to reside in and
about London.[104] Their rents are remitted to them, and spent there.
The countryman wants employment from them; the country shopkeeper wants
their custom. For this reason he can't pay his Dublin correspondent
readily, nor take off a great quantity of his wares. Therefore, the
Dublin merchant can't employ the artisan, nor keep up his credit in
foreign markets.
I have discoursed some of these gentlemen, persons esteemed for good
sense, and demanded a reason for this their so unaccountable
proceeding,--expensive to them for the present, ruinous to their
country, and destructive to the future value of their estates,--and find
all their answers summed up under three heads, curiosity, pleasure, and
loyalty to King George. The two first excuses deserve no answer; let us
try the validity of the third. Would not loyalty be much better
expressed by gentlemen staying in their respective countries,
influencing their dependents by their examples, saving their own wealth,
and letting their neighbours profit by their necessary expenses, thereby
keeping them from misery, and its unavoidable consequence, discontent?
Or is it better to flock to London, be lost in a crowd, kiss the King's
hand, and take a view of the royal family? The seeing of the royal house
may animate their zeal for it; but other advantages I know not. What
employment have any of our gentlemen got by their attendance at Court,
to make up to them their expenses? Why, about forty of them have been
created peers, and a little less than a hundred of them baronets and
knights. For these excellent advantages, thousands of our gentry have
squeezed their tenants, impoverished the trader, and impaired their own
fortunes!
Another great calamity, is the exorbitant raising of the rents of lands.
Upon the determination of all leases made before the year 1690, a
gentleman thinks he has but indifferently improved his estate if he has
only doubled his rent-roll. Farms are screwed up to a rack-rent, leases
granted but for a small term of years, tenants tied down to hard
conditions, and discouraged from cultivating the lands they occupy to
the best advantage, by the certainty they have of the rent being raised,
on the expiration of their lease, proportionably to the improvements
they shall make. Thus is honest industry restrained; the farmer is a
slave to his landlord; 'tis well if he can cover his family with a
coarse home-spun frieze. The artisan has little dealings with him; yet
he is obliged to take his provisions from him at an extravagant price,
otherwise the farmer cannot pay his rent.
The proprietors of lands keep great part of them in their own hands for
sheep-pasture; and there are thousands of poor wretches who think
themselves blessed, if they can obtain a hut worse than the squire's
dog-kennel, and an acre of ground for a potato-plantation, on condition
of being as very slaves as any in America. What can be more deplorable,
than to behold wretches starving in the midst of plenty!
We are apt to charge the Irish with laziness, because we seldom find
them employed; but then we don't consider they have nothing to do. Sir
William Temple, in his excellent remarks on the United Provinces,
inquires why Holland, which has the fewest and worst ports and
commodities of any nation in Europe, should abound in trade, and
Ireland, which has the most and best of both, should have none? This
great man attributes this surprising accident to the natural aversion
man has for labour; who will not be persuaded to toil and fatigue
himself for the superfluities of life throughout the week, when he may
provide himself with all necessary subsistence by the labour of a day or
two. But, with due submission to Sir William's profound judgment, the
want of trade with us is rather owing to the cruel restraints we lie
under, than to any disqualification whatsoever in our inhabitants.
I have not, sir, for these thirty years past, since I was concerned in
trade, (the greatest part of which time distresses have been flowing in
upon us,) ever observed them to swell so suddenly to such a height as
they have done within these few months. Our present calamities are not
to be represented; you can have no notion of them without beholding
them. Numbers of miserable objects crowd our doors, begging us to take
their wares at any price, to prevent their families from immediate
starving. We cannot part with our money to them, both because we know
not when we shall have vent for their goods; and, as there are no debts
paid, we are afraid of reducing ourselves to their lamentable
circumstances. The dismal time of trade we had during Marr's Troubles in
Scotland, are looked upon as happy days when compared with the
present.[105]
I need not tell you, sir, that this griping want, this dismal poverty,
this additional woe, must be put to the accursed stocks, which have
desolated our country more effectually than England. Stockjobbing was a
kind of traffic we were utterly unacquainted with. We went late to the
South Sea market, and bore a great share in the losses of it, without
having tasted any of its profits.
If many in England have been ruined by stocks, some have been advanced.
The English have a free and open trade to repair their losses; but,
above all, a wise, vigilant, and uncorrupted Parliament and ministry,
strenuously endeavouring to restore public trade to its former happy
state. Whilst we, having lost the greatest part of our cash, without any
probability of its returning, must despair of retrieving our losses by
trade, and have before our eyes the dismal prospect of universal poverty
and desolation.
I believe, sir, you are by this time heartily tired with this indigested
letter, and are firmly persuaded of the truth of what I said in the
beginning of it, that you had much better have imposed this task on some
of our citizens of greater abilities. But perhaps, sir, such a letter as
this may be, for the singularity of it, entertaining to you, who
correspond with the politest and most learned men in Europe. But I am
satisfied you will excuse its want of exactness and perspicuity, when
you consider my education, my being unaccustomed to writings of this
nature, and, above all, those calamitous objects which constantly
surround us, sufficient to disturb the cleanest imagination, and the
soundest judgment.
Whatever cause I have given you, by this letter, to think worse of my
sense and judgment, I fancy I have given you a manifest proof that I am,
sir,
Your most obedient humble servant,
J. S.
THE SUBSTANCE
OF WHAT WAS SAID BY
THE DEAN OF ST. PATRICK'S
TO
THE LORD MAYOR AND SOME OF THE ALDERMEN,
WHEN HIS LORDSHIP CAME TO PRESENT THE SAID
DEAN WITH HIS FREEDOM IN A GOLD BOX.
NOTE.
It was only proper and fitting that the citizens and freemen of the
City of Dublin should express their sense of the high appreciation
in which they held the writer of the "Drapier's Letters," and the
man who had fought and was still fighting for an alleviation of the
grievances under which their country suffered. The Dublin
Corporation, in 1729, presented Swift with the freedom of the city,
an honour rarely bestowed, and only on men in high position and
power. To Swift the honour was welcome. It was a public act of
justification of what he had done, and it came gratefully to the
man who had at one time been abused and reviled by the people of
the very city which was now honouring him. Furthermore, such a
confirmation of his acts set the seal of public authority which was
desirable, even if not necessary, to a man of Swift's temper. He
could save himself much trouble by merely pointing to the gold box
which was presented to him with the freedom. Even in this last
moment, however, of public recognition, he was not allowed to
receive it without a snarl from one of the crowd of the many
slanderers who found it safer to backbite him. Lord Allen may have
been wrong in his head, or ill-advised, or foolishly over-zealous,
but his ill-tempered upbraiding of the Dublin Corporation for what
he called their treasonable extravagance in thus honouring Swift,
whom he deemed an enemy of the King, was the act of a fool. Swift
was not the man to let the occasion slip by without advantage. In
the substance of what he said to the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of
Dublin in accepting their gift, he replied to the charges made by
Lord Allen, and also issued a special advertisement by way of
defence against what the lord had thought fit to say.
* * * * *
Both these pieces are here reprinted; the first from a broadside in
the British Museum, and the second from a manuscript copy in the
Forster Collection at South Kensington.
[T. S.]
THE SUBSTANCE OF WHAT WAS SAID BY THE DEAN OF ST. PATRICK'S
TO THE LORD MAYOR AND SOME OF THE ALDERMEN, WHEN HIS
LORDSHIP CAME TO PRESENT THE SAID DEAN WITH HIS FREEDOM
IN A GOLD BOX.
When his Lordship had said a few words, and presented the instrument,
the Dean gently put it back, and desired first to be heard. He said, "He
was much obliged to his lordship and the city for the honour they were
going to do him, and which, as he was informed, they had long intended
him. That it was true, this honour was mingled with a little
mortification by the delay which attended it, but which, however, he did
not impute to his lordship or the city; and that the mortification was
the less, because he would willingly hope the delay was founded on a
mistake;--for which opinion he would tell his reason."
He said, "It was well known, that, some time ago, a person with a
title[106] was pleased, in two great assemblies, to rattle bitterly
somebody without a name, under the injurious appellations of a Tory, a
Jacobite, an enemy to King George, and a libeller of the government;
which character," the Dean said that, "many people thought was applied
to him. But he was unwilling to be of that opinion, because the person
who had delivered those abusive words, had, for several years, caressed,
and courted, and solicited his friendship more than any man in either
kingdom had ever done,--by inviting him to his house in town and
country,--by coming to the Deanery often, and calling or sending almost
every day when the Dean was sick,--with many other particulars of the
same nature, which continued even to a day or two of the time when the
said person made those invectives in the council and House of Lords.
Therefore, that the Dean would by no means think those scurrilous words
could be intended against him; because such a proceeding would overthrow
all the principles of honour, justice, religion, truth, and even common
humanity. Therefore the Dean will endeavour to believe, that the said
person had some other object in his thoughts, and it was only the
uncharitable custom of the world that applied this character to him.
However, that he would insist on this argument no longer. But one thing
he would affirm and declare, without assigning any name, or making any
exception, that whoever either did, or does, or shall hereafter, at any
time, charge him with the character of a Jacobite, an enemy to King
George, or a libeller of the government, the said accusation was, is,
and will be, false, malicious, slanderous, and altogether groundless.
And he would take the freedom to tell his lordship, and the rest that
stood by, that he had done more service to the Hanover title, and more
disservice to the Pretender's cause, than forty thousand of those noisy,
railing, malicious, empty zealots, to whom nature hath denied any talent
that could be of use to God or their country, and left them only the
gift of reviling, and spitting their venom, against all who differ from
them in their destructive principles, both in church and state. That he
confessed, it was sometimes his misfortune to dislike some things in
public proceedings in both kingdoms, wherein he had often the honour to
agree with wise and good men; but this did by no means affect either his
loyalty to his prince, or love to his country. But, on the contrary, he
protested, that such dislikes never arose in him from any other
principles than the duty he owed to the king, and his affection to the
kingdom. That he had been acquainted with courts and ministers long
enough, and knew too well that the best ministers might mistake in
points of great importance; and that he had the honour to know many more
able, and at least full as honest, as any can be at present."
The Dean further said, "That since he had been so falsely represented,
he thought it became him to give some account of himself for about
twenty years, if it were only to justify his lordship and the city for
the honour they were going to do him." He related briefly, how, "merely
by his own personal credit, without other assistance, and in two
journeys at his own expense, he had procured a grant of the first-fruits
to the clergy, in the late Queen's time, for which he thought he
deserved some gentle treatment from his brethren.[107] That, during all
the administration of the said ministry, he had been a constant advocate
for those who are called the Whigs,--and kept many of them in their
employments both in England and here,--and some who were afterwards the
first to lift up their heels against him." He reflected a little upon
the severe treatment he had met with upon his return to Ireland after
her Majesty's death, and for some years after. "That being forced to
live retired, he could think of no better way to do public service, than
by employing all the little money he could save, and lending it, without
interest, in small sums to poor industrious tradesmen, without examining
their party or their faith. And God had so far pleased to bless his
endeavours, that his managers tell him he hath recovered above two
hundred families in this city from ruin, and placed most of them in a
comfortable way of life."
The Dean related, how much he had suffered in his purse, and with what
hazard to his liberty, by a most iniquitous judge[108]; who, to gratify
his ambition and rage of party, had condemned an innocent book, written
with no worse a design, than to persuade the people of this kingdom to
wear their own manufactures.[109] How the said judge had endeavoured to
get a jury to his mind; but they proved so honest, that he was forced to
keep them eleven hours, and send them back nine times; until, at last,
they were compelled to leave the printer[110] to the mercy of the court,
and the Dean was forced to procure a _noli prosequi_ from a noble
person, then secretary of state, who had been his old friend.
The Dean then freely confessed himself to be the author of those books
called "The Drapier's Letters;" spoke gently of the proclamation,
offering three hundred pounds to discover the writer.[111] He said,
"That although a certain person was pleased to mention those books in a
slight manner at a public assembly, yet he (the Dean) had learned to
believe, that there were ten thousand to one in the kingdom who differed
from that person; and the people of England, who had ever heard of the
matter, as well as in France, were all of the same opinion."
The Dean mentioned several other particulars, some of which those from
whom I had the account could not recollect; and others, although of
great consequence, perhaps his enemies would not allow him.
The Dean concluded, with acknowledging to have expressed his wishes,
that an inscription might have been graven on the box, shewing some
reason why the city thought fit to do him that honour, which was much
out of the common forms to a person in a private station;--those
distinctions being usually made only to chief governors, or persons in
very high employments.
ADVERTISEMENT BY DR. SWIFT,
IN HIS
DEFENCE AGAINST JOSHUA, LORD ALLEN,
_Feb. 18, 1729._
ADVERTISEMENT BY DR. SWIFT, IN HIS DEFENCE AGAINST JOSHUA, LORD
ALLEN.[112]
"Whereas Dr. Jonathan Swift, Dean of St. Patrick's, Dublin, hath been
credibly informed, that, on Friday the 13th of this instant February, a
certain person did, in a public place, and in the hearing of a great
number, apply himself to the Right Honourable the Lord Mayor of this
city, and some of his brethren, in the following reproachful manner: 'My
lord, you and your city can squander away the public money, in giving a
gold box to a fellow who hath libelled the government!' or words to that
effect.