insinuate, that your government can be carried on without that
wholesome, necessary expedient, of sharing the public revenue with your
faithful deserving senators. This, I know, my enemies are pleased to
call bribery and corruption. Be it so: But I insist, that without this
bribery and corruption, the wheels of government will not turn, or at
least will be apt to take fire, like other wheels, unless they be
greased at proper times. If an angel from heaven should descend, to
govern this empire upon any other scheme than what our enemies call
corruption, he must return from whence he came, and leave the work
undone.
"Sir, It is well known we are a trading nation, and consequently cannot
thrive in a bargain where nothing is to be gained. The poor electors,
who run from their shops, or the plough, for the service of their
country, are they not to be considered for their labour and their
loyalty? The candidates, who, with the hazard of their persons, the loss
of their characters, and the ruin of their fortunes, are preferred to
the senate, in a country where they are strangers, before the very lords
of the soil; are they not to be rewarded for their zeal to your
Majesty's service, and qualified to live in your metropolis as becomes
the lustre of their stations?
"Sir, If I have given great numbers of the most profitable employments
among my own relations and nearest allies, it was not out of any
partiality, but because I know them best, and can best depend upon them.
I have been at the pains to mould and cultivate their opinions. Abler
heads might probably have been found, but they would not be equally
under my direction. A huntsman, who hath the absolute command of his
dogs, will hunt more effectually than with a better pack, to whose
manner and cry he is a stranger.
"Sir, Upon the whole, I will appeal to all those who best knew your
royal father, whether that blessed monarch had ever one anxious thought
for the public, or disappointment, or uneasiness, or want of money for
all his occasions, during the time of my administration? And, how happy
the people confessed themselves to be under such a king, I leave to
their own numerous addresses; which all politicians will allow to be the
most infallible proof how any nation stands affected to their
sovereign."
* * * * *
Lelop-Aw, having ended his speech and struck his forehead thrice against
the table, as the custom is in Japan, sat down with great complacency of
mind, and much applause of his adherents, as might be observed by their
countenances and their whispers. But the Emperor's behaviour was
remarkable; for, during the whole harangue, he appeared equally
attentive and uneasy. After a short pause, His Majesty commanded that
some other counsellor should deliver his thoughts, either to confirm or
object against what had been spoken by Lelop-Aw.
THE ANSWER OF THE RIGHT HON. WILLIAM PULTENEY, ESQ., TO THE
RIGHT HON. SIR ROBERT WALPOLE.[216]
Oct. 15, 1730.
SIR,
A pamphlet was lately sent me, entitled, "A Letter from the Right
Honourable Sir R. W. to the Right Honourable W. P. Esq; occasioned by the
late Invectives on the King, her Majesty, and all the Royal Family." By
these initial letters of our names, the world is to understand that you
and I must be meant. Although the letter seems to require an answer, yet
because it appears to be written rather in the style and manner used by
some of your pensioners, than your own, I shall allow you the liberty to
think the same of this answer, and leave the public to determine which
of the two actors can better personate their principals. That frigid and
fustian way of haranguing wherewith your representer begins, continues,
and ends his declamation, I shall leave to the critics in eloquence and
propriety to descant on; because it adds nothing to the weight of your
accusations, nor will my defence be one grain the better by exposing its
puerilities.
I shall therefore only remark upon this particular, that the frauds and
corruptions in most other arts and sciences, as law, physic (I shall
proceed no further) are usually much more plausibly defended than in
that of politics; whether it be, that by a kind of fatality the
vindication of a corrupt minister is always left to the management of
the meanest and most prostitute writers; or whether it be, that the
effects of a wicked or unskilful administration, are more public,
visible, pernicious and universal. Whereas the mistakes in other
sciences are often matters that affect only speculation; or at worst,
the bad consequences fall upon few and private persons. A nation is
quickly sensible of the miseries it feels, and little comforted by
knowing what account it turns to by the wealth, the power, the honours
conferred on those who sit at the helm, or the salaries paid to their
penmen; while the body of the people is sunk into poverty and despair. A
Frenchman in his wooden shoes may, from the vanity of his nation, and
the constitution of that government, conceive some imaginary pleasure in
boasting the grandeur of his monarch, in the midst of his own slavery;
but a free-born Englishman, with all his loyalty, can find little
satisfaction at a minister overgrown in wealth and power from the lowest
degree of want and contempt; when that power or wealth are drawn from
the bowels and blood of the nation, for which every fellow-subject is a
sufferer, except the great man himself, his family, and his pensioners.
I mean such a minister (if there hath ever been such a one) whose whole
management hath been a continued link of ignorance, blunders, and
mistakes in every article besides that of enriching and aggrandizing
himself.
For these reasons the faults of men, who are most trusted in public
business, are, of all others, the most difficult to be defended. A man
may be persuaded into a wrong opinion, wherein he hath small concern:
but no oratory can have the power over a sober man against the
conviction of his own senses: and therefore, as I take it, the money
thrown away on such advocates might be more prudently spared, and kept
in such a minister's own pocket, than lavished in hiring a corporation
of pamphleteers to defend his conduct, and prove a kingdom to be
flourishing in trade and wealth, which every particular subject (except
those few already excepted) can lawfully swear, and, by dear experience
knows, to be a falsehood.
Give me leave, noble sir, in the way of argument, to suppose this to be
your case; could you in good conscience, or moral justice, chide your
paper-advocates for their ill success in persuading the world against
manifest demonstration? Their miscarriage is owing, alas! to want of
matter. Should we allow them to be masters of wit, raillery, or
learning, yet the subject would not admit them to exercise their
talents; and, consequently, they can have no recourse but to impudence,
lying, and scurrility.
I must confess, that the author of your letter to me hath carried this
last qualification to a greater height than any of his fellows: but he
hath, in my opinion, failed a little in point of politeness from the
original which he affects to imitate. If I should say to a prime
minister, "Sir, you have sufficiently provided that Dunkirk should be
absolutely demolished and never repaired; you took the best advantages
of a long and general peace to discharge the immense debts of the
nation; you did wonders with the fleet; you made the Spaniards submit to
our quiet possession of Gibraltar and Portmahon; you never enriched
yourself and family at the expense of the public."--Such is the style of
your supposed letter, which however, if I am well informed, by no means
comes up to the refinements of a fishwife in Billingsgate. "You never
had a bastard by Tom the waterman; you never stole a silver tankard; you
were never whipped at the cart's tail."
In the title of your letter, it is said to be "occasioned by the late
invectives on the King, her Majesty, and all the Royal Family:" and the
whole contents of the paper (stripped from your eloquence) goes on upon
a supposition affectedly serious, that their Majesties, and the whole
Royal Family, have been lately bitterly and publicly inveighed against
in the most enormous and treasonable manner. Now, being a man, as you
well know, altogether out of business, I do sometimes lose an hour in
reading a few of those controversial papers upon politics, which have
succeeded for some years past to the polemical tracts between Whig and
Tory: and in this kind of reading (if it may deserve to be so called)
although I have been often but little edified, or entertained, yet hath
it given me occasion to make some observations. First, I have observed,
that however men may sincerely agree in all the branches of the Low
Church principle, in a tenderness for dissenters of every kind, in a
perfect abhorrence of Popery and the Pretender, and in the most firm
adherence to the Protestant succession in the royal house of Hanover;
yet plenty of matter may arise to kindle their animosities against each
other from the various infirmities, follies, and vices inherent in
mankind.
Secondly, I observed, that although the vulgar reproach which charges
the quarrels between ministers, and their opposers, to be only a
contention for power between those who are in, and those who would be in
if they could; yet as long as this proceeds no further than a scuffle of
ambition among a few persons, it is only a matter of course, whereby the
public is little affected. But when corruptions are plain, open, and
undisguised, both in their causes and effects, to the hazard of a
nation's ruin, and so declared by all the principal persons and the bulk
of the people, those only excepted who are gainers by those corruptions:
and when such ministers are forced to fly for shelter to the throne,
with a complaint of disaffection to majesty against all who durst
dislike their administration: such a general disposition in the minds of
men, cannot, I think, by any rules of reason, be called the "clamour of
a few disaffected incendiaries," gasping[217] after power. It is the
true voice of the people; which must and will at last be heard, or
produce consequences that I dare not mention.
I have observed thirdly, that among all the offensive printed papers
which have come to my hand, whether good or bad, the writers have taken
particular pains to celebrate the virtues of our excellent King and
Queen, even where these were, strictly speaking, no part of the subject:
nor can it be properly objected that such a proceeding was only a blind
to cover their malice towards you and your assistants; because to
affront the King, Queen, or the Royal Family, as it would be directly
opposite to the principles that those kind of writers have always
professed, so it would destroy the very end they have in pursuit. And it
is somewhat remarkable, that those very writers against you, and the
regiment you command, are such as most distinguish themselves upon all,
or upon no occasions, by their panegyrics on their prince; and, as all
of them do this without favour or hire, so some of them continue the
same practice under the severest prosecution by you and your janizaries.
You seem to know, or at least very strongly to conjecture, who those
persons are that give you so much weekly disquiet. Will you dare to
assert that any of these are Jacobites, endeavour to alienate the hearts
of the people, to defame the prince, and then dethrone him (for these
are your expressions) and that I am their patron, their bulwark, their
hope, and their refuge? Can you think I will descend to vindicate myself
against an aspersion so absurd? God be thanked, we have had many a
change of ministry without changing our prince: for if it had been
otherwise, perhaps revolutions might have been more frequent. Heaven
forbid that the welfare of a great kingdom, and of a brave people,
should be trusted with the thread of a single subject's life; for I
suppose it is not yet in your view to entail the ministryship in your
family. Thus I hope we may live to see different ministers and different
measures, without any danger to the succession in the royal Protestant
line of Hanover.
You are pleased to advance a topic, which I could never heartily approve
of in any party, although they have each in their turn advanced it while
they had the superiority. You tell us, "It is hard that while every
private man shall have the liberty to choose what servants he pleaseth,
the same privilege should be refused to a king." This assertion, crudely
understood, can hardly be supported. If by servants be only meant those
who are purely menial, who provide for their master's food and clothing,
or for the convenience and splendour of his family, the point is not
worth debating. But the bad or good choice of a chancellor, a secretary,
an ambassador, a treasurer, and many other officers, is of very high
consequence to the whole kingdom; so is likewise that amphibious race of
courtiers between servants and ministers; such as the steward,
chamberlain, treasurer of the household and the like, being all of the
privy council, and some of the cabinet, who according to their talents,
their principles, and their degree of favour, may be great instruments
of good or evil, both to the subject and the prince; so that the
parallel is by no means adequate between a prince's court and a private
family. And yet if an insolent footman be troublesome in the
neighbourhood; if he breaks the people's windows, insults their
servants, breaks into other folk's houses to pilfer what he can find,
although he belong to a duke, and be a favourite in his station, yet
those who are injured may, without just offence, complain to his lord,
and for want of redress get a warrant to send him to the stocks, to
Bridewell, or to Newgate, according to the nature and degree of his
delinquencies. Thus the servants of the prince, whether menial or
otherwise, if they be of his council, are subject to the enquiries and
prosecutions of the great council of the nation, even as far as to
capital punishment; and so must ever be in our constitution, till a
minister can procure a majority even of that council to shelter him;
which I am sure you will allow to be a desperate crisis under any party
of the most plausible denomination.
The only instance you produce, or rather insinuate, to prove the late
invectives against the King, Queen, and Royal Family, is drawn from that
deduction of the English history, published in several papers by the
_Craftsman_; wherein are shewn the bad consequences to the public, as
well as to the prince, from the practices of evil ministers in most
reigns, and at several periods, when the throne was filled by wise
monarchs as well as by weak. This deduction, therefore, cannot
reasonably give the least offence to a British king, when he shall
observe that the greatest and ablest of his predecessors, by their own
candour, by a particular juncture of affairs, or by the general
infirmity of human nature, have sometimes put too much trust in
confident, insinuating, and avaricious ministers.
Wisdom, attended by virtue and a generous nature, is not unapt to be
imposed on. Thus Milton describes Uriel, "the sharpest-sighted spirit in
heaven," and "regent of the sun," deceived by the dissimulation and
flattery of the devil, for which the poet gives a philosophical reason,
but needless here to quote.[218] Is anything more common, or more
useful, than to caution wise men in high stations against putting too
much trust in undertaking servants, cringing flatterers, or designing
friends? Since the Asiatic custom of governing by prime ministers hath
prevailed in so many courts of Europe, how careful should every prince
be in the choice of the person on whom so great a trust is devolved,
whereon depend the safety and welfare of himself and all his subjects.
Queen Elizabeth, whose administration is frequently quoted as the best
pattern for English princes to follow, could not resist the artifices of
the Earl of Leicester, who, although universally allowed to be the most
ambitious, insolent, and corrupt person of his age, was yet her
greatest, and almost her only favourite: (his religion indeed being
partly puritan and partly infidel, might have better tallied with
present times) yet this wise queen would never suffer the openest
enemies of that overgrown lord to be sacrificed to his vengeance; nor
durst he charge them with a design of introducing Popery or the Spanish
pretender.
How many great families do we all know, whose masters have passed for
persons of good abilities, during the whole course of their lives, and
yet the greatest part of whose estates have sunk in the hands of their
stewards and receivers; their revenues paid them in scanty portions, at
large discount, and treble interest, though they did not know it; while
the tenants were daily racked, and at the same time accused to their
landlords of insolvency. Of this species are such managers, who, like
honest Peter Waters, pretend to clear an estate, keep the owner
penniless, and, after seven years, leave him five times more in debt,
while they sink half a plum into their own pockets.
Those who think themselves concerned, may give you thanks for that
gracious liberty you are pleased to allow them of "taking vengeance on
the ministers, and there shooting their envenomed arrows." As to myself;
I neither owe you vengeance, nor make use of such weapons: but it is
your weakness, or ill fortune, or perhaps the fault of your
constitution, to convert wholesome remedies into poison; for you have
received better and more frequent instructions than any minister of your
age and country, if God had given you the grace to apply them.
I dare promise you the thanks of half the kingdom, if you will please to
perform the promise you have made of suffering the _Craftsman_ and
company, or whatever other "infamous wretches and execrable villains"
you mean, to take their vengeance only on your own sacred ministerial
person, without bringing any of your brethren, much less the most remote
branch of the Royal Family, into the debate. This generous offer I
suspected from the first; because there were never heard of so many, so
unnecessary, and so severe prosecutions as you have promoted during your
ministry, in a kingdom where the liberty of the press is so much
pretended to be allowed. But in reading a page or two, I found you
thought it proper to explain away your grant; for there you tell us,
that "these miscreants" (meaning the writers against you) "are to
remember that the laws have ABUNDANTLY LESS generous, less mild
and merciful sentiments" than yourself, and into their secular hands the
poor authors must be delivered to fines, prisons, pillories, whippings,
and the gallows. Thus your promise of impunity, which began somewhat
jesuitically, concludes with the mercy of a Spanish inquisitor.
If it should so happen that I am neither "abettor, patron, protector,"
nor "supporter" of these imaginary invectives "against the King, her
Majesty, or any of the Royal Family," I desire to know what
satisfaction I am to get from you, or the creature you employed in
writing the libel which I am now answering? It will be no excuse to
say, that I differ from you in every particular of your political
reason and practise; because that will be to load the best, the
soundest, and most numerous part of the kingdom with the denominations
you are pleased to bestow upon me, that they are "Jacobites, wicked
miscreants, infamous wretches, execrable villains, and defamers of the
King, Queen, and all the Royal Family," and "guilty of high treason."
You cannot know my style; but I can easily know your works, which are
performed in the sight of the sun. Your good inclinations are
visible; but I begin to doubt the strength of your credit, even at
court, that you have not power to make his Majesty believe me the
person which you represent in your libel: as most infallibly you have
often attempted, and in vain, because I must otherwise have found it
by the marks of his royal displeasure. However, to be angry with you
to whom I am indebted for the greatest obligation I could possibly
receive, would be the highest ingratitude. It is to YOU I owe that
reputation I have acquired for some years past of being a lover of my
country and its constitution: to YOU I owe the libels and scurrilities
conferred upon me by the worst of men, and consequently some degree of
esteem and friendship from the best. From YOU I learned the skill of
distinguishing between a patriot and a plunderer of his country: and
from YOU I hope in time to acquire the knowledge of being a loyal,
faithful, and useful servant to the best of princes, King George the
Second; and therefore I can conclude, by your example, but with
greater truth, that I am not only with humble submission and respect,
but with infinite gratitude, Sir, your most obedient and most obliged
servant,
W. P.
INDEX
Acheson, Sir Arthur, 246.
Alberoni's expedition, 207.
Allen, Joshua, Lord, his attack on Swift, 168, 169, 175, 176, 236, 237;
account of, 175.
America, emigration from Ireland to, 120.
Arachne, fable of, 21.
Ballaquer, Carteret's secretary, 242.
Bank, proposal for a national, in Ireland, 27, 31, 38, 42, 43;
subscribers to the, 49-51.
Barbou, Dr Nicholas, 69.
Barnstaple, the chief market for Irish wool, 18.
Beggars in Ireland, 70;
Proposal for giving Badges to, 323-335;
reason for the number of, 341.
Birch, Colonel John, 6.
Bishops, Swift's proposal to sell the lands of the, 252 _et seq._
Bladon, Colonel, 23.
Bolingbroke, Lord, his contributions to the "Craftsman," 219, 375, 377.
Boulter, Archbishop, his scheme for lowering the gold coinage, 353;
opposed by Swift, 353, 354.
Browne, Sir John, his "Scheme of the money matters of Ireland," 66;
Swift's answer to his "Memorial," 109-116.
Burnet, William, 121.
Carteret, John, Lord, 227;
Swift's Vindication of, 229-249.
Coinage, McCulla's proposal about, 179-190;
Swift's counter-proposal, 183.
Coining, forbidden in Ireland, 88, 134.
Compton, Sir Spencer, 387.
Corn, imported into Ireland from England, 17.
"Cossing," explained, 271.
Cotter, ballad upon, 23.
"Craftsman," the, 219, 375, 397, 399.
Davenport, Colonel, 280.
Delany, Dr. Patrick, 244.
Dublin, thieves and roughs in, 56;
Examination of certain Abuses, etc, in, 263-282;
Advice to the Freemen of, in the Choice of
a Member of Parliament, 311-316;
Considerations in the Choice of a Recorder of, 319, 320.
Dunkin, Rev. William, Swift's efforts in behalf of, 364, 368.
Dutton-Colt, Sir Harry, 280.
Elliston, Ebenezer, Last Speech of, 56 _et seq._
Esquire, the title of, 49.
Footmen, Petition of the, 307.
French, Humphry, Lord Mayor of Dublin, 310, 311.
French army, recruited in Ireland, 218, 220.
Frogs, propagation of, in Ireland, 340.
Galway, Earl of, 235.
Grafton, Duke of, 194.
Grimston, Lord, his "Lawyer's Fortune, or Love in a Hollow Tree," 24.
Gwythers, Dr., introduces frogs into Ireland, 340.
Hanmer, Sir Thomas, 387.
Hospital for Incurables, Scheme for a, 283-303.
Hutcheson, Hartley, 234.
Injured Lady, Story of the, 97-103;
Answer to the, 107-109.
Ireland, the Test Act in, 2, 5 _et seq._;
exportation of wool from, forbidden, 17, 18, 110, 111, 157, 158;
absentee landlords, 25, 69, 71, 101, 162;
Sheridan's account of the state of, 26-30;
proposal for establishing a National Bank in, 31, 38, 42, 43;
maxims controlled in, 65;
poverty of, 25, 66, 87, 89, 90, 122;
increase of rents in, 67, 163;
begging and thieving in, 70;
Short view of the State of, 83-91;
importation of cattle into England prohibited, 86, 100, 110, 221;
encouragement of the linen manufactures in, 102, 158;
luxury and extravagance among the women in, 124, 139, 198, 199, 219;
condition of the roads in, 130;
bad management of the bogs in, 131;
dishonesty of tradesmen in, 142, 147;
the National Debt of, 196;
famine in, 203;
population of, 208;
persecution of Roman Catholics in, 263.
Irish brogue, the, 346.
Irish eloquence, 361.
Irish language, proposal to abolish the, 133.
Irish peers, titles of, 349.
Japan, Account of the Court and Empire of, 382-391.
King, Archbishop, 21, 119, 136, 244, 326.
Lindsay, Robert, 259.
Linen trade in Ireland, the, 88, 102, 158.
Littleton, Sir Thomas, 7.
Lorrain, Paul, ordinary of Newgate, 34.
Macarrell, John, 310, 311.
McCulla's Project about halfpence, 179-190.
Manufactures, Irish, Proposal for the Universal use of, 17-30;
Proposal that all Ladies should appear constantly in, 193-199.
_See also_ "Woollen Manufactures."
Mar, Earl of, 164.
Maxwell, Henry, his pamphlets in favour of a bank in Ireland, 38.