had in this my last journey, so far transported me to a mixture of rage
and compassion, that I am not able to decide, which had the greater
influence upon my spirits; for this new cant, of a rich and flourishing
nation, was still uppermost in my thoughts; every mile I travelled,
giving me such ample demonstrations to the contrary. For this reason, I
have been at the pains to render a most exact and faithful account of
all the visible signs of riches, which I met with in sixty miles' riding
through the most public roads, and the best part of the kingdom. First,
as to trade, I met nine cars loaden with old musty, shrivelled hides;
one car-load of butter; four jockeys driving eight horses, all out of
case; one cow and calf driven by a man and his wife; six tattered
families flitting to be shipped off to the West Indies; a colony of a
hundred and fifty beggars, all repairing to people our metropolis, and
by encreasing the number of hands, to encrease its wealth, upon the old
maxim, that people are the riches of a nation, and therefore ten
thousand mouths, with hardly ten pair of hands, or hardly any work to
employ them, will infallibly make us a rich and flourishing people.
Secondly, Travellers enough, but seven in ten wanting shirts and
cravats; nine in ten going bare foot, and carrying their brogues and
stockings in their hands; one woman in twenty having a pillion, the rest
riding bare backed: Above two hundred horsemen, with four pair of boots
amongst them all; seventeen saddles of leather (the rest being made of
straw) and most of their garrons only shod before. I went into one of
the principal farmer's houses, out of curiosity, and his whole furniture
consisted of two blocks for stools, a bench on each side the fire-place
made of turf, six trenchers, one bowl, a pot, six horn spoons, three
noggins, three blankets, one of which served the man and maid servant;
the other the master of the family, his wife and five children; a small
churn, a wooden candlestick, a broken stick for a pair of tongs. In the
public towns, one third of the inhabitants walking the streets bare
foot; windows half built up with stone, to save the expense of glass,
the broken panes up and down supplied by brown paper, few being able to
afford white; in some places they were stopped with straw or hay.
Another mark of our riches, are the signs at the several inns upon the
road, viz. In some, a staff stuck in the thatch, with a turf at the end
of it; a staff in a dunghill with a white rag wrapped about the head; a
pole, where they can afford it, with a besom at the top; an oatmeal cake
on a board at the window; and, at the principal inns of the road, I have
observed the signs taken down and laid against the wall near the door,
being taken from their post to prevent the shaking of the house down by
the wind. In short, I saw not one single house, in the best town I
travelled through, which had not manifest appearances of beggary and
want. I could give many more instances of our wealth, but I hope these
will suffice for the end I propose.
"It may be objected, what use it is of to display the poverty of the
nation, in the manner I have done. I answer, I desire to know for what
ends, and by what persons, this new opinion of our flourishing state has
of late been so industriously advanced: One thing is certain, that the
advancers have either already found their own account, or have been
heartily promised, or at least have been entertained with hopes, by
seeing such an opinion pleasing to those who have it in their power to
reward.
"It is no doubt a very generous principle in any person to rejoice in
the felicities of a nation, where themselves are strangers or
sojourners: But if it be found that the same persons on all other
occasions express a hatred and contempt of the nation and people in
general, and hold it for a maxim--'That the more such a country is
humbled, the more their own will rise'; it need be no longer a secret,
why such an opinion, and the advantages of it are encouraged. And
besides, if the bayliff reports to his master, that the ox is fat and
strong, when in reality it can hardly carry its own legs, is it not
natural to think, that command will be given, for a greater load to be
put upon it?" [T. S.]
[21] This was a project for the establishment of a national bank for
Ireland. Swift ridiculed the proposal (see p. 31), no doubt, out of
suspicion of the acts of stock-jobbers and the monied interests which
were enlisted on the side of the Whigs. His experience, also, of the
abortive South Sea Schemes would tend to make his opposition all the
stronger. But the plans for the bank were not ill-conceived, and had
Swift been in calmer temper he might have seen the advantages which
attached to the proposals. [T. S.]
[22] Thus in original edition. In Faulkner and the "Miscellanies" of
1735 the words are, "altogether imaginary." [T. S.]
[23] The motto round a crown piece, which was the usual price of
permits. [_Orig. edit._]
[24] The Dean of St. Patrick's. [F.]
[25] Paul Lorrain, who was appointed ordinary of Newgate in 1698,
compiled numerous confessions and dying speeches of prisoners condemned
to be hanged. A letter to Swift, from Pope and Bolingbroke, dated
December, 1725, mentions him as "the great historiographer," and Steele,
in the "Tatler" and "Spectator," refers to "Lorrain's Saints." Lorrain
attended some famous criminals to the scaffold, including Captain Kidd
and Jack Sheppard. [T. S.]
[26] The following is an account of the proceedings of both the houses
of the Irish parliament upon the subject of this proposed bank.
In the year 1720, James, Earl of Abercorn, Gustavus, Viscount Boyne, Sir
Ralph Gore, Bart., Oliver St. George, and Michael Ward, Esqs., in behalf
of themselves and others, presented a petition to his Majesty for a
charter of incorporation, whereby they might be established as a bank,
under the name and title of the Bank of Ireland. They proposed to raise
a fund of £500,000 to supply merchants, etc., with money at five per
cent., and agreed to contribute £50,000 to the service of government in
consideration of their obtaining a charter. In their petition they
state, that "the raising of a million for that purpose is creating a
greater fund than the nation can employ." Soon after the above-mentioned
petition was lodged, a second application was made by Lord Forbes and
others, who proposed raising a million for that purpose, and offered to
discharge "the £50,000 national debt of that kingdom, in five years from
the time they should obtain a charter." The latter application, being
subsequent in point of date, was withdrawn, Lord Forbes and his friends
having acquainted the Lord-lieutenant that, "rather than, by a
competition, obstruct a proposal of so general advantage, they were
willing to desist from their application." The former was accordingly
approved of, and the King, on the 29th of July, 1721, issued letters of
Privy Seal, directing that a charter of incorporation should pass the
Great Seal of Ireland. ("Comm. Journ.," vol. iii, Appendix ix, page cc,
etc.)
When the parliament of Ireland met, on the 12th of September following,
the Duke of Grafton, lord lieutenant, in his speech from the throne,
communicated the intention of his Majesty to both houses, and concluded
by saying, "As this is a matter of general and national concern, his
Majesty leaves it to the wisdom of Parliament to consider what
advantages the public may receive by erecting a bank, and in what manner
it may be settled upon a safe foundation, so as to be beneficial to the
kingdom." The commons, in their address, which was voted unanimously on
the 14th, expressed their gratitude for his Majesty's goodness and royal
favour in directing a commission to establish a bank, and on the 21st
moved for the papers to be laid before them; they even, on the 29th,
agreed to the following resolution of the committee they had appointed,
"that the establishment of a bank upon a solid and good foundation,
under proper regulations and restrictions, will contribute to restoring
of credit, and support of the trade and manufacture of the kingdom;"
but, when the heads of a bill for establishing the bank came to be
discussed, a strenuous opposition was raised to it. On the 9th of
December Sir Thomas Taylor, chairman of the committee to whom the matter
had been referred, reported "that they had gone through the first
enacting paragraph, and disagreed to the same." Accordingly, the
question being proposed and put, the house (after a division, wherein
there appeared 150 for the question and 80 against it) voted that "they
could not find any safe foundation for establishing a public bank," and
resolved that an address, conformable to this resolution, should be
presented to the lord-lieutenant. (Comm. Journ., vol. iii, pp.
247-289.)
The proceedings of the House of Lords resembled that of the Commons; on
the 8th of November they concurred with the resolution of their
committee, which was unfavourable to the establishment of a bank. A
protest was, however, entered, signed by four temporal and two spiritual
peers, and when an address to his Majesty, grounded on that resolution,
was proposed, a long debate ensued, which occupied two days. On the 9th
December a list of the subscriptions was called for, and on the 16th
they resolved, that if any lord, spiritual or temporal, should attempt
to obtain a charter to erect a bank, "he should be deemed a contemnor of
the authority of that house, and a betrayer of the liberty of his
country." They ordered, likewise, that this resolution should be
presented by the chancellor to the lord lieutenant. ("Lord's Journal,"
vol. ii, pp. 687-720.) _Monck Mason's "Hist. St. Patrick's Cathedral_,"
p. 325, note 3. [T. S.]
[27] The title, Esquire, according to a high authority, was anciently
applied "to the younger sons of nobility and their heirs in the
immediate line, to the eldest sons of knights and their heirs, to the
esquire of the knights and others of that rank in his Majesty's service,
and to such as had eminent employment in the Commonwealth, and were not
knighted, such as judges, sheriffs, and justices of the peace during
their offices, and some others. But now," says Sir Edward Walker, "in
the days of Charles I., the addition is so increased, that he is a very
poor and inconsiderable person who writes himself less."
Accordingly, most of the signatures for shares in the projected National
Bank of Ireland, were dignified with the addition of Esquire, which,
added to the obscurity of the subscribers, incurs the ridicule of our
author in the following treatise. [S.]
[28] SUBSCRIBERS TO THE BANK, PLACED ACCORDING TO THEIR ORDER AND
QUALITY, WITH NOTES AND QUERIES.
A true and exact account of the nobility, gentry, and traders, of the
kingdom of Ireland, who, upon mature deliberation, are of opinion, that
the establishing a bank upon real security, would be highly for the
advantage of the trade of the said kingdom, and for increasing the
current species of money in the same. Extracted from the list of the
subscribers to the Bank of Ireland, published by order of the
commissioners appointed to receive subscriptions.
_Nobility._
Archbishops 0
Marquisses 0
Earls 0
Viscounts 3
Barons 1
Bishops 2
French Baron 1
N. B.: The temporal Lords of Ireland are 125, the Bishops 22. In all 147,
exclusive of the aforesaid French Count.
_Gentry._
Baronets 1
Knights 1
N. B. Total of baronets and knights in Ireland uncertain; but in common
computation supposed to be more than two.
Members of the House of Commons--41. One whereof reckoned before amongst
the two knights.
N. B. Number of Commoners in all 300.
Esquires not Members of Parliament--37
N. B. There are at least 20 of the said 37 Esquires whose names are
little known, and whose qualifications as Esqrs. are referred to the king
at arms; and the said king is desired to send to the publisher hereof a
true account of the whole number of such real or reputed Esqrs. as are to
be found in this kingdom.
_Clergy._
Deans 1
Arch-Deacons 2
Rectors 3
Curates 2
N. B. Of this number one French dean, one French curate, and one
bookseller.
Officers not members of Parliament--16
N. B. Of the above number 10 French; but uncertain whether on whole or
half pay, broken, or of the militia.
_Women._
Ladies 1
Widows 3 whereof one qualified to be deputy-governor.
Maidens 4
N. B. It being uncertain in what class to place the eight female
subscribers, whether in that of nobility, gentry, &c. it is thought
proper to insert them here betwixt the officers and traders.
_Traders._
{ Dublin 1 a Frenchman.
Aldermen of { Cork 1
{ Limerick 1
Waterford 0
Drogheda 0
&c. 0
Merchants 29, _viz._ 10 French, of London 1, of Cork 1, of Belfast 1.
N. B. The place of abode of three of the said merchants, _viz._ of
London, Cork and Belfast, being mentioned, the publisher desires to know
where the rest may be wrote to, and whether they deal in wholesale or
retail, _viz._
Master dealers, &c. 59, cashiers 1, bankers 4, chemist 1, player 1,
Popish vintner 1, bricklayer 1, chandler 1, doctors of physic 4,
chirurgeons 2, pewterer 1, attorneys 4 (besides one esq. attorney before
reckoned), Frenchmen 8, but whether pensioners, barbers, or markees,
uncertain. As to the rest of the M----rs, the publisher of this paper,
though he has used his utmost diligence, has not been able to get a
satisfactory account either as to their country, trade or profession.
N. B. The total of men, women and children in Ireland, besides Frenchmen,
is 2,000,000. Total of the land of Ireland acres 16,800,000. (Vide
Reasons for a Bank, &c.)
Quære, How many of the said acres are in possession of 1 French baron, 1
French dean, 1 French curate, 1 French alderman, 10 French merchants, 8
Messieurs Frances, 1 esq. projector, 1 esq. attorney, 6 officers of the
army, 8 women, 1 London merchant, 1 Cork merchant, 1 Belfast merchant,
18 merchants whose places of abode are not mentioned, 1 cashier, 4
bankers, 1 gentleman projector, 1 player, 1 chemist, 1 Popish vintner, 1
bricklayer, 1 chandler, 4 doctors of physic, 2 chirurgeons, 1 pewterer,
4 gentlemen attorneys, besides 28 gentleman dealers, yet unknown, _ut
supra_?
Dublin: Printed by John Harding in Molesworth's Court, in Fishamble
Street. (_Reprinted from original broadside, n.d._)
[29] In the capacity of a postillion, no doubt. [T. S.]
[30] Which means that she kept an eating-house or restaurant, and became
eventually a bankrupt. [T. S.]
[31] The livery of a footman. [T. S.]
[32] As a constable. [T. S.]
[33] An innkeeper. [T. S.]
[34] This paragraph is printed as given by Faulkner in ed. 1735, vol.
iv. [T. S.]
[35] See note on Paul Lorrain, p. 34. It was the duty of the Ordinary of
a prison to compose such dying speeches. [T. S.]
[36] His parents were Dissenters, and gave him a good education. [T. S.]
[37] Sir Henry Craik remarks on this title: "In modern language this
might well have been entitled, 'The theories of political economy proved
to have no application to Ireland.'" The word "controlled" is used in
the now obsolete sense of "confuted." [T. S.]
[38] Sir John Browne, in his "Scheme of the Money Matters of Ireland"
(Dublin, 1729), calculated that the total currency, including paper, was
about £914,000, but the author of "Considerations on Seasonable Remarks"
stated that the entire currency could not be more than £600,000. Browne
was no reliable authority; he is the writer to whom Swift wrote a reply.
See p. 122. [T. S.]
[39] See "A Short View of the State of Ireland," p. 86. [T. S.]
[40] Lecky refers to a remarkable letter written by an Irish peer in the
March of 1702, and preserved in the "Southwell Correspondence" in the
British Museum, in which the writer complains that the money of the
country is almost gone, and the poverty of the towns so great that it
was feared the Court mourning for the death of William would be the
final blow. (Lecky, vol. i., p. 181, 1892 ed.). [T. S.]
[41] Those of Charles II. and James II. in which, for political reasons
on the part of the Crown, Ireland was peculiarly favoured. [S.]
[42] This was Dr. Nicholas Barbou, the friend of John Asgill and author
of two works on trade and money. After the Great Fire of London he
speculated largely in building, and greatly assisted in making city
improvements. He was the founder of fire insurance in England and was
active in land and bank speculations. He died in 1698, leaving a will
directing that none of his debts should be paid. [T. S.]
[43] The beggars of Ireland are spoken of by Bishop Berkeley. But Arthur
Dobbs, in the second part of his "Essay on Trade," published in 1731,
gives a descriptive picture of the gangs who travelled over Ireland as
professional paupers. In the 2,295 parishes, there was in each an
average of at least ten beggars carrying on their trade the whole year
round; the total number of these wandering paupers he puts down at over
34,000. Computing 30,000 of them able to work, and assuming that each
beggar could earn _4d._ a day in a working year of 284 days, he
calculates that their idleness is a loss to the nation of £142,000. (Pp.
444-445 of Thom's reprint; Dublin, 1861) [T. S.]
[44] See Swift's terrible satire on the "Modest Proposal for preventing
Children of Poor People from being a burthen." [T. S.]
[45] A small country village about seven miles from Kells. [T. S.]
[46] Esther Johnson. [T. S.]
[47] Stella's companion and Swift's housekeeper. [T. S.]
[48] See Swift's "Directions to Servants." [T. S.]
[49] By Acts 18 Charles II c. 2, and 32 Charles II c. 2, enacted in 1665
and 1680, the importation into England from Ireland of all cattle,
sheep, swine, beef, pork, bacon, mutton, cheese and butter, was
absolutely prohibited. The land of Ireland being largely pasture land
and England being the chief and nearest market, these laws practically
destroyed the farming industry. The pernicious acts were passed on
complaint from English land proprietors that the competition from Irish
cattle had lowered their rents in England. "In this manner," says Lecky,
"the chief source of Irish prosperity was annihilated at a single blow."
[T. S.]
[50] The original Navigation Act treated Ireland on an equal footing
with England. The act, however, was succeeded in 1663 by that of 15
Charles II c. 7, in which it was declared that no European articles,
with few exceptions, could be imported into the colonies unless they had
been loaded in English-built vessels at English ports. Nor could goods
be brought from English colonies except to English ports. By the Acts 22
and 23 of Charles II. c. 26 the exclusion of Ireland was confirmed, and
the Acts 7 and 8 of Will. III. c. 22, passed in 1696, actually
prohibited any goods whatever from being imported to Ireland direct from
the English colonies. These are the reasons for Swift's remark that
Ireland's ports were of no more use to Ireland's people "than a
beautiful prospect to a man shut up in a dungeon." [T. S.]
[51] See note on page 137 of vol. vi of this edition. "The Drapier's
Letters." [T. S.]
[52] Lecky quotes from the MSS. in the British Museum, from a series of
letters written by Bishop Nicholson, on his journey to Derry, to the
Archbishop of Canterbury. The quotation illustrates the truth of Swift's
remark. "Never did I behold," writes Nicholson, "even in Picardy,
Westphalia, or Scotland, such dismal marks of hunger and want as
appeared in the countenances of the poor creatures I met with on the
road." In the "Intelligencer" (No. VI, 1728) Sheridan wrote: "The poor
are sunk to the lowest degrees of misery and poverty--their houses
dunghills, their victuals the blood of their cattle, or the herbs of the
field." Of the condition of the country thirty years later, the most
terrible of pictures is given by Burdy in his "Life of Skelton": "In
1757 a remarkable dearth prevailed in Ireland.... Mr. Skelton went out
into the country to discover the real state of his poor, and travelled
from cottage to cottage, over mountains, rocks, and heath.... In one
cabin he found the people eating boiled prushia [a weed with a yellow
flower that grows in cornfields] by itself for their breakfast, and
tasted this sorry food, which seemed nauseous to him. Next morning he
gave orders to have prushia gathered and boiled for his own breakfast,
that he might live on the same sort of food with the poor. He ate this
for one or two days; but at last his stomach turning against it, he set
off immediately for Ballyshannon to buy oatmeal for them.... One day,
when he was travelling in this manner through the country, he came to a
lonely cottage in the mountains, where he found a poor woman lying in
child-bed with a number of children about her. All she had, in her weak,
helpless condition to keep herself and her children alive, was blood and
sorrel boiled up together. The blood, her husband, who was a herdsman,
took from the cattle of others under his care, for he had none of his
own. This was a usual sort of food in that country in times of scarcity,
for they bled the cows for that purpose, and thus the same cow often
afforded both milk and blood.... They were obliged, when the carriers
were bringing the meal to Pettigo, to guard it with their clubs, as the
people of the adjacent parishes strove to take it by force, in which
they sometimes succeeded, hunger making them desperate." (Burdy's Life
of Skelton. "Works," vol. i, pp. lxxx-lxxxii.) [T. S.]
[53] See on this subject the agitation against Wood's halfpence in the
volume dealing with "The Drapier's Letters." [T. S.]
[54] Faulkner and Scott print this word "irony," but the original
edition has it as printed in the text. [T. S.]
[55] The original edition has this as "Island." Scott and the previous
editors print it as in the text. Iceland is, no doubt, referred to.
[T. S.]
[56] Bishop Nicholson, quoted by Lecky, speaks of the miserable hovels
in which the people lived, and the almost complete absence of clothing.
[T. S.]
[57] Hely Hutchinson, in his "Commercial Restraints of Ireland" (Dublin,
1779; new edit. 1888) points out that the scheme proposed by the
government, and partly executed, by directing a commission under the
great seal for receiving voluntary subscriptions in order to establish a
bank, was a scheme to circulate paper without money. This and Wood's
halfpence seem to have been the nearest approach made at the time for
supplying what Swift here calls "the running cash of the nation." [T. S.]
[58] England.
[59] Scotland and Ireland.
[60] The Irish Sea.
[61] The Roman Wall.
[62] The Scottish Highlanders. [T. S]
[63] Charles I, who was delivered by the Scotch into the hands of the
Parliamentary party. [T. S]
[64] See note to "A Short View of the State of Ireland." [T. S.]
[65] The King of England. [T. S.]
[66] The Lord-Lieutenant. [T. S.]
[67] The English Government filled all the important posts in Ireland
with individuals sent over from England. See "Boulter's Letters" on this
subject of the English rule. [T. S.]
[68] See notes to "A Short View of the State of Ireland," on the
Navigation Acts and the acts against the exportation of cattle. [T. S.]
[69] The laws against woollen manufacture. [T. S.]
[70] Absentees and place-holders. [T. S.]
[71] The spirit of opposition and enmity to England, declared by the
Scottish Act of Security, according to Swift's view of the relations
between the countries, left no alternative but an union or a war. [S.]
[72] The Act of Union between England and Scotland. [T. S.]
[73] The reference here is to the linen manufactories of Ireland which
were being encouraged by England. [T. S.]
[74] Swift here refers to the sentiment, largely predominant in
Scotland, for the return of the Stuarts. [T. S.]
[75] Alliances with France. [T. S.]
[76] Alluding to the 33rd Henry VIII, providing that the King and his
successors should be kings imperial of both kingdoms, on which the
enemies of Irish independence founded their arguments against it. [S.]
Scott cannot be correct in this note. The allusion is surely to the
enactments known as Poyning's Law. See vol. vi., p. 77 (note) of this
edition of Swift's works. [T. S.]
[77] Disturbances excited by the Scottish colonists in Ulster. [S.]
[78] The subjugation of Scotland by Cromwell. [S.]
[79] That is to say, to interpret Poyning's law in the spirit in which
it was enacted, and give to Ireland the right to make its own laws.
[T. S.]
[80] Free trade and the repeal of the Navigation Act. [T. S.]
[81] Office-holders should not be absentees. [T. S.]
[82] That the land laws of Ireland shall be free from interference by
England, and the produce of the land free to be exported to any place.
[T. S.]
[83] The laws prohibiting the importation of live cattle into England,
and the restrictions as to the woollen industry, were the ruin of those
who held land for grazing purposes. [T. S.]
[84] The Act of 10 and 11 William III., cap. 10, was the final blow to
the woollen industry of Ireland. It was enacted in 1699, and prohibited
the exportation of Irish wool to any other country. In the fifth letter
of Hely Hutchinson's "Commercial Restraints of Ireland" (1779) will be
found a full account of the passing of this Act and its consequences.
[T. S.]
[85] Edward Waters and John Harding, the printers of Swift's pamphlets.
See volume on "The Drapier's Letters." [T. S.]
[86] The text here given is that of the original manuscript in the
Forster Collection at South Kensington, collated with that given by
Deane Swift in vol. viii. of the 4to edition of 1765. [T. S.]
[87] The letter was written in reply to a letter received from Messrs.
Truman and Layfield. [T. S.]
[88] Dr. William King, Archbishop of Dublin. [T. S.]
[89] Swift betrays here a lamentable knowledge of the geography of this
part of America. Penn, however, may have known no better. [T. S.]