That farmers should be limited in ploughing is very reasonable, and practised in England, and might have easily been done here by penal clauses in their leases; but to deprive them, in a manner, altogether from tilling their lands, was a most stupid want of thinking.

Had the farmers been confined to plough a certain quantity of land, with a penalty of ten pounds an acre for whatever they exceeded, and farther limited for the three or four last years of their leases, all this evil had been prevented; the nation would have saved a million of money, and been more populous by above two hundred thousand souls.

For a people, denied the benefit of trade, to manage their lands in such a manner as to produce nothing but what they are forbidden to trade with,[83] or only such things as they can neither export nor manufacture to advantage, is an absurdity that a wild Indian would be ashamed of; especially when we add, that we are content to purchase this hopeful commerce, by sending to foreign markets for our daily bread.

The grazier's employment is to feed great flocks of sheep, or black cattle, or both. With regard to sheep, as folly is usually accompanied with perverseness, so it is here. There is something so monstrous to deal in a commodity (further than for our own use) which we are not allowed to export manufactured, nor even unmanufactured, but to one certain country, and only to some few ports in that country;[84] there is, I say, something so sottish, that it wants a name in our language to express it by: and the good of it is, that the more sheep we have, the fewer human creatures are left to wear the wool, or eat the flesh. Ajax was mad, when he mistook a flock of sheep for his enemies; but we shall never be sober, until we have the same way of thinking.

The other part of the grazier's business is, what we call black-cattle, producing hides, tallow, and beef for exportation: all which are good and useful commodities, if rightly managed. But it seems, the greatest part of the hides are sent out raw, for want of bark to tan them; and that want will daily grow stronger; for I doubt the new project of tanning without it is at an end. Our beef, I am afraid, still continues scandalous in foreign markets, for the old reasons. But our tallow, for anything I know, may be good. However, to bestow the whole kingdom on beef and mutton, and thereby drive out half the people who should eat their share, and force the rest to send sometimes as far as Egypt for bread to eat with it, is a most peculiar and distinguished piece of public economy, of which I have no comprehension.

I know very well that our ancestors the Scythians, and their posterity our kinsmen the Tartars, lived upon the blood, and milk, and raw flesh of their cattle, without one grain of corn; but I confess myself so degenerate, that I am not easy without bread to my victuals.

What amazed me for a week or two, was to see, in this prodigious plenty of cattle, and dearth of human creatures, and want of bread, as well as money to buy it, that all kind of flesh-meat should be monstrously dear, beyond what was ever known in this kingdom. I thought it a defect in the laws, that there was not some regulation in the price of flesh, as well as bread: but I imagine myself to have guessed out the reason: In short, I am apt to think that the whole kingdom is overstocked with cattle, both black and white; and as it is observed, that the poor Irish have a vanity to be rather owners of two lean cows, than one fat, although with double the charge of grazing, and but half the quantity of milk; so I conceive it much more difficult at present to find a fat bullock or wether, than it would be if half of both were fairly knocked on the head: for I am assured that the district in the several markets called Carrion Row is as reasonable as the poor can desire; only the circumstance of money to purchase it, and of trade, or labour, to purchase that money, are indeed wholly wanting.

Now, sir, to return more particularly to you and your memorial.

A hundred thousand barrels of wheat, you say, should be imported hither; and ten thousand pounds premium to the importers. Have you looked into the purse of the nation? I am no commissioner of the treasury; but am well assured that the whole running cash would not supply you with a sum to purchase so much corn, which, only at twenty shillings a barrel, will be a hundred thousand pounds; and ten thousand more for the premiums. But you will traffic for your corn with other goods: and where are those goods? if you had them, they are all engaged to pay the rents of absentees, and other occasions in London, besides a huge balance of trade this year against us. Will foreigners take our bankers' papers? I suppose they will value it at little more than so much a quire. Where are these rich farmers and engrossers of corn, in so bad a year, and so little sowing?

You are in pain of two shillings premium, and forget the twenty shillings for the price; find me out the latter, and I will engage for the former.

Your scheme for a tax for raising such a sum is all visionary, and owing to a great want of knowledge in the miserable state of this nation. Tea, coffee, sugar, spices, wine, and foreign clothes, are the particulars you mention upon which this tax should be raised. I will allow the two first; because they are unwholesome; and the last, because I should be glad if they were all burned: but I beg you will leave us our wine to make us a while forget our misery; or give your tenants leave to plough for barley. But I will tell you a secret, which I learned many years ago from the commissioners of the customs in London: they said, when any commodity appeared to be taxed above a moderate rate, the consequence was, to lessen that branch of the revenue by one half; and one of those gentlemen pleasantly told me, that the mistake of parliaments, on such occasions, was owing to an error of computing two and two to make four; whereas, in the business of laying impositions, two and two never made more than one; which happens by lessening the import, and the strong temptation of running such goods as paid high duties. At least in this kingdom, although the women are as vain and extravagant as their lovers or their husbands can deserve, and the men are fond enough of wine; yet the number of both who can afford such expenses is so small, that the major part must refuse gratifying themselves, and the duties will rather be lessened than increased. But, allowing no force in this argument; yet so preternatural a sum as one hundred and ten thousand pounds, raised all on a sudden, (for there is no dallying with hunger,) is just in proportion with raising a million and a half in England; which, as things now stand, would probably bring that opulent kingdom under some difficulties.

You are concerned how strange and surprising it would be in foreign parts to hear that the poor were starving in a RICH country, &c. Are you in earnest? Is Ireland the rich country you mean? Or are you insulting our poverty? Were you ever out of Ireland? Or were you ever in it till of late? You may probably have a good employment, and are saving all you can to purchase a good estate in England. But by talking so familiarly of one hundred and ten thousand pounds, by a tax upon a few commodities, it is plain you are either naturally or affectedly ignorant of our present condition: or else you would know and allow, that such a sum is not to be raised here, without a general excise; since, in proportion to our wealth, we pay already in taxes more than England ever did in the height of the war. And when you have brought over your corn, who will be the buyers? Most certainly not the poor, who will not be able to purchase the twentieth part of it.

Sir, upon the whole, your paper is a very crude piece, liable to more objections than there are lines; but I think your meaning is good, and so far you are pardonable.

If you will propose a general contribution in supporting the poor in potatoes and butter-milk, till the new corn comes in, perhaps you may succeed better, because the thing at least is possible; and I think if our brethren in England would contribute upon this emergency, out of the million they gain from us every year, they would do a piece of justice as well as charity. In the mean time, go and preach to your own tenants, to fall to the plough as fast as they can; and prevail with your neighbouring squires to do the same with theirs; or else die with the guilt of having driven away half the inhabitants, and starving the rest. For as to your scheme of raising one hundred and ten thousand pounds, it is as vain as that of Rabelais; which was, to squeeze out wind from the posteriors of a dead ass.

But why all this concern for the poor? We want them not, as the country is now managed; they may follow thousands of their leaders, and seek their bread abroad. Where the plough has no work, one family can do the business of fifty, and you may send away the other forty-nine. An admirable piece of husbandry, never known or practised by the wisest nations, who erroneously thought people to be the riches of a country!

If so wretched a state of things would allow it, methinks I could have a malicious pleasure, after all the warning I have in vain given the public, at my own peril, for several years past, to see the consequences and events answering in every particular. I pretend to no sagacity: what I writ was little more than what I had discoursed to several persons, who were generally of my opinion; and it was obvious to every common understanding, that such effects must needs follow from such causes;—a fair issue of things begun upon party rage, while some sacrificed the public to fury, and others to ambition: while a spirit of faction and oppression reigned in every part of the country, where gentlemen, instead of consulting the ease of their tenants, or cultivating their lands, were worrying one another upon points of Whig and Tory, of High Church and Low Church; which no more concerned them than the long and famous controversy of strops for razors: while agriculture was wholly discouraged, and consequently half the farmers and labourers, and poorer tradesmen, forced to beggary or banishment. "Wisdom crieth in the streets: Because I have called on ye; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded; but ye have set at nought all my counsels, and would none of my reproof; I also will laugh at your calamity, and mock when your fear cometh."

I have now done with your Memorial, and freely excuse your mistakes, since you appear to write as a stranger, and as of a country which is left at liberty to enjoy the benefits of nature, and to make the best of those advantages which God hath given it, in soil, climate, and situation.

But having lately sent out a paper, entitled, A Short View of the State of Ireland; and hearing of an objection, that some people think I have treated the memory of the late Lord Chief Justice Whitshed with an appearance of severity; since I may not probably have another opportunity of explaining myself in that particular, I choose to do it here. Laying it, therefore, down for a postulatum, which I suppose will be universally granted, that no little creature of so mean a birth and genius, had ever the honour to be a greater enemy to his country, and to all kinds of virtue, than HE, I answer thus; Whether there be two different goddesses called Fame, as some authors contend, or only one goddess sounding two different trumpets, it is certain that people distinguished for their villainy have as good a title for a blast from the proper trumpet, as those who are most renowned for their virtues have from the other; and have equal reason to complain if it be refused them. And accordingly the names of the most celebrated profligates have been faithfully transmitted down to posterity. And although the person here understood acted his part in an obscure corner of the world, yet his talents might have shone with lustre enough in the noblest scene.

As to my naming a person dead, the plain honest reason is the best. He was armed with power, guilt, and will to do mischief, even where he was not provoked, as appeared by his prosecuting two printers,[85] one to death, and both to ruin, who had neither offended God nor the King, nor him nor the public.

What an encouragement to vice is this! If an ill man be alive, and in power, we dare not attack him; and if he be weary of the world, or of his own villainies, he has nothing to do but die, and then his reputation is safe. For these excellent casuists know just Latin enough to have heard a most foolish precept, that de mortuis nil nisi bonum; so that if Socrates, and Anytus his accuser, had happened to die together, the charity of survivors must either have obliged them to hold their peace, or to fix the same character on both. The only crime of charging the dead is, when the least doubt remains whether the accusation be true; but when men are openly abandoned, and lost to all shame, they have no reason to think it hard if their memory be reproached. Whoever reports, or otherwise publisheth, any thing which it is possible may be false, that man is a slanderer; hic niger est, hunc tu, Romane, caveto. Even the least misrepresentation, or aggravation of facts, deserves the same censure, in some degree, but in this case, I am quite deceived if my error hath not been on the side of extenuation.

I have now present before me the idea of some persons (I know not in what part of the world) who spend every moment of their lives, and every turn of their thoughts, while they are awake, (and probably of their dreams while they sleep,) in the most detestable actions and designs; who delight in mischief, scandal, and obloquy, with the hatred and contempt of all mankind against them, but chiefly of those among their own party and their own family; such whose odious qualities rival each other for perfection: avarice, brutality, faction, pride, malice, treachery, noise, impudence, dullness, ignorance, vanity, and revenge, contending every moment for superiority in their breasts. Such creatures are not to be reformed, neither is it prudence or safety to attempt a reformation. Yet, although their memories will rot, there may be some benefit for their survivors to smell it while it is rotting.

I am, Sir, Your humble servant, A. B.

Dublin, March 25th, 1728.



ANSWER

TO SEVERAL LETTERS FROM UNKNOWN

PERSONS.[86]

WRITTEN IN THE YEAR 1729.



ANSWER TO SEVERAL LETTERS FROM UNKNOWN PERSONS.[87]

GENTLEMEN,

I am inclined to think that I received a letter from you two, last summer, directed to Dublin, while I was in the country, whither it was sent me; and I ordered an answer to it to be printed, but it seems it had little effect, and I suppose this will have not much more. But the heart of this people is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed. And, gentlemen, I am to tell you another thing: That the world is so regardless of what we write for the public good, that after we have delivered our thoughts, without any prospect of advantage, or of reputation, which latter is not to be had but by subscribing our names, we cannot prevail upon a printer to be at the charge of sending it into the world, unless we will be at all or half the expense; and although we are willing enough to bestow our labours, we think it unreasonable to be out of pocket; because it probably may not consist with the situation of our affairs.

I do very much approve your good intentions, and in a great measure your manner of declaring them; and I do imagine you intended that the world should not only know your sentiments, but my answer, which I shall impartially give.

That great prelate, to whose care you directed your letter, sent it to me this morning;[88] and I begin my answer to-night, not knowing what interruption I may meet with.

I have ordered your letter to be printed, as it ought to be, along with my answer; because I conceive it will be more acceptable and informing to the kingdom.

I shall therefore now go on to answer your letter in all manner of sincerity.

Although your letter be directed to me, yet I take myself to be only an imaginary person; for, although I conjecture I had formerly one from you, yet I never answered it otherwise than in print; neither was I at a loss to know the reasons why so many people of this kingdom were transporting themselves to America. And if this encouragement were owing to a pamphlet written, giving an account of the country of Pennsylvania, to tempt people to go thither, I do declare that those who were tempted, by such a narrative, to such a journey, were fools, and the author a most impudent knave; at least, if it be the same pamphlet I saw when it first came out, which is above 25 years ago, dedicated to Will Penn (whom by a mistake you call "Sir William Penn,") and styling him, by authority of the Scripture, "Most Noble Governor." For I was very well acquainted with Penn, and did, some years after, talk with him upon that pamphlet, and the impudence of the author, who spoke so many things in praise of the soil and climate, which Penn himself did absolutely contradict. For he did assure me that his country wanted the shelter of mountains, which left it open to the northern winds from Hudson's Bay and the Frozen Sea, which destroyed all plantations of trees, and was even pernicious to all common vegetables. But, indeed, New York, Virginia, and other parts less northward, or more defended by mountains, are described as excellent countries: but, upon what conditions of advantage foreigners go thither, I am yet to seek.[89]

What evils do our people avoid by running from hence, is easier to be determined. They conceive themselves to live under the tyranny of most cruel exacting landlords, who have no view further than increasing their rent-rolls. Secondly, you complain of the want of trade, whereof you seem not to know the reason. Thirdly, you lament most justly the money spent by absentees in England. Fourthly, you complain that your linen manufacture declines. Fifthly, that your tithe-collectors oppress you. Sixthly, that your children have no hopes of preferment in the church, the revenue, or the army; to which you might have added the law, and all civil employments whatsoever. Seventhly, you are undone for silver, and want all other money.

I could easily add some other motives, which, to men of spirit, who desire and expect, and think they deserve the common privileges of human nature, would be of more force, than any you have yet named, to drive them out of this kingdom. But, as these speculations may probably not much affect the brains of your people, I shall choose to let them pass unmentioned. Yet I cannot but observe, that my very good and virtuous friend, his excellency Burnet, (O fili, nec tali indigne parente!)[90] hath not hitherto been able to persuade his vassals, by his oratory in the style of a command, to settle a revenue on his viceroyal person.[91] I have been likewise assured, that in one of those colonies on the continent, which nature hath so far favoured, as (by the industry of the inhabitants) to produce a great quantity of excellent rice, the stubbornness of the people, who having been told that the world is wide, took it into their heads that they might sell their own rice at whatever foreign markets they pleased, and seem, by their practice, very unwilling to quit that opinion.

But, to return to my subject: I must confess to you both, that if one reason of your people's deserting us be, the despair of things growing better in their own country, I have not one syllable to answer; because that would be to hope for what is impossible; and so I have been telling the public these ten years. For there are three events which must precede any such blessing: First, a liberty of trade; secondly, a share of preferments in all kinds, to the British natives; and thirdly, a return of those absentees, who take almost one half of the kingdom's revenues. As to the first, there is nothing left us but despair; and for the third, it will never happen till the kingdom hath no money to send them; for which, in my own particular, I should not be sorry.

The exaction of landlords hath indeed been a grievance of above twenty years' standing. But as to what you object about the severe clauses relating to improvement, the fault lies wholly on the other side: for the landlords, either by their ignorance, or greediness of making large rent-rolls, have performed this matter so ill, as we see by experience, that there is not one tenant in five hundred who hath made any improvement worth mentioning. For which I appeal to any man who rides through the kingdom, where little is to be found among the tenants but beggary and desolation; the cabins of the Scotch themselves, in Ulster, being as dirty and miserable as those of the wildest Irish. Whereas good firm penal clauses for improvement, with a tolerable easy rent, and a reasonable period of time, would, in twenty years, have increased the rents of Ireland at least a third part in the intrinsic value.

I am glad to hear you speak with some decency of the clergy, and to impute the exactions you lament to the managers or farmers of the tithes. But you entirely mistake the fact; for I defy the most wicked and most powerful clergymen in the kingdom to oppress the meanest farmer in the parish; and I likewise defy the same clergyman to prevent himself from being cheated by the same farmer, whenever that farmer shall be disposed to be knavish or peevish. For, although the Ulster tithing-teller is more advantageous to the clergy than any other in the kingdom, yet the minister can demand no more than his tenth; and where the corn much exceeds the small tithes, as, except in some districts, I am told it always doth, he is at the mercy of every stubborn farmer, especially of those whose sect as well as interest incline them to opposition. However, I take it that your people bent for America do not shew the best part of their prudence in making this one part of their complaint: yet they are so far wise, as not to make the payment of tithes a scruple of conscience, which is too gross for any Protestant dissenter, except a Quaker, to pretend. But do your people indeed think, that if tithes were abolished, or delivered into the hands of the landlord, after the blessed manner in the Scotch spiritual economy, that the tenant would sit easier in his rent under the same person, who must be lord of the soil and of the tithe together?

I am ready enough to grant, that the oppression of landlords, the utter ruin of trade, with its necessary consequence the want of money, half the revenues of the kingdom spent abroad, the continued dearth of three years, and the strong delusion in your people by false allurement from America, may be the chief motives of their eagerness after such an expedition. [But there is likewise another temptation, which is not of inconsiderable weight; which is their itch of living in a country where their sect is predominant, and where their eyes and consciences would not be offended by the stumbling-block of ceremonies, habits, and spiritual titles.[92]]

But I was surprised to find that those calamities, whereof we are innocent, have been sufficient to drive many families out of their country, who had no reason to complain of oppressive landlords. For, while I was last year in the northern parts, a person of quality, whose estate was let above 20 years ago, and then at a very reasonable rent, some for leases of lives, and some perpetuities, did, in a few months, purchase eleven of those leases at a very inconsiderable price, although they were, two years ago, reckoned to pay but half value. From whence it is manifest, that our present miserable condition, and the dismal prospect of worse, with other reasons above assigned, are sufficient to put men upon trying this desperate experiment, of changing the scene they are in, although landlords should, by a miracle, become less inhuman.

There is hardly a scheme proposed for improving the trade of this kingdom, which doth not manifestly shew the stupidity and ignorance of the proposer; and I laugh with contempt at those weak wise heads, who proceed upon general maxims, or advise us to follow the examples of Holland and England. These empirics talk by rote, without understanding the constitution of the kingdom: as if a physician, knowing that exercise contributed much to health, should prescribe to his patient under a severe fit of the gout, to walk ten miles every morning. The directions for Ireland are very short and plain; to encourage agriculture and home consumption, and utterly discard all importations which are not absolutely necessary for health or life. And how few necessities, conveniences, or even comforts of life, are denied us by nature, or not to be attained by labour and industry! Are those detestable extravagancies of Flanders lace, English cloths of our own wool, and other goods, Italian or Indian silks, tea, coffee, chocolate, china-ware, and that profusion of wines, by the knavery of merchants growing dearer every season, with a hundred unnecessary fopperies, better known to others than me; are these, I say, fit for us, any more than for the beggar who could not eat his veal without oranges? Is it not the highest indignity to human nature, that men should be such poltroons as to suffer the kingdom and themselves to be undone, by the vanity, the folly, the pride, and wantonness of their wives,[93] who, under their present corruptions, seem to be a kind of animal, suffered, for our sins, to be sent into the world for the destruction of families, societies, and kingdoms; and whose whole study seems directed to be as expensive as they possibly can, in every useless article of living; who, by long practice, can reconcile the most pernicious foreign drugs to their health and pleasure, provided they are but expensive, as starlings grow fat with henbane; who contract a robustness by mere practice of sloth and luxury; who can play deep several hours after midnight, sleep beyond noon, revel upon Indian poisons, and spend the revenue of a moderate family to adorn a nauseous, unwholesome living carcase? Let those few who are not concerned in any part of this accusation, suppose it unsaid; let the rest take it among them. Gracious God, in His mercy, look down upon a nation so shamefully besotted!

If I am possessed of an hundred pounds a year, and by some misfortune it sinks to fifty, without a possibility of ever being retrieved; does it remain a question, in such an exigency, what I am to do? Must not I retrench one-half in every article of expense, or retire to some cheap, distant part of the country, where necessaries are at half value?

Is there any mortal who can shew me, under the circumstances we stand with our neighbours, under their inclinations towards us, under laws never to be repealed, under the desolation caused by absentees, under many other circumstances not to be mentioned, that this kingdom can ever be a nation of trade, or subsist by any other method than that of a reduced family, by the utmost parsimony, in the manner I have already prescribed?

I am tired with letters from many unreasonable, well-meaning people, who are daily pressing me to deliver my thoughts in this deplorable juncture, which, upon many others, I have so often done in vain. What will it import, that half a score people in a coffee-house may happen to read this paper, and even the majority of those few differ in every sentiment from me? If the farmer be not allowed to sow his corn; if half the little money among us be sent to pay rents to Irish absentees, and the rest for foreign luxury and dress for the women, what will our charitable dispositions avail, when there is nothing left to be given? When, contrary to all custom and example, all necessaries of life are so exorbitant; when money of all kinds was never known to be so scarce, so that gentlemen of no contemptible estates are forced to retrench in every article, (except what relates to their wives,) without being able to shew any bounty to the poor?



AN ANSWER

TO SEVERAL LETTERS SENT ME FROM

UNKNOWN HANDS.[94]

WRITTEN IN THE YEAR 1729.

I am very well pleased with the good opinion you express of me; and wish it were any way in my power to answer your expectations, for the service of my country. I have carefully read your several schemes and proposals, which you think should be offered to the Parliament. In answer, I will assure you, that, in another place, I have known very good proposals rejected with contempt by public assemblies, merely because they were offered from without doors; and yours, perhaps, might have the same fate, especially if handed into the public by me, who am not acquainted with three members, nor have the least interest with one. My printers have been twice prosecuted, to my great expense, on account of discourses I writ for the public service, without the least reflection on parties or persons; and the success I had in those of the Drapier, was not owing to my abilities, but to a lucky juncture, when the fuel was ready for the first hand that would be at the pains of kindling it. It is true, both those envenomed prosecutions were the workmanship of a judge, who is now gone to his own place.[95] But, let that be as it will, I am determined, henceforth, never to be the instrument of leaving an innocent man at the mercy of that bench.

It is certain there are several particulars relating to this kingdom (I have mentioned a few of them in one of my Drapier's letters,[96]) which it were heartily to be wished that the Parliament would take under their consideration, such as will nowise interfere with England, otherwise than to its advantage.

The first I shall mention, is touched at in a letter which I received from one of you, gentlemen, about the highways; which, indeed, are almost everywhere scandalously neglected. I know a very rich man in this city, a true lover and saver of his money, who, being possessed of some adjacent lands, hath been at great charge in repairing effectually the roads that lead to them; and has assured me that his lands are thereby advanced four or five shillings an acre, by which he gets treble interest. But, generally speaking, all over the kingdom the roads are deplorable; and, what is more particularly barbarous, there is no sort of provision made for travellers on foot; no, not near this city, except in a very few places, and in a most wretched manner: whereas the English are so particularly careful in this point, that you may travel there an hundred miles with less inconvenience than one mile here. But, since this may be thought too great a reformation, I shall only speak of roads for horses, carriages, and cattle.[97]

Ireland is, I think, computed to be one-third smaller than England; yet, by some natural disadvantages, it would not bear quite the same proportion in value, with the same encouragement. However, it hath so happened, for many years past, that it never arrived to above one-eleventh part in point of riches; and of late, by the continual decrease of trade, and increase of absentees, with other circumstances not here to be mentioned, hardly to a fifteenth part; at least, if my calculations be right, which I doubt are a little too favourable on our side.

Now, supposing day-labour to be cheaper by one half here than in England, and our roads, by the nature of our carriages, and the desolation of our country, to be not worn and beaten above one-eighth part so much as those of England, which is a very moderate computation, I do not see why the mending of them would be a greater burthen to this kingdom than to that.

There have been, I believe, twenty acts of Parliament, in six or seven years of the late King, for mending long tracts of impassable ways in several counties of England, by erecting turnpikes, and receiving passage-money, in a manner that everybody knows. If what I have advanced be true, it would be hard to give a reason against the same practice here; since the necessity is as great, the advantage, in proportion, perhaps much greater, the materials of stone and gravel as easy to be found, and the workmanship, at least, twice as cheap. Besides, the work may be done gradually, with allowances for the poverty of the nation, by so many perch a year; but with a special care to encourage skill and diligence, and to prevent fraud in the undertakers, to which we are too liable, and which are not always confined to those of the meaner sort: but against these, no doubt, the wisdom of the nation may and will provide.

Another evil, which, in my opinion, deserves the public care, is the ill management of the bogs; the neglect whereof is a much greater mischief to this kingdom than most people seem to be aware of.

It is allowed, indeed, by those who are esteemed most skilful in such matters, that the red, swelling mossy bog, whereof we have so many large tracts in this island, is not by any means to be fully reduced; but the skirts, which are covered with a green coat, easily may, being not an accretion, or annual growth of moss, like the other.

Now, the landlords are generally too careless that they suffer their tenants to cut their turf in these skirts, as well as the bog adjoined; whereby there is yearly lost a considerable quantity of land throughout the kingdom, never to be recovered.

But this is not the greatest part of the mischief: for the main bog, although, perhaps, not reducible to natural soil, yet, by continuing large, deep, straight canals through the middle, cleaned at proper times as low as the channel or gravel, would become a secure summer-pasture; the margins might, with great profit and ornament, be filled with quickens, birch, and other trees proper for such a soil, and the canals be convenient for water-carriage of the turf, which is now drawn upon sled-cars, with great expense, difficulty, and loss of time, by reason of the many turf-pits scattered irregularly through the bog, wherein great numbers of cattle are yearly drowned. And it hath been, I confess, to me a matter of the greatest vexation, as well as wonder, to think how any landlord could be so absurd as to suffer such havoc to be made.

All the acts for encouraging plantations of forest-trees are, I am told, extremely defective;[98] which, with great submission, must have been owing to a defect of skill in the contrivers of them. In this climate, by the continual blowing of the west-south-west wind, hardly any tree of value will come to perfection that is not planted in groves, except very rarely, and where there is much land-shelter. I have not, indeed, read all the acts; but, from enquiry, I cannot learn that the planting in groves is enjoined. And as to the effects of these laws, I have not seen the least, in many hundred miles riding, except about a very few gentlemen's houses, and even those with very little skill or success. In all the rest, the hedges generally miscarry, as well as the larger slender twigs planted upon the tops of ditches, merely for want of common skill and care.

I do not believe that a greater and quicker profit could be made, than by planting large groves of ash a few feet asunder, which in seven years would make the best kind of hop-poles, and grow in the same or less time to a second crop from their roots.

It would likewise be of great use and beauty in our desert scenes, to oblige all tenants and cottagers to plant ash or elm before their cabins, and round their potato-gardens, where cattle either do not or ought not to come to destroy them.

The common objections against all this, drawn from the laziness, the perverseness, or thievish disposition, of the poor native Irish, might be easily answered, by shewing the true reasons for such accusations, and how easily those people may be brought to a less savage manner of life: but my printers have already suffered too much for my speculations. However, supposing the size of a native's understanding just equal to that of a dog or horse, I have often seen those two animals to be civilized by rewards, at least as much as by punishments.

It would be a noble achievement to abolish the Irish language in this kingdom, so far at least as to oblige all the natives to speak only English on every occasion of business, in shops, markets, fairs, and other places of dealing: yet I am wholly deceived, if this might not be effectually done in less than half an age, and at a very trifling expense; for such I look upon a tax to be of only six thousand pounds a year, to accomplish so great a work.[99] This would, in a great measure, civilize the most barbarous among them, reconcile them to our customs and manner of living, and reduce great numbers to the national religion, whatever kind may then happen to be established. The method is plain and simple; and although I am too desponding to produce it, yet I could heartily wish some public thoughts were employed to reduce this uncultivated people from that idle, savage, beastly, thievish manner of life, in which they continue sunk to a degree, that it is almost impossible for a country gentleman to find a servant of human capacity, or the least tincture of natural honesty; or who does not live among his own tenants in continual fear of having his plantations destroyed, his cattle stolen, and his goods pilfered.

The love, affection, or vanity of living in England, continuing to carry thither so many wealthy families, the consequences thereof, together with the utter loss of all trade, except what is detrimental, which hath forced such great numbers of weavers, and others, to seek their bread in foreign countries; the unhappy practice of stocking such vast quantities of land with sheep and other cattle, which reduceth twenty families to one: these events, I say, have exceedingly depopulated this kingdom for several years past. I should heartily wish, therefore, under this miserable dearth of money, that those who are most concerned would think it advisable to save a hundred thousand pounds a year, which is now sent out of this kingdom, to feed us with corn. There is not an older or more uncontroverted maxim in the politics of all wise nations, than that of encouraging agriculture: and therefore, to what kind of wisdom a practice so directly contrary among us may be reduced, I am by no means a judge. If labour and people make the true riches of a nation, what must be the issue where one part of the people are forced away, and the other part have nothing to do?

If it should be thought proper by wiser heads, that his Majesty might be applied to in a national way, for giving the kingdom leave to coin halfpence for its own use, I believe no good subject will be under the least apprehension that such a request could meet with refusal, or the least delay. Perhaps we are the only kingdom upon earth, or that ever was or will be upon earth, which did not enjoy that common right of civil society, under the proper inspection of its prince or legislature, to coin money of all usual metals for its own occasions. Every petty prince in Germany, vassal to the Emperor, enjoys this privilege. And I have seen in this kingdom several silver pieces, with the inscription of CIVITAS WATERFORD, DROGHEDAGH, and other towns.



A LETTER

TO THE ARCHBISHOP OF DUBLIN,

CONCERNING THE WEAVERS.

WRITTEN IN THE YEAR 1729.



NOTE.

The archbishop to whom Swift wrote was Dr. William King, for many years his friend. King was a fine patriot and had stood out strongly against the imposition of Wood's Halfpence. In this letter, so characteristic of Swift's attitude towards the condition of Ireland, he aims at a practical and immediate relief. The causes for this condition discussed so ably by Molesworth, Prior and Dobbs in their various treatises are too academic for him. His "Proposal for the Universal Use of Irish Manufacture" well illustrates the kind of practical reform Swift insisted on. Yet the insistence was more because of the spirit of independence such a course demanded. To Swift there was no hope for Ireland without a radical change in the spirit of its people. The change meant the assertion of manliness, independence, and strength of character. How to attain these, and how to make the people aware of their power, were always Swift's aims. All his tracts are assertions of and dilations on these themes. If the people were but to insist on wearing their own manufactures, since they were prohibited from exporting them, they would keep their money in the kingdom. Likewise, if they were to deny themselves the indulgence in luxuries, they would not have to send out their money to the countries from which these luxuries were obtained. There were methods ready at hand, but the practice in them would result in the cultivation of that respect for themselves without which a nation is worse than a pauper and lower than a slave.

* * * * *

The text of this edition is based on the original manuscript, and collated with that of Scott's second edition of Swift's collected works.

[T. S.]



A LETTER TO THE ARCHBISHOP OF DUBLIN, CONCERNING THE WEAVERS.

MY LORD,

The corporation of weavers in the woollen manufacture, who have so often attended your Grace, and called upon me with their schemes and proposals were with me on Thursday last, when he who spoke for the rest and in the name of his absent brethren, said, "It was the opinion of the whole body, that if somewhat were written at this time by an able hand to persuade the people of the Kingdom to wear their own woollen manufactures, it might be of good use to the Nation in general, and preserve many hundreds of their trade from starving." To which I answered, "That it was hard for any man of common spirit to turn his thoughts to such speculations, without discovering a resentment which people are too delicate to bear." For, I will not deny to your Grace, that I cannot reflect on the singular condition of this Country, different from all others upon the face of the Earth, without some emotion, and without often examining as I pass the streets whether those animals which come in my way with two legs and human faces, clad and erect, be of the same species with what I have seen very like them in England, as to the outward shape, but differing in their notions, natures, and intellectuals, more than any two kinds of brutes in a forest, which any men of common prudence would immediately discover, by persuading them to define what they mean by law, liberty, property, courage, reason, loyalty or religion.

One thing, my Lord, I am very confident of; that if God Almighty for our sins would most justly send us a pestilence, whoever should dare to discover his grief in public for such a visitation, would certainly be censured for disaffection to the Government. For I solemnly profess, that I do not know one calamity we have undergone this many years, whereof any man whose opinions were not in fashion dared to lament without being openly charged with that imputation. And this is the harder, because although a mother when she hath corrected her child may sometimes force it to kiss the rod, yet she will never give that power to the footboy or the scullion.

My Lord, there are two things for the people of this Kingdom to consider. First their present evil condition; and secondly what can be done in some degree to remedy it.

I shall not enter into a particular description of our present misery; It hath been already done in several papers, and very fully in one, entitled, "A short View of the State of Ireland." It will be enough to mention the entire want of trade, the Navigation Act executed with the utmost rigour, the remission of a million every year to England, the ruinous importation of foreign luxury and vanity, the oppression of landlords, and discouragement of agriculture.

Now all these evils are without the possibility of a cure except that of importations, and to fence against ruinous folly will be always in our power in spite of the discouragements, mortifications, contempt, hatred, and oppression we can lie under. But our trade will never mend, the Navigation Act never be softened, our absentees never return, our endless foreign payments never be lessened, or our landlords ever be less exacting.

All other schemes for preserving this Kingdom from utter ruin are idle and visionary, consequently drawn from wrong reasoning, and from general topics which for the same causes that they may be true in all Nations are certainly false in ours; as I have told the Public often enough, but with as little effect as what I shall say at present is likely to produce.

I am weary of so many abortive projects for the advancement of trade, of so many crude proposals in letters sent me from unknown hands, of so many contradictory speculations about raising or sinking the value of gold and silver: I am not in the least sorry to hear of the great numbers going to America, though very much so for the causes that drive them from us, since the uncontrolled maxim, "That people are the riches of a Nation," is no maxim here under our circumstances. We have neither [manufactures] to employ them about, nor food to support them.

If a private gentleman's income be sunk irretrievably for ever from a hundred pounds to fifty, and that he hath no other method to supply the deficiency, I desire to know, my Lord, whether such a person hath any other course to take than to sink half his expenses in every article of economy, to save himself from ruin and the gaol. Is not this more than doubly the case of Ireland, where the want of money, the irrecoverable ruin of trade, with the other evils above mentioned, and many more too well known and felt, and too numerous or invidious to relate, have been gradually sinking us for above a dozen years past, to a degree that we are at least by two thirds in a worse condition than was ever known since the Revolution? Therefore instead of dreams and projects for the advancing of trade, we have nothing left but to find out some expedient whereby we may reduce our expenses to our incomes.

Yet this procedure, allowed so necessary in all private families, and in its own nature so easy to be put in practice, may meet with strong opposition by the cowardly slavish indulgence of the men to the intolerable pride arrogance vanity and luxury of the women, who strictly adhering to the rules of modern education seem to employ their whole stock of invention in contriving new arts of profusion, faster than the most parsimonious husband can afford; and to compass this work the more effectually, their universal maxim is to despise and detest everything of the growth and manufacture of their own country, and most to value whatever comes from the very remotest parts of the globe. And I am convinced, that if the virtuosi could once find out a world in the moon, with a passage to it, our women would wear nothing but what came directly from thence.[100]

The prime cost of wine yearly imported to Ireland is valued at thirty thousand pounds, and the tea (including coffee and chocolate) at five times that sum. The lace, silks, calicoes, and all other unnecessary ornaments for women, including English cloths and stuffs, added to the former articles, make up (to compute grossly), about four hundred thousand pounds.

Now, if we should allow the thirty thousand pounds for wine, wherein the women have their share, and which is all we have to comfort us, and deduct seventy thousand pounds more for over-reckoning, there would still remain three hundred thousand pounds, annually spent for unwholesome drugs, and unnecessary finery. Which prodigious sum would be wholly saved, and many thousands of our miserable shopkeepers and manufacturers comfortably supported.

Let speculative people busy their brains as much as they please, there is no other way to prevent this Kingdom from sinking for ever than by utterly renouncing all foreign dress and luxury.

It is absolutely so in fact that every husband of any fortune in the Kingdom is nourishing a poisonous, devouring serpent in his bosom with all the mischief but with none of its wisdom.

If all the women were clad with the growth of their own Country, they might still vie with each other in the cause of foppery, and still have room left to vie with each other, and equally shew their wit and judgment in deciding upon the variety of Irish stuffs; And if they could be contented with their native wholesome slops for breakfast, we should hear no more of their spleen, hysterics, colics, palpitations, and asthmas. They might still be allowed to ruin each other and their husbands at play, because the money lost would only circulate among ourselves.

My Lord; I freely own it a wild imagination that any words will cure the sottishness of men, or the vanity of women, but the Kingdom is in a fair way of producing the most effectual remedy, when there will not be money left for the common course of buying and selling the very necessaries of life in our markets, unless we absolutely change the whole method of our proceedings.

This Corporation of Weavers in Woollen and Silks, who have so frequently offered proposals both to your Grace and to me, are the hottest and coldest generation of men that I have known. About a month ago they attended your Grace, when I had the honour to be with you, and designed me then the same favour. They desired you would recommend to your clergy to wear gowns of Irish stuffs, which might probably spread the example among all their brethren in the Kingdom, and perhaps among the lawyers and gentlemen of the University and among the citizens of those Corporations who appear in gowns on solemn occasions. I then mentioned a kind of stuff, not above eightpence a yard, which I heard had been contrived by some of the trade and was very convenient. I desired they would prepare some of that or any sort of black stuff on a certain day, when your Grace would appoint as many clergymen as could readily be found to meet at your Palace, and there give their opinions; and that your Grace's visitations approaching you could then have the best opportunity of seeing what could be done in a matter of such consequence, as they seemed to think, to the woollen manufacture. But instead of attending, as was expected, they came to me a fortnight after, with a new proposal; that something should be writ by an acceptable and able hand to promote in general the wearing of home manufactures, and their civilities would seem to fix that work upon me. I asked whether they had prepared the stuffs, as they had promised, and your Grace expected; but they had not made the least step in the matter, nor as it appears thought of it more.

I did some years ago propose to the masters and principal dealers in the home manufactures of silk and wool, that they should meet together, and after mature consideration, publish advertisements to the following purpose.[101] That in order to encourage the wearing of Irish manufactures in silk and woollen, they gave notice to the nobility and gentry of the Kingdom, That they the undersigned would enter into bonds, for themselves and for each other, to sell the several sorts of stuffs, cloths and silks, made to the best perfection they were able, for certain fixed prices, and in such a manner, that if a child were sent to any of their shops, the buyer might be secure of the value and goodness, and measure of the ware, and lest this might be thought to look like a monopoly any other member of the trade might be admitted upon such conditions as should be agreed on. And if any person whatsoever should complain that he was ill used in the value or goodness of what he bought, the matter should be examined, the person injured be fully satisfied, by the whole corporation without delay, and the dishonest seller be struck out of the society, unless it appeared evidently that the failure proceeded only from mistake.

The mortal danger is, that if these dealers could prevail by the goodness and cheapness of their cloths and stuffs to give a turn to the principal people of Ireland in favour of their goods, they would relapse into the knavish practice peculiar to this Kingdom, which is apt to run through all trades even so low as a common ale-seller, who as soon as he gets a vogue for his liquor, and outsells his neighbour, thinks his credit will put off the worst he can buy; till his customers will come no more. Thus I have known at London in a general mourning, the drapers dye black all their old damaged goods, and sell them at double rates, and then complain and petition the Court, that they are ready to starve by the continuance of the mourning.

Therefore I say, those principal weavers who would enter in such a compact as I have mentioned, must give sufficient security against all such practices; for if once the women can persuade their husbands that foreign goods besides the finery will be as cheap, and do more service, our last state will be worse than the first.

I do not here pretend to digest perfectly the method by which these principal shopkeepers shall proceed in such a proposal; but my meaning is clear enough, and cannot reasonably be objected against.

We have seen what a destructive loss the Kingdom received by the detestable fraud of the merchants, or Northern weavers, or both, notwithstanding all the care of the Governers at that Board; the whole trade with Spain for our linen, when we had an offer of commerce with the Spaniards, to the value as I am told of three hundred thousand pounds a year. But while we deal like pedlars, we shall practise like pedlars; and sacrifice all honesty to the present urging advantage.

What I have said may serve as an answer to the desire made me by the Corporation of Weavers, that I would offer my notions to the public. As to anything further, let them apply themselves to the Parliament in their next Session. Let them prevail in the House of Commons to grant one very reasonable request: And I shall think there is still some spirit left in the Nation, when I read a vote to this purpose: "Resolved, nemine contradicente, That this House will, for the future, wear no clothes but such as are made of Irish growth, or of Irish manufacture, nor will permit their wives or children to wear any other; and that they will to the utmost endeavour to prevail with their friends, relations, dependants and tenants to follow their example." And if at the same time they could banish tea and coffee, and china-ware, out of their families, and force their wives to chat their scandal over an infusion of sage, or other wholesome domestic vegetables, we might possibly be able to subsist, and pay our absentees, pensioners, generals, civil officers, appeals, colliers, temporary travellers, students, schoolboys, splenetic visitors of Bath, Tunbridge, and Epsom, with all other smaller drains, by sending our crude unwrought goods to England, and receiving from thence and all other countries nothing but what is fully manufactured, and keep a few potatoes and oatmeal for our own subsistence.

I have been for a dozen years past wisely prognosticating the present condition of this Kingdom, which any human creature of common sense could foretell with as little sagacity as myself. My meaning is that a consumptive body must needs die, which hath spent all its spirits and received no nourishment. Yet I am often tempted to pity when I hear the poor farmer and cottager lamenting the hardness of the times, and imputing them either to one or two ill seasons, which better climates than ours are more exposed to, or to the scarcity of silver which to a Nation of Liberty would be only a slight and temporary inconveniency, to be removed at a month's warning.

Ap., 1729.



OBSERVATIONS,

OCCASIONED BY READING A PAPER ENTITLED, "THE

CASE OF THE WOOLLEN MANUFACTURES

OF DUBLIN," ETC.[102]

The paper called "The Case of the Woollen Manufactures," &c. is very well drawn up. The reasonings of the authors are just, the facts true, and the consequences natural. But his censure of those seven vile citizens, who import such a quantity of silk stuffs and woollen cloth from England, is an hundred times gentler than enemies to their country deserve; because I think no punishment in this world can be great enough for them, without immediate repentance and amendment. But, after all, the writer of that paper hath very lightly touched one point of the greatest importance, and very poorly answered the main objection, that the clothiers are defective both in the quality and quantity of their goods.

For my own part, when I consider the several societies of handicraftsmen in all kinds, as well as shopkeepers, in this city, after eighteen years' experience of their dealings, I am at a loss to know in which of these societies the most or least honesty is to be found. For instance, when any trade comes first into my head, upon examination I determine it exceeds all others in fraud. But after I have considered them all round, as far as my knowledge or experience reacheth, I am at a loss to determine, and to save trouble I put them all upon a par. This I chiefly apply to those societies of men who get their livelihood by the labour of their hands. For, as to shopkeepers, I cannot deny that I have found some few honest men among them, taking the word honest in the largest and most charitable sense. But as to handicraftsmen, although I shall endeavour to believe it possible to find a fair dealer among their clans, yet I confess it hath never been once my good fortune to employ one single workman, who did not cheat me at all times to the utmost of his power in the materials, the work, and the price. One universal maxim I have constantly observed among them, that they would rather gain a shilling by cheating you, than twenty in the honest way of dealing, although they were sure to lose your custom, as well as that of others, whom you might probably recommend to them.

This, I must own, is the natural consequence of poverty and oppression. These wretched people catch at any thing to save them a minute longer from drowning. Thus Ireland is the poorest of all civilized countries in Europe, with every natural advantage to make it one of the richest.

As to the grand objection, which this writer slubbers over in so careless a manner, because indeed it was impossible to find a satisfactory answer, I mean the knavery of our woollen manufacturers in general, I shall relate some facts, which I had more opportunities to observe than usually fall in the way of men who are not of the trade. For some years, the masters and wardens, with many of their principal workmen and shopkeepers, came often to the Deanery to relate their grievances, and to desire my advice as well as my assistance. What reasons might move them to this proceeding, I leave to public conjecture. The truth is, that the woollen manufacture of this kingdom sate always nearest my heart. But the greatest difficulty lay in these perpetual differences between the shopkeepers and workmen they employed. Ten or a dozen of these latter often came to the Deanery with their complaints, which I often repeated to the shopkeepers. As, that they brought their prices too low for a poor weaver to get his bread by; and instead of ready money for their labour on Saturdays, they gave them only such a quantity of cloth or stuff, at the highest rate, which the poor men were often forced to sell one-third below the rate, to supply their urgent necessities. On the other side, the shopkeepers complained of idleness, and want of skill, or care, or honesty, in their workmen; and probably their accusations on both sides were just.

Whenever the weavers, in a body, came to me for advice, I gave it freely, that they should contrive some way to bring their goods into reputation; and give up that abominable principle of endeavouring to thrive by imposing bad ware at high prices to their customers, whereby no shopkeeper can reasonably expect to thrive. For, besides the dread of God's anger, (which is a motive of small force among them,) they may be sure that no buyer of common sense will return to the same shop where he was once or twice defrauded. That gentlemen and ladies, when they found nothing but deceit in the sale of Irish cloths and stuffs, would act as they ought to do, both in prudence and resentment, in going to those very bad citizens the writer mentions, and purchase English goods.

I went farther, and proposed that ten or a dozen of the most substantial woollen-drapers should join in publishing an advertisement, signed with their names to the following purpose:—That for the better encouragement of all gentlemen, &c. the persons undernamed did bind themselves mutually to sell their several cloths and stuffs, (naming each kind) at the lowest rate, right merchantable goods, of such a breadth, which they would warrant to be good according to the several prices; and that if a child of ten years old were sent with money, and directions what cloth or stuff to buy, he should not be wronged in any one article. And that whoever should think himself ill-used in any of the said shops, he should have his money again from the seller, or upon his refusal, from the rest of the said subscribers, who, if they found the buyer discontented with the cloth or stuff, should be obliged to refund the money; and if the seller refused to repay them, and take his goods again, should publicly advertise that they would answer for none of his goods any more. This would be to establish credit, upon which all trade dependeth.

I proposed this scheme several times to the corporation of weavers, as well as to the manufacturers, when they came to apply for my advice at the Deanery-house. I likewise went to the shops of several woollen-drapers upon the same errand, but always in vain; for they perpetually gave me the deaf ear, and avoided entering into discourse upon that proposal: I suppose, because they thought it was in vain, and that the spirit of fraud had gotten too deep and universal a possession to be driven out by any arguments from interest, reason, or conscience.



THE

PRESENT MISERABLE STATE

OF

IRELAND.



NOTE.

The following tract was taken by Sir Walter Scott "from a little miscellaneous 12mo volume of pamphlets, communicated by Mr. Hartsonge, relating chiefly to Irish affairs, the property at one time of Thomas Kingsbury, Esq., son of Dr. Kingsbury, who attended Swift in his last illness." The present editor came across a similar volume while on a visit of research in Dublin, among the collection of books which belonged to the late Sir W. Gilbert, and which were being catalogued for auction by the bookseller, Mr. O'Donoghue. The little 12mo contained this tract which had, as Sir W. Scott points out, a portrait of Swift at the end, on the recto of the last leaf.

According to Sir W. Scott, the friend in Dublin to whom the letter is supposed to be addressed, was Sir Robert Walpole. If Scott be correct, and there seems little reason to doubt his conjecture, the tract must have been written in the second half of the year 1726. In the early part of that year Swift had an interview with Walpole. Our knowledge of what transpired at that interview is obtained from Swift's letter of April 28th, 1726, to Lord Peterborough; from Swift's letter to Dr. Stopford of July 20th, 1726; from Pope's letter to Swift of September 3rd, 1726; and from Swift's letter to Lady Betty Germaine of January 8th, 1732/3. From these letters we learn that Swift was really invited by Walpole to meet him. Swift's visit to England concerned itself mainly with the publication of "Gulliver's Travels," but Sir Henry Craik thinks that Swift had other thoughts. "As regards politics," says this biographer, "he was encouraged to hope that without loss either of honour or consistency, it was open to him to make terms with the new powers. In the end, the result proved that he either over-estimated his own capacity of surrendering his independence, or under-estimated the terms that would be exacted." This remark would leave it open for a reader to conclude that Swift would, at a certain price, have been ready to join Walpole and his party. But the letters referred to do not in the least warrant such a conclusion. Swift's thought was for Ireland, and had he been successful with Walpole in his pleading for Ireland's cause that minister might have found an ally in Swift; but the price to be paid was not to the man. From Swift's letter to Peterborough we are at once introduced to Ireland's case, and his point of view on this was so opposed to Walpole's preconceived notions of how best to govern Ireland, as well as of his settled plans, that Swift found, as he put it, that Walpole "had conceived opinions ... which I could not reconcile to the notions I had of liberty." Not at all of his own liberty, but of that of the liberty of a nation; for, as he says (giving now the quotation in full): "I had no other design in desiring to see Sir Robert Walpole, than to represent the affairs of Ireland to him in a true light, not only without any view to myself, but to any party whatsoever ... I failed very much in my design; for I saw that he had conceived opinions, from the example and practices of the present, and some former governors, which I could not reconcile to the notions I had of liberty." The part given here in italics is omitted by Sir H. Craik in his quotation.

Swift saw Walpole twice—once at Walpole's invitation at a dinner at Chelsea, and a second time at his own wish, expressed through Lord Peterborough. At the first meeting nothing of politics could be broached, as the encounter was a public one. The second meeting was private and resulted in nothing. The letter to Peterborough was written by Swift the day after he had seen Walpole, and Peterborough was requested to show it to that minister. The letter is so pertinent to the subject-matter of this volume that it is printed here:

"April 28th, 1726. "SWIFT TO THE EARL OF PETERBOROUGH.

"MY LORD,

"Your lordship having, at my request, obtained for me an hour from Sir Robert Walpole, I accordingly attended him yesterday at eight o'clock in the morning, and had somewhat more than an hour's conversation with him. Your lordship was this day pleased to inquire what passed between that great minister and me; to which I gave you some general answers, from whence you said you could comprehend little or nothing.

"I had no other design in desiring to see Sir Robert Walpole, than to represent the affairs of Ireland to him in a true light, not only without any view to myself, but to any party whatsoever: and, because I understood the affairs of that kingdom tolerably well, and observed the representations he had received were such as I could not agree to; my principal design was to set him right, not only for the service of Ireland, but likewise of England, and of his own administration.

"I failed very much in my design; for I saw he had conceived opinions, from the example and practices of the present, and some former governors, which I could not reconcile to the notions I had of liberty, a possession always understood by the British nation to be the inheritance of a human creature.

"Sir Robert Walpole was pleased to enlarge very much upon the subject of Ireland, in a manner so alien from what I conceived to be the rights and privileges of a subject of England, that I did not think proper to debate the matter with him so much as I otherwise might, because I found it would be in vain. I shall, therefore, without entering into dispute, make bold to mention to your lordship some few grievances of that kingdom, as it consists of a people who, beside a natural right of enjoying the privileges of subjects, have also a claim of merit from their extraordinary loyalty to the present king and his family.

"First, That all persons born in Ireland are called and treated as Irishmen, although their fathers and grandfathers were born in England; and their predecessors having been conquerors of Ireland, it is humbly considered they ought to be on as good a foot as any subjects of Britain, according to the practice of all other nations, and particularly of the Greeks and Romans.

"Secondly, That they are denied the natural liberty of exporting their manufactures to any country which is not engaged in a war with England.

"Thirdly, That whereas there is a university in Ireland, founded by Queen Elizabeth, where youth are instructed with a much stricter discipline than either in Oxford or Cambridge, it lies under the greatest discouragements, by filling all the principal employments, civil and ecclesiastical, with persons from England, who have neither interest, property, acquaintance, nor alliance, in that kingdom; contrary to the practice of all other states in Europe which are governed by viceroys, at least what hath never been used without the utmost discontents of the people.

"Fourthly, That several of the bishops sent over to Ireland, having been clergymen of obscure condition, and without other distinction than that of chaplains to the governors, do frequently invite over their old acquaintances or kindred, to whom they bestow the best preferment in their gift. The like may be said of the judges, who take with them one or two dependants, to whom they give their countenance; and who, consequently, without other merit, grow immediately into the chief business of their courts. The same practice is followed by all others in civil employments, if they have a cousin, a valet, or footman in their family, born in England.

"Fifthly, That all civil employments, granted in reversion, are given to persons who reside in England.

"The people of Ireland, who are certainly the most loyal subjects in the world, cannot but conceive that most of these hardships have been the consequence of some unfortunate representations (at least) in former times; and the whole body of the gentry feel the effects in a very sensible part, being utterly destitute of all means to make provision for their younger sons, either in the Church, the law, the revenue, or (of late) in the army; and, in the desperate condition of trade, it is equally vain to think of making them merchants. All they have left is, at the expiration of leases, to rack their tenants, which they have done to such a degree, that there is not one farmer in a hundred through the kingdom who can afford shoes or stockings to his children, or to eat flesh, or drink anything better than sour milk or water, twice in a year; so that the whole country, except the Scottish plantation in the north, is a scene of misery and desolation hardly to be matched on this side of Lapland.

"The rents of Ireland are computed to about a million and a half, whereof one half million at least is spent by lords and gentlemen residing in England, and by some other articles too long to mention.

"About three hundred thousand pounds more are returned thither on other accounts; and, upon the whole, those who are the best versed in that kind of knowledge agree, that England gains annually by Ireland a million at least, which even I could make appear beyond all doubt.

"But, as this mighty profit would probably increase, with tolerable treatment, to half a million more, so it must of necessity sink, under the hardships that kingdom lies at present.

"And whereas Sir Robert Walpole was pleased to take notice, how little the king gets by Ireland, it ought, perhaps to be considered, that the revenues and taxes, I think, amount to above four hundred thousand pounds a-year; and, reckoning the riches of Ireland, compared with England, to be as one to twelve, the king's revenues there would be equal to more than five millions here; which, considering the bad payment of rents, from such miserable creatures as most of the tenants in Ireland are, will be allowed to be as much as such a kingdom can bear.

"The current coin of Ireland is reckoned, at most, but at five hundred thousand pounds; so that above four-fifths are paid every year into the exchequer.

"I think it manifest, that whatever circumstances could possibly contribute to make a country poor and despicable, are all united with respect to Ireland. The nation controlled by laws to which they do not consent, disowned by their brethren and countrymen, refused the liberty not only of trading with their own manufactures, but even their native commodities, forced to seek for justice many hundred miles by sea and land, rendered in a manner incapable of serving their king and country in any employment of honour, trust, or profit; and all this without the least demerit; while the governors sent over thither can possibly have no affection to the people, further than what is instilled into them by their own justice and love of mankind, which do not always operate; and whatever they please to represent hither is never called in question.

"Whether the representatives of such a people, thus distressed and laid in the dust, when they meet in a parliament, can do the public business with that cheerfulness which might be expected from free-born subjects, would be a question in any other country except that unfortunate island; the English inhabitants whereof have given more and greater examples of their loyalty and dutifulness, than can be shown in any other part of the world.

"What part of these grievances may be thought proper to be redressed by so wise and great a minister as Sir Robert Walpole, he perhaps will please to consider; especially because they have been all brought upon that kingdom since the Revolution; which, however, is a blessing annually celebrated there with the greatest zeal and sincerity.

"I most humbly entreat your lordship to give this paper to Sir 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.

"Now, if the said words, or words to the like effect, were intended against him the said Dean, and as a reflection on the Right Hon. the Lord Mayor, aldermen, and commons, for their decreeing unanimously, and in full assembly, the freedom of this city to the said Dean, in an honourable manner, on account of an opinion they had conceived of some services done by him the said Dean to this city, and to the kingdom in general,—the said Dean doth declare, That the said words, or words to the like effect, are insolent, false, scandalous, malicious, and, in a particular manner, perfidious; the said person, who is reported to have spoken the said or the like words, having, for some years past, and even within some few days, professed a great friendship for the said Dean; and, what is hardly credible, sending a common friend of the Dean and himself, not many hours after the said or the like words had been spoken, to renew his profession of friendship to the said Dean, but concealing the oratory; whereof the said Dean had no account till the following day, and then told it to all his friends."