The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift Part 10

I confess, I have been sometimes tempted to wish that this project of Wood might succeed, because I reflected with some pleasure what a jolly crew it would bring over among us of lords and squires, and pensioners of both s.e.xes, and officers civil and military, where we should live together as merry and sociable as beggars, only with this one abatement, that we should neither have meat to feed, nor manufactures to clothe us, unless we could be content to prance about in coats of mail, or eat bra.s.s as ostriches do iron.

I return from this digression to that which gave me the occasion of making it: And I believe you are now convinced, that if the Parliament of Ireland were as temptable as any other a.s.sembly within a mile of Christendom (which G.o.d forbid) yet the managers must of necessity fail for want of tools to work with. But I will yet go one step further, by supposing that a hundred new employments were erected on purpose to gratify compilers; yet still an insuperable difficulty would remain; for it happens, I know not how, that money is neither Whig nor Tory, neither of town nor country party, and it is not improbable, that a gentleman would rather choose to live upon his own estate which brings him gold and silver, than with the addition of an employment, when his rents and salary must both be paid in Wood's bra.s.s, at above eighty _per cent._ discount.

For these and many other reasons, I am confident you need not be under the least apprehensions from the sudden expectation of the Lord Lieutenant,[15] while we continue in our present hearty disposition; to alter which there is no suitable temptation can possibly be offered: And if, as I have often a.s.serted from the best authority, the law hath not left a power in the crown to force any money except sterling upon the subject, much less can the crown devolve such a power upon another.

[Footnote 15: Lord Carteret, afterwards Earl Granville. See note to "A Vindication of Lord Carteret," in vol. vii. of present edition of Swift's works. [T.S.]]

This I speak with the utmost respect to the person and dignity of his Excellency the Lord Carteret, whose character hath been given me by a gentleman that hath known him from his first appearance in the world: That gentleman describes him as a young n.o.bleman of great accomplishments, excellent learning, regular in his life, and of much spirit and vivacity. He hath since, as I have heard, been employed abroad, was princ.i.p.al secretary of state, and is now about the 37th year of his age appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. From such a governor this kingdom may reasonably hope for as much prosperity as, under so many discouragements, it can be capable of receiving.[16]

[Footnote 16: Carteret was an old friend of Swift. On the Earl's appointment to the Lord-lieutenancy, in April, 1724, Swift wrote him a letter on the matter of Wood's halfpence, in which he took the liberty of "an old humble servant, and one who always loved and esteemed" him, to make known to him the apprehensions the people were under concerning Mr. Wood's patent. "Neither is it doubted," he wrote, "that when your excellency shall be thoroughly informed, your justice and compa.s.sion for an injured people, will force you to employ your credit for their relief." Swift waited for more than a month, and on receiving no reply, sent a second letter, which Sir Henry Craik justly calls, "a masterpiece of its kind." It was as follows:

"June 9, 1724.

"MY LORD,

"It is above a month since I took the boldness of writing to your excellency, upon a subject wherein the welfare of this kingdom is highly concerned.

"I writ at the desire of several considerable persons here, who could not be ignorant that I had the honour of being well known to you.

"I could have wished your excellency had condescended so far, as to let one of your under clerks have signified to me that a letter was received.

"I have been long out of the world; but have not forgotten what used to pa.s.s among those I lived with while I was in it: and I can say, that during the experience of many years, and many changes in affairs, your excellency, and one more, who is not worthy to be compared to you, are the only great persons that ever refused to answer a letter from me, without regard to business, party, or greatness; and if I had not a peculiar esteem for your personal qualities, I should think myself to be acting a very inferior part in making this complaint.

"I never was so humble, as to be vain upon my acquaintance with men in power, and always rather chose to avoid it when I was not called.

Neither were their power or t.i.tles sufficient, without merit, to make me cultivate them; of which I have witnesses enough left, after all the havoc made among them, by accidents of time, or by changes of persons, measures, and opinions.

"I know not how your conception of yourself may alter, by every new high station; but mine must continue the same, or alter for the worse.

"I often told a great minister, whom you well know, that I valued him for being the same man through all the progress of power and place. I expected the like in your lords.h.i.+p; and still hope that I shall be the only person who will ever find it otherwise.

"I pray G.o.d to direct your excellency in all your good undertakings, and especially in your government of this kingdom.

"I shall trouble you no more; but remain, with great respect, my Lord,

"Your excellency's most obedient,

"and most humble servant,

"JON. SWIFT."

This letter brought an immediate reply from Carteret, who confessed himself in the wrong for his silence, and trusted he had not forfeited Swift's friends.h.i.+p by it. With regard to Mr. Wood's patent, he said that the matter was under examination, "and till that is over I am not informed sufficiently to make any other judgment of the matter, than that which I am naturally led to make, by the general aversion which appears to it in the whole nation." Swift replied in a charming vein, and elegantly put his scolding down to the testiness of old age. His excellency had humbled him. "Therefore, I fortel that you, who could so easily conquer so captious a person, and of so little consequence, will quickly subdue this whole kingdom to love and reverence you" (Scott's ed. 1824, vol. xvi., pp. 430-435). [T.S.]]

It is true indeed, that within the memory of man, there have been governors of so much dexterity, as to carry points of terrible consequence to this kingdom, by their power with _those who were in office_, and by their arts in managing or deluding others with oaths, affability, and even with dinners. If Wood's bra.s.s had in those times been upon the anvil, it is obvious enough to conceive what methods would have been taken. Depending persons would have been told in plain terms, that it was a "service expected from them, under pain of the public business being put into more complying hands." Others would be allured by promises. To the country gentleman, besides good words, burgundy and closeting. It would perhaps have been hinted how "kindly it would be taken to comply with a royal patent, though it were not compulsory,"

that if any inconveniences ensued, it might be made up with other "graces or favours hereafter." That "gentlemen ought to consider whether it were prudent or safe to disgust England:" They would be desired to "think of some good bills for encouraging of trade, and setting the poor to work, some further acts against Popery and for uniting Protestants."

There would be solemn engagements that we should "never be troubled with above forty thousand pounds in his coin, and all of the best and weightiest sort, for which we should only give our manufactures in exchange, and keep our gold and silver at home." Perhaps a "seasonable report of some invasion would have been spread in the most proper juncture," which is a great smoother of rubs in public proceedings; and we should have been told that "this was no time to create differences when the kingdom was in danger."

These, I say, and the like methods would in corrupt times have been taken to let in this deluge of bra.s.s among us; and I am confident would even then have not succeeded, much less under the administration of so excellent a person as the Lord Carteret, and in a country where the people of all ranks, parties and denominations are convinced to a man, that the utter undoing of themselves and their posterity for ever will be dated from the admission of that execrable coin; that if it once enters, it can be no more confined to a small or moderate quant.i.ty, than the plague can be confined to a few families, and that no equivalent can be given by any earthly power, any more than a dead carca.s.s can be recovered to life by a cordial.

There is one comfortable circ.u.mstance in this universal opposition to Mr. Wood, that the people sent over hither from England to fill up our vacancies ecclesiastical, civil and military, are all on our side: Money, the great divider of the world, hath by a strange revolution, been the great uniter of a most divided people. Who would leave a hundred pounds a year in England (a country of freedom) to be paid a thousand in Ireland out of Wood's exchequer. The gentleman they have lately made primate[17] would never quit his seat in an English House of Lords, and his preferments at Oxford and Bristol, worth twelve hundred pounds a year, for four times the denomination here, but not half the value; therefore I expect to hear he will be as good an Irishman, upon this article, as any of his brethren, or even of us who have had the misfortune to be born in this island. For those, who, in the common phrase, do not "come hither to learn the language," would never change a better country for a worse, to receive bra.s.s instead of gold.

[Footnote 17: Hugh Boulter (1672-1742) was appointed Archbishop of Armagh, August 31st, 1724. He had been a fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, and had served the King as chaplain in Hanover, in 1719. In this latter year he was promoted to the Bishopric of Bristol, and the Deanery of Christ Church, Oxford. His appointment as Primate of Ireland, was in accordance with Walpole's plan for governing Ireland from England.

Walpole had no love for Carteret, and no faith in his power or willingness to aid him in his policy. Indeed, Carteret was sent to Ireland to be got out of the way. He was governor nominally; the real governor being Walpole in the person of the new Primate. What were Boulter's instructions may be gathered from the manner in which he carried out his purpose. Of a strong character and of untiring energy, Boulter set about his work in a fas.h.i.+on which showed that Walpole had chosen well. Nothing of any importance that transpired in Ireland, no fact of any interest about the individuals in office, no movement of any suspected or suspicious person escaped his vigilance. His letters testify to an unabating zeal for the English government of Irish affairs by Englishmen in the English interest. His perseverance knew no obstacles; he continued against all difficulties in his dogged and yet able manner to establish some order out of the chaos of Ireland's condition. But his government was the outcome of a profound conviction that only in the interest of England should Ireland be governed. If Ireland could be made prosperous and contented, so much more good would accrue to England. But that prosperity and that contentment had nothing whatever to do with safeguarding Irish inst.i.tutions, or recognizing the rights of the Irish people. If he gave way to popular opinion at all, it was because it was either expedient or beneficial to the English interest. If he urged, as he did, the founding of Protestant Charter schools, it was because this would strengthen the English power. To preserve that he obtained the enactment of a statute which excluded Roman Catholics from the legal profession and the offices of legal administration; and another act of his making actually disfranchised them altogether. Boulter was also a member of the Irish Privy Council, and Lord Justice of Ireland. The latter office he held under the vice-regencies of Carteret, Dorset and Devons.h.i.+re. His secretary, Ambrose Philips, had been connected with him, in earlier years, in contributing to a periodical ent.i.tled, "The Free Thinker," which appeared in 1718. Philips, in 1769, supervised the publication of Boulter's "Letters," which were published at Oxford. [T.S.]]

Another slander spread by Wood and his emissaries is, that by opposing him we discover an inclination to "shake off our dependence upon the crown of England." Pray observe how important a person is this same William Wood, and how the public weal of two kingdoms is involved in his private interest. First, all those who refuse to take his coin are Papists; for he tells us that "none but Papists are a.s.sociated against him;" Secondly, they "dispute the King's prerogative;" Thirdly, "they are ripe for rebellion," and Fourthly, they are going to "shake off their dependence upon the crown of England;" That is to say, "they are going to choose another king;" For there can be no other meaning in this expression, however some may pretend to strain it.

And this gives me an opportunity of explaining, to those who are ignorant, another point, which hath often swelled in my breast. Those who come over hither to us from England, and some weak people among ourselves, whenever in discourse we make mention of liberty and property, shake their heads, and tell us, that Ireland is a "depending kingdom," as if they would seem, by this phrase, to intend that the people of Ireland is in some state of slavery or dependence different from those of England; Whereas a "depending kingdom" is a modern term of art, unknown, as I have heard, to all ancient civilians, and writers upon government; and Ireland is on the contrary called in some statutes an "imperial crown," as held only from G.o.d; which is as high a style as any kingdom is capable of receiving. Therefore by this expression, a "depending kingdom," there is no more understood than that by a statute made here in the 33d year of Henry 8th. "The King and his successors are to be kings imperial of this realm as united and knit to the imperial crown of England." I have looked over all the English and Irish statutes without finding any law that makes Ireland depend upon England, any more than England does upon Ireland. We have indeed obliged ourselves to have the same king with them, and consequently they are obliged to have the same king with us. For the law was made by our own Parliament, and our ancestors then were not such fools (whatever they were in the preceding reign) to bring themselves under I know not what dependence, which is now talked of without any ground of law, reason or common sense.[18]

[Footnote 18: This was the pa.s.sage selected by the government upon which to found its prosecution. As Sir Walter Scott points out, it "contains the pith and essence of the whole controversy." [T.S.]]

Let whoever think otherwise, I M.B. Drapier, desire to be excepted,[19]

for I declare, next under G.o.d, I _depend_ only on the King my sovereign, and on the laws of my own country; and I am so far from _depending_ upon the people of England, that if they should ever rebel against my sovereign (which G.o.d forbid) I would be ready at the first command from His Majesty to take arms against them, as some of _my_ countrymen did against _theirs_ at Preston. And if such a rebellion should prove so successful as to fix the Pretender on the throne of England, I would venture to transgress that statute so far as to lose every drop of my blood to hinder him from being King of Ireland.[20]

[Footnote 19: For a humorous story which accounts for Swift's use of the words "desire to be excepted," see the Drapier's sixth letter. [T.S.]]

[Footnote 20: Great offence was taken at this paragraph. Swift refers to it again in his sixth letter. Sir Henry Craik, in his "Life of Jonathan Swift" (vol. ii., p. 74), has an acute note on this paragraph, and the one already alluded to in the sixth letter. I take the liberty of transcribing it: "The manoeuvre by which Swift managed to a.s.sociate a suspicion of Jacobitism with his opponents, is one peculiarly characteristic; and so is the skill with which, in the next letter, he meets the objections to this paragraph, by half offering an extent of submission that might equally be embarra.s.sing--a submission even to Jacobitism, if Jacobitism were to become strong enough. He does not commit himself, however: he fears a 'spiteful interpretation.' In short, he places the English Cabinet on the horns of a dilemma. 'Am I to resist Jacobitism? Then what becomes of your doctrine of Ireland's dependency?'

or, 'Am I to become a Jacobite, if England bids me? Then what becomes of your Protestant succession? Must even that give way to your desire to tyrannize?'" [T.S.]]

'Tis true indeed, that within the memory of man, the Parliaments of England have sometimes a.s.sumed the power of binding this kingdom by laws enacted there,[21] wherein they were at first openly opposed (as far as truth, reason and justice are capable of opposing) by the famous Mr.

Molineux,[22] an English gentleman born here, as well as by several of the greatest patriots, and best Whigs in England; but the love and torrent of power prevailed. Indeed the arguments on both sides were invincible. For in reason, all government without the consent of the governed is the very definition of slavery: But in fact, eleven men well armed will certainly subdue one single man in his s.h.i.+rt. But I have done. For those who have used power to cramp liberty have gone so far as to resent even the liberty of complaining, although a man upon the rack was never known to be refused the liberty of roaring as loud as he thought fit.

[Footnote 21: Particularly in the reign of William III., when this doctrine of English supremacy was a.s.sumed, in order to discredit the authority of the Irish Parliament summoned by James II. [S.]

See note on Poyning's Law, p. 77. [T.S.]]

[Footnote 22: See note on p. 167. [T.S.]]

And as we are apt to sink too much under unreasonable fears, so we are too soon inclined to be raised by groundless hopes (according to the nature of all consumptive bodies like ours) thus, it hath been given about for several days past, that somebody in England empowered a second somebody to write to a third somebody here to a.s.sure us, that we "should no more be troubled with those halfpence." And this is reported to have been done by the same person, who was said to have sworn some months ago, that he would "ram them down our throats" (though I doubt they would stick in our stomachs) but whichever of these reports is true or false, it is no concern of ours. For in this point we have nothing to do with English ministers, and I should be sorry it lay in their power to redress this grievance or to enforce it: For the "Report of the Committee" hath given me a surfeit. The remedy is wholly in your own hands, and therefore I have digressed a little in order to refresh and continue that spirit so seasonably raised amongst you, and to let you see that by the laws of G.o.d, of NATURE, of NATIONS, and of your own COUNTRY, you ARE and OUGHT to be as FREE a people as your brethren in England.

If the pamphlets published at London by Wood and his journeymen in defence of his cause, were reprinted here, and that our countrymen could be persuaded to read them, they would convince you of his wicked design more than all I shall ever be able to say. In short I make him a perfect saint in comparison of what he appears to be from the writings of those whom he hires to justify his project. But he is so far master of the field (let others guess the reason) that no London printer dare publish any paper written in favour of Ireland, and here n.o.body hath yet been so bold as to publish anything in favour of him.

There was a few days ago a pamphlet sent me of near 50 pages written in favour of Mr. Wood and his coinage, printed in London; it is not worth answering, because probably it will never be published here: But it gave me an occasion to reflect upon an unhappiness we lie under, that the people of England are utterly ignorant of our case, which however is no wonder, since it is a point they do not in the least concern themselves about, farther than perhaps as a subject of discourse in a coffee-house when they have nothing else to talk of. For I have reason to believe that no minister ever gave himself the trouble of reading any papers written in our defence, because I suppose their opinions are already determined, and are formed wholly upon the reports of Wood and his accomplices; else it would be impossible that any man could have the impudence to write such a pamphlet as I have mentioned.

Our neighbours whose understandings are just upon a level with ours (which perhaps are none of the brightest) have a strong contempt for most nations, but especially for Ireland: They look upon us as a sort of savage Irish, whom our ancestors conquered several hundred years ago, and if I should describe the Britons to you as they were in Caesar's time, when they painted their bodies, or clothed themselves with the skins of beasts, I would act full as reasonably as they do: However they are so far to be excused in relation to the present subject, that, hearing only one side of the cause, and having neither opportunity nor curiosity to examine the other, they believe a lie merely for their ease, and conclude, because Mr. Wood pretends to have power, he hath also reason on his side.

Therefore to let you see how this case is represented in England by Wood and his adherents, I have thought it proper to extract out of that pamphlet a few of those notorious falsehoods in point of fact and reasoning contained therein; the knowledge whereof will confirm my countrymen in their own right sentiments, when they will see by comparing both, how much their enemies are in the wrong.

First, The writer, positively a.s.serts, "That Wood's halfpence were current among us for several months with the universal approbation of all people, without one single gainsayer, and we all to a man thought ourselves happy in having them."

Secondly, He affirms, "That we were drawn into a dislike of them only by some cunning evil-designing men among us, who opposed this patent of Wood to get another for themselves."

Thirdly, That "those who most declared at first against Wood's patent were the very men who intended to get another for their own advantage."

Fourthly, That "our Parliament and Privy-council, the Lord Mayor and aldermen of Dublin, the grand juries and merchants, and in short the whole kingdom, nay the very dogs" (as he expresseth it) "were fond of those halfpence, till they were inflamed by those few designing persons aforesaid."

Fifthly, He says directly, That "all those who opposed the halfpence were Papists and enemies to King George."

Thus far I am confident the most ignorant among you can safely swear from your own knowledge that the author is a most notorious liar in every article; the direct contrary being so manifest to the whole kingdom, that if occasion required, we might get it confirmed under five hundred thousand hands.

Sixthly, He would persuade us, that "if we sell five s.h.i.+llings worth of our goods or manufactures for two s.h.i.+llings and fourpence worth of copper, although the copper were melted down, and that we could get five s.h.i.+llings in gold or silver for the said goods, yet to take the said two s.h.i.+llings and fourpence in copper would be greatly for our advantage."