The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D. - Volume 07 / Historical and Political Tracts-Irish

NOTE.

In the note prefixed to the reprint of Swift's "Letter concerning the Sacramental Test," the circumstances under which this "Letter to a Member of Parliament in Ireland" was written, are explained (see vol. iv., pp. 3-4, of present edition). The Godolphin ministry was anxious to repeal the Test Act in Ireland, as a concession to the Presbyterians who had made themselves prominent by their expressions of loyalty to William and the Protestant succession. In this particular year also (1708), rumours of an invasion gave them another opportunity to send in loyal addresses. In reality, however, the endeavour to try the repeal in Ireland, was in the nature of a test, and Swift ridiculed the attempt as being like to "that of a discreet physician, who first gives a new medicine to a dog, before he prescribes it to a human creature." It seems that Swift had been consulted by Somers on the question of the repeal, and had given his opinion very frankly. The letter to Archbishop King, revealing this, contains some bitter remarks about "a certain lawyer of Ireland." The lawyer was Speaker Brodrick, afterwards Lord Midleton, who was enthusiastic for the repeal. The present letter gives a very clear idea of what Swift thought should be a Speaker's duties both as the chairman of the House and as related to this particular measure of the Test.

The text of the present reprint is based on the original manuscript in Swift's handwriting; but as this was found to be somewhat illegible, it has been collated with the text given in vol. viii. of the quarto edition of Swift's collected works, published in 1765.

[T. S.]

A LETTER

TO

A MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT, IN IRELAND,

UPON THE CHOOSING A NEW SPEAKER THERE.

Sir,

You may easily believe I am not at all surprised at what you tell me, since it is but a confirmation of my own conjecture that I sent you last week, and made you my reproaches upon it at a venture. It looks exceeding strange, yet, I believe it to be a great truth, that, in order to carry a point in your house, the two following circumstances are of great advantage; first, to have an ill cause; and, secondly, to be a minority. For both these circumstances are extremely apt to unite men, to make them assiduous in their attendance, watchful of opportunities, zealous for gaining over proselytes, and often successful; which is not to be wondered at, when favour and interest are on the side of their opinion. Whereas, on the contrary, a majority with a good cause are negligent and supine. They think it sufficient to declare themselves upon occasion in favour of their party, but, sailing against the tide of favour and preferment, they are easily scattered and driven back. In short, they want a common principle to cement, and motive to spirit them; For the bare acting upon a principle from the dictates of a good conscience, or prospect of serving the public, will not go very far under the present dispositions of mankind. This was amply verified last sessions of Parliament, upon occasion of the money bill, the merits of which I shall not pretend to examine. 'Tis enough that, upon the first news of its transmission hither, in the form it afterwards appeared, the members, upon discourse with their friends, seemed unanimous against it, I mean those of both parties, except a few, who were looked upon as persons ready to go any lengths prescribed them by the court. Yet with only a week's canvassing among a very few hands, the bill passed after a full debate, by a very great majority; yet, I believe, you will hardly attempt persuading me, or anybody else, that one man in ten, of those who changed their language, were moved by reasons any way affecting the merits of the cause, but merely through hope, fear, indolence, or good manners. Nay, I have been assured from good hands, that there was still a number sufficient to make a majority against the bill, if they had not apprehended the other side to be secure, and therefore thought it imprudence, by declaring themselves, to disoblige the government to no purpose.

Reflecting upon this and forty other passages, in the several Houses of Commons since the Revolution, makes me apt to think there is nothing a chief governor can be commanded to attempt here wherein he may not succeed, with a very competent share of address, and with such assistance as he will always find ready at his devotion. And therefore I repeat what I said at first, that I am not at all surprised at what you tell me. For, if there had been the least spark of public spirit left, those who wished well to their country and its constitution in church and state, should, upon the first news of the late Speaker's promotion, (and you and I know it might have been done a great deal sooner) have immediately gone together, and consulted about the fittest person to succeed him. But, by all I can comprehend, you have been so far from proceeding thus, that it hardly ever came into any of your heads. And the reason you give is the worst in the world: That none offered themselves, and you knew not whom to pitch upon. It seems, however, the other party was more resolved, or at least not so modest: For you say your vote is engaged against your opinion, and several gentlemen in my neighbourhood tell me the same story of themselves; this, I confess, is of an unusual strain, and a good many steps below any condescensions a court will, I hope, ever require from you. I shall not trouble myself to inquire who is the person for whom you and others are engaged, or whether there be more candidates from that side, than one. You tell me nothing of either, and I never thought it worth the question to anybody else. But, in so weighty an affair, and against your judgment, I cannot look upon you as irrevocably determined. Therefore I desire you will give me leave to reason with you a little upon the subject, lest your compliance, or inadvertency, should put you upon what you may have cause to repent as long as you live.

You know very well, the great business of the high-flying Whigs, at this juncture, is to endeavour a repeal of the test clause. You know likewise that the moderate men, both of High and Low Church, profess to be wholly averse from this design, as thinking it beneath the policy of common gardeners to cut down the only hedge that shelters from the north.[3] Now, I will put the case; If the person to whom you have promised your vote be one of whom you have the least apprehension that he will promote or assent to the repealing of that clause, whether it be decent or proper, he should be the mouth of an assembly, whereof a very great majority pretend to abhor his opinion. Can a body, whose mouth and heart must go so contrary ways, ever act with sincerity, or hardly with consistence? Such a man is no proper vehicle to retain or convey the sense of the House, which, in so many points of the greatest moment, will be directly contrary to his; 'tis full as absurd, as to prefer a man to a bishopric who denies revealed religion. But it may possibly be a great deal worse. What if the person you design to vote into that important post, should not only be a declared enemy of the sacramental test, but should prove to be a solicitor, an encourager, or even a penner of addresses to complain of it? Do you think it so indifferent a thing, that a promise of course, the effect of compliance, importunity, shame of refusing, or any the like motive, shall oblige you past the power of retracting?

Perhaps you will tell me, as some have already had the weakness to do, that it is of little importance to either party to have a Speaker of their side, his business being only to take the sense of the House and report it, that you often, at committees, put an able speaker into the chair on purpose to prevent him from stopping a bill. Why, if it were no more than this, I believe I should hardly choose, even among my footmen, such a one to deliver a message, whose interest and opinions led him to wish it might miscarry. But I remember to have heard old Colonel Birch[4] of Herefordshire say, that "he was a very sorry Speaker, whose single vote was not better than fifty common ones." I am sure it is reckoned in England the first great test of the prevalency of either party in the House. Sir Thomas Littleton[5] thought, that a House of Commons with a stinking breath (supposing the Speaker to be the mouth) would go near to infect everything within the walls, and a great deal without. It is the smallest part of an able Speaker's business, what he performs in the House, at least if he be in with the court, when it is hard to say how many converts may be made in a circle of dinners, or private cabals. And you and I can easily call to mind a gentleman in that station, in England, who, by his own arts and personal credit, was able to draw over a majority, and change the whole power of a prevailing side in a nice juncture of affairs, and made a Parliament expire in one party who had lived in another.

I am far from an inclination to multiply party causes, but surely the best of us can with very ill grace make that an objection, who have not been so nice in matters of much less importance. Yet I have heard some persons of both sides gravely deliver themselves in this manner; "Why should we make the choosing a Speaker a party cause? Let us fix upon one who is well versed in the practices and methods of parliament." And I believe there are too many who would talk at the same rate, if the question were not only about abolishing the sacramental test, but the sacrament itself.

But suppose the principles of the most artful Speaker could have no influence either to obtain or obstruct any point in Parliament, who can answer what effects such a choice may produce without doors? 'Tis obvious how small a matter serves to raise the spirits and hopes of the Dissenters and their high-flying advocates, what lengths they run, what conclusions they form, and what hopes they entertain. Do they hear of a new friend in office? That is encouragement enough to practise the city, against the opinion of a majority into an address to the Queen for repealing the sacramental test; or issue out their orders to the next fanatic parson to furbish up his old sermons, and preach and print new ones directly against Episcopacy. I would lay a good wager, that, if the choice of a new Speaker succeeds exactly to their liking, we shall see it soon followed by many new attempts, either in the form of pamphlet, sermon, or address, to the same, or perhaps more dangerous purposes.

Supposing the Speaker's office to be only an employment of profit and honour, and a step to a better; since it is in your own gift, will you not choose to bestow it upon some person whose principles the majority of you pretends to approve, if it were only to be sure of a worthy man hereafter in a high station, on the bench or at the bar?

I confess, if it were a thing possible to be compassed, it would seem most reasonable to fill the chair with some person who would be entirely devoted to neither party: But, since there are so few of that character, and those either unqualified or unfriended, I cannot see how a majority will answer it to their reputation, to be so ill provided of able persons, that they must have recourse for a leader to their adversaries, a proceeding of which I never met with above one example, and even that succeeded but ill, though it was recommended by an oracle, which advised some city in Greece to beg a general from their enemies, who, in scorn, sent them either a fiddler or a poet, I have forgot which; but so much I remember, that his conduct was such, as they soon grew weary of him.

You pretend to be heartily resolved against repealing the sacramental test, yet, at the same time, give the only great employment you have to dispose of to a person who will take that test against his stomach (by which word I understand many a man's conscience) who earnestly wisheth it repealed, and will endeavour it to the utmost of his power; so that the first action after you meet, will be a sort of contravention to that test: And will anybody go further than your practice to judge of your principles?

And now I am upon this subject, I cannot conclude without saying something to a very popular argument against that sacramental test, which may be apt to shake many of those who would otherwise wish well enough to it. They say it was a new hardship put upon the Dissenters, without any provocation; and, it is plain, could be no way necessary, because we had peaceably lived together so long without it. They add some other circumstances of the arts by which it was obtained, and the person by whom it was inserted. Surely such people do not consider that the penal laws against Dissenters were made wholly ineffectual by the connivance and mercy of the government, so that all employments of the state lay as open to them as they did to the best and most legal subjects. And what progress they would have made by the advantages of a late conjecture, is obvious to imagine; which I take to be a full answer to that objection.

I remember, upon the transmission of that bill with the test clause inserted, the Dissenters and their partisans, among other topics, spoke much of the good effects produced by the lenity of the government, that the Presbyterians were grown very inconsiderable in their number and quality, and would daily come into the church, if we did not fright them from it by new severities. When the act was passed, they presently changed their style, and raised a clamour, through both kingdoms, of the great numbers of considerable gentry who were laid aside, and could no longer serve their queen and country; which hyperbolical way of reckoning, when it came to be melted down into truth, amounted to about fifteen country justices, most of them of the lowest size, for estate, quality, or understanding. However, this puts me in mind of a passage told me by a great man, though I know not whether it be anywhere recorded. That a complaint was made to the king and council in Sweden, of a prodigious swarm of Scots, who, under the condition of pedlars, infested that kingdom to such a degree, as, if not suddenly prevented, might in time prove dangerous to the state, by joining with any discontented party. Meanwhile the Scots, by their agents, placed a good sum of money to engage the offices of the prime minister in their behalf; who, in order to their defence, told the council, he was assured they were but a few inconsiderable people, that lived honestly and poorly, and were not of any consequence. Their enemies offered to prove the contrary, whereupon an order was made to take their number, which was found to amount, as I remember, to about thirty thousand. The affair was again brought before the council, and great reproaches made the first minister, for his ill computation; who, presently took the other handle, said, he had reason to believe the number yet greater than what was returned; and then gravely offered to the king's consideration, whether it were safe to render desperate so great a body of able men, who had little to lose, and whom any hard treatment would only serve to unite into a power capable of disturbing, if not destroying the peace of the kingdom. And so they were suffered to continue.

A PROPOSAL

FOR THE

UNIVERSAL USE OF IRISH MANUFACTURE.

NOTE.

This pamphlet constitutes the opening of a campaign against his political enemies in England on whom Swift had, it must be presumed, determined to take revenge. When the fall of Harley's administration was complete and irrevocable, Swift returned to Ireland and, for six years, he lived the simple life of the Dean of St. Patrick's, unheard of except by a few of his more intimate friends in England. Accustomed by years of intimacy with the ministers of Anne's court, and by his own temperament, to act the part of leader and adviser, Swift's compulsory silence must have chafed and irritated him to a degree. His opportunities for advancement had passed with the passing of Harley and Bolingbroke from power, and he had given too ardent and enthusiastic a support to these friends of his for Walpole to look to him for a like service. Moreover, however strong may have been these personal motives, Swift's detestation of Walpole's Irish policy must have been deep and bitter, even before he began to express himself on the matter. His sincerity cannot be doubted, even if we make an ample allowance for a private grudge against the great English minister. The condition of Ireland, at this time, was such as to arouse the warmest indignation from the most indifferent and unprejudiced—and it was a condition for which English misrule was mainly responsible. It cannot therefore be wondered at that Swift should be among the strenuous and persistent opponents of a policy which spelled ruin to his country, and his patriotism must be recognized even if we accept the existence of a personal motive.

The crass stupidity which characterized England's dealings with Ireland at this time would be hardly credible, were it not on record in the acts passed in the reigns of Charles II. and William III., and embodied in the resolutions of the English parliament during Walpole's term of power. An impartial historian is forced to the conclusion that England had determined to ruin the sister nation. Already its social life was disreputable; the people taxed in various ways far beyond their means; the agriculture at the lowest state by the neglect and indifference of the landed proprietors; and the manufactures crippled by a series of pernicious restrictions imposed by a selfish rival.

Swift, in writing this "Proposal," did not take advantage of any special occasion, as he did later in the matter of Wood's halfpence. His occasion must be found in the condition of the country, in the injustice to which she was subjected, and in the fact that the time had come when it would be wise and safe for him to come out once more into the open.

He began in his characteristic way. All the evils that the laws against the manufactures and agriculture of Ireland brought into existence are summarized in this "Proposal." His business is not to attack the laws directly, but to attempt a method by which these shall be nullified. Since the manufactures of Ireland might not be exported for sale, let the people of Ireland wear them themselves, and let them resolve and determine to wear them in preference to those imported from England. If England had the right to prevent the importation to it of Irish woollen goods, it was surely only just that the Irish should exercise then right to wear their own home-made clothes! The tract was a reasonable and mild statement. Yet, such was the temper of the governing officials, that a cry was raised against it and the writer accused of attempting to disunite the two kingdoms. With consistent foolishness, the printer was brought to trial, and although the jury acquitted him, yet the Lord Chief Justice Whitshed, zealous for his employer more than for his office, refused to accept the verdict and attempted to force the jury to a conviction. In his letter to Pope, dated January 10th, 1720-21, Swift gives an account of this matter:

"I have written in this kingdom, a discourse, to persuade the wretched people to wear their own manufactures, instead of those from England. This treatise soon spread very fast, being agreeable to the sentiments of the whole nation, except those gentlemen who had employments, or were expectants. Upon which a person in great office here immediately took the alarm; he sent in haste for the chief-justice, and informed him of a seditious, factious, and virulent pamphlet, lately published, with a design of setting the two kingdoms at variance; directing, at the same time, that the printer should be prosecuted with the utmost rigour of the law. The chief-justice has so quick an understanding, that he resolved, if possible, to outdo his orders. The grand juries of the county and city were effectually practised with, to represent the said pamphlet with all aggravating epithets, for which they had thanks sent them from England, and their presentments published, for several weeks, in all the newspapers. The printer was seized, and forced to give great bail. After his trial, the jury brought him in not guilty, although they had been culled with the utmost industry. The chief-justice sent them back nine times, and kept them eleven hours, until, being perfectly tired out, they were forced to leave the matter to the mercy of the judge, by what they call a special verdict. During the trial, the chief-justice, among other singularities, laid his hand on his breast, and protested solemnly that the author's design was to bring in the Pretender, although there was not a single syllable of party in the whole treatise; and although it was known that the most eminent of those who professed his own principles, publicly disallowed his proceedings. But the cause being so very odious and unpopular, the trial of the verdict was deferred from one term to another, until, upon the Duke of Grafton's, the lord lieutenant's arrival, his grace, after mature advice, and permission from England, was pleased to grant a noli prosequi."

This Chief Justice Whitshed was the same who acted as judge on Harding's trial for printing the fourth Drapier letter. Swift never forgot him, and took several occasions to satirize him bitterly.

The text of the present edition is based on the Dublin edition of 1720 and collated with the texts of Faulkner, 1735, and Miscellanies of same date.

[T. S.]

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