Published at his desire, for the common good.
N. B. About the time that this speech was written, the Town
was
much pestered with street-robbers; who, in a barbarous manner
would
seize on gentlemen, and take them into remote corners, and
after
they had robbed them, would leave them bound and gagged. It is
remarkable, that this speech had so good an effect, that there
have
been very few robberies of that kind committed since.[34]
NOTE.
Burke spoke of Swift's tracts of a public nature, relating to
Ireland, as “those in which the Dean appears in the best
light,
because they do honour to his heart as well as his head;
furnishing
some additional proofs that, though he was very free in his
abuse
of the inhabitants of that country, as well natives as
foreigners,
he had their interest sincerely at heart, and perfectly
understood
it.”
The following tract on “The Last Words and Dying Speech of
Ebenezer
Elliston” admirably illustrates Burke's remark.
The city of Dublin, at the time Swift wrote, was on a par with
some
of the lower districts of New York City about twenty years
ago,
which were dangerous in the extreme to traverse after dark.
Robbers
in gangs would waylay pedestrians and leave them often badly
maltreated and maimed. These thieves and “roughs” became so
impudent and brazen in their business that the condition of
the
city was a disgrace to the municipal government. To put down
the
nuisance Swift took a characteristic method. Ebenezer Elliston
had,
about this time, been executed for street robbery. Although
given a
good education by his parents, he forsook his trade of a silk
weaver, and became a gambler and burglar. He was well known to
the
other gangs which infested Dublin, but his death did not act
as a
deterrent. Swift, in composing Elliston's pretended dying
speech,
gave it the flavour and character of authenticity in order to
impose on the members of other gangs, and so successful was he
in
his intention, that the speech was accepted as the real
expression
of their late companion by the rest and had a most salutary
effect.
Scott says it was “received as genuine by the banditti who had
been
companions of his depredations, who were the more easily
persuaded
of its authenticity as it contained none of the cant usual in
the
dying speeches composed for malefactors by the Ordinary or the
ballad-makers. The threat which it held out of a list
deposited
with a secure hand, containing their names, crimes, and place
of
rendezvous, operated for a long time in preventing a
repetition of
their villanies, which had previously been so common.”
* * * * *
The text of the present edition is based on that given by
Faulkner
in the fourth volume of his edition of Swift printed in Dublin
in
1735.
[T. S.]