To the Right Reverend, Right Honourable, and Right Worshipful,
and
to the Reverend, Honourable, and Worshipful, &c. Company of
Stockjobbers; whether Honest or Dishonest, Pious or Impious,
Wise
or Otherwise, Male or Female, Young or Old, One with another,
who
have suffered Depredation by the late Bubbles: Greeting.
Having received the following scheme from Dublin, I give you the
earliest notice, how you may retrieve the DECUS ET TUTAMEN,[23] which
you have sacrificed by permits in bubbles. This project is founded on a
Parliamentary security, besides, the devil is in it, if it can fail,
since a dignitary of the Church[24] is at the head on't. Therefore you,
who have subscribed to the stocking insurance, and are out at the
heels, may soon appear tight about the legs. You, who encouraged the
hemp manufacture, may leave the halter to rogues, and prevent the odium
of felo de se. Medicinal virtues are here to be had without the
expense and hazard of a dispensary: You may sleep without dreaming of
bottles at your tail, and a looking-glass shall not affright you; and
since the glass bubble proved as brittle as its ware, and broke
together with itself the hopes of its proprietors, they may make
themselves whole by subscribing to our new fund.
Here indeed may be made three very grave objections, by incredulous
interested priests, ambitious citizens, and scrupulous statesmen. The
stocking manufactory gentlemen don't know how swearing can bring 'em to
any probability of covering their legs anew, unless it be by the means
of a pair of stocks: That the hemp-snared men apprehend, that such an
encouragement for oaths can tend to no other advancement, promotion,
and exaltation of their persons, than that of the gallows: The late old
ordinary, Paul,[25] having grown grey in the habit of making this
accurate observation in every month's Session-Paper, “That swearing had
as great a hand in the suspension of every living soul under his cure,
as Sabbath-breaking itself;” and that the glass-bubble-men cannot, for
their lives, with the best pair of spectacles, that is the only thing
left neat and whole, out of all their wares, see how they shall make
anything out of this his oath-project, supposing he should even confirm
by one its goodness: An oath being, as they say, as brittle as glass,
and only made to be broken.
But those incredulous priests shall not go without an answer, that
will, I am sure, induce them to place a great confidence in the benefit
arising from Christians, who damn themselves every hour of the day. For
while they speak of the vainness and fickleness of oaths, as an
objection against our project, they little consider that this
fickleness and vainness is the common practice among all the people of
this sublunary world; and that consequently, instead of being an
objection against the project, is a concluding argument of the
constancy and solidity of their sure gain by it; a never-failing
argument, as he tells us, among the brethren of his cloth.
The ambitious citizens, who from being plunged deep in the wealthy
whirlpool of the South-Sea, are in hopes of rising to such seats of
fortune and dignity, as would best suit with their mounting and
aspiring hopes, may imagine that this new fund, in the sister nation,
may prove a rival to theirs; and, by drawing off a multitude of
subscribers, will, if it makes a flood in Ireland, cause an ebb in
England. But it may be answered, that, though our author avers, that
this fund will vie with the South-Sea, yet it will not clash with it.
On the contrary, the subscribers to this must wish the increase of the
South-Sea, (so far from being its rival); because the multitude of
people raised by it, who were plain-speakers, as they were
plain-dealers before, must learn to swear, in order to become their
clothes, and to be gentlemen à la mode; while those that are
ruined, I mean Job'd by it, will dismiss the patience of their old
pattern, swear at their condition, and curse their Maker in their
distress; and so the increase of that English fund will be
demonstratively an ample augmentation of the Irish one: So far will it
be from being rivalled by it, so that each of them may subscribe to a
fund they have their own security for augmenting.
The scrupulous statesmen (for we know that statesmen are usually
very scrupulous) may object against having this project secured by
votes in Parliament; by reason, as they may deem it, in their great
wisdom, an impious project; and that therefore so illustrious an
assembly, as the Irish parliament, ought, by no means, according to the
opinion of a Christian statesman, to be concerned in supporting an
impious thing in the world. The way that some may take to prove it
impious, is, because it will tend highly to the interest of
swearing.—But this I take to be plain downright sophistry, and playing
upon words: If this be called the Swearing project, or the Oath-act,
the increase of swearing will be very much for the benefit and interest
of swearing, (i.e.) to the subscribers in the fund to be raised
by this fruitful Swearing-act, if it should be so called; but not to
the swearers themselves, who are to pay for it: So that it will be,
according to this distinction, piously indeed an act for a benefit to
mankind, from swearing, not impiously, a benefit in
swearing: So that I think that argument entirely answered and
defeated. Far be it from the Dean to have entered into so unchristian a
project, as this had been, so considered. But then these politicians
(being generally, as the world knows, mighty tender of conscience) may
raise these new doubts, fears, and scruples, viz. that it will
however cause the subscribers to wish, in their minds, for many oaths
to fly about, which is a heinous crime, and to lay stratagems to try
the patience of men of all sorts, to put them upon the swearing strain,
in order to bring grist to their own mill, which is a crime still more
enormous; and that therefore, for fear of these evil consequences, the
passing of such an act is not consistent with the really extraordinary
and tender conscience of a true modern politician. But in answer to
this, I think I can plead the strongest plea in nature, and that is
called precedent, I think; which I take thus from the South-Sea: One
man, by the very nature of that subscription, must naturally pray for
the temporal damnation of another man in his fortune, in order for
gaining his own salvation in it; yea, even though he knows the other
man's temporal damnation would be the cause of his eternal, by his
swearing and despairing. Neither do I think this in casuistry and sin,
because the swearing, undone man is a free agent, and can choose
whether he will swear or no, anybody's wishes whatsoever to the
contrary notwithstanding: And in politics I am sure it is even a
Machiavellian holy maxim, “That some men should be ruined for the good
of others.” Thus I think I have answered all the objections that can be
brought against this project's coming to perfection, and proved it to
be convenient for the state, of interest to the Protestant church, and
consonant with Christianity, nay, with the very scruples of modern,
squeamish statesmen.
To conclude: The laudable author of this project squares the
measures of it so much according to the scripture rule, it may
reasonably be presumed, that all good Christians in England will come
as fast into the subscriptions for his encouragement, as they have
already done throughout the kingdom of Ireland. For what greater proof
could this author give of his Christianity, than, for bringing about
this Swearing-act, charitably to part with his coat, and sit starving
in a very thin waistcoat in his garret, to do the corporal virtues of
feeding and clothing the poor, and raising them from the cottage to the
palace, by punishing the vices of the rich. What more could have been
done even in the primitive times!
THOMAS HOPE.
From my House in St. Faith's Parish,
London, August 10, 1720.
P.S.—For the benefit of the author, application may be made to me
at the Tilt-Yard Coffee-house, Whitehall.