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?