NOTE.
This “Answer” forms an excellent continuation of the “Modest
Proposal.” It is in an entirely different vein, but is, in its
own
way, an admirable example of Swift's strength in handling a
public
question. The English government had been offering every
facility
to French officers for recruiting their army from Ireland. The
“Craftsman” made some strong remarks on this, and Primate
Boulter,
in his letter to the Duke of Newcastle, under date October
14th,
1730, told his Grace, “that after consulting with the Lords
Justices on the subject he found that they apprehend there
will be
greater difficulties in this affair than at first offered.” He
enters into the difficulties to be overcome in order to act in
consonance with the wishes of his Majesty, and promises that
“effectual care shall be taken that none of the officers who
are
come hither, suffer on this account” (Letter, pp. 26-27, vol.
ii.,
Dublin, edit. 1770). Swift uses the matter for his own
purposes and
ironically welcomes this chance for the depopulation of
Ireland.
“When our island is a desert, we will send all our raw
material to
England, and receive from her all our manufactured articles. A
leather coinage will be all we want, separated, as we shall
then
be, from all human kind. We shall have lost all; but we may be
left
in peace, and we shall have no more to tempt the plunderer.”
Scott
styles this “Answer” a masterpiece.
* * * * *
The text of this edition is based on that given by Faulkner in
the
ninth volume of his edition of Swift issued in 1772.
[T. S.]
ANSWER TO THE CRAFTSMAN.[138]
SIR,
I detest reading your papers, because I am not of your principles,
and because I cannot endure to be convinced. Yet I was prevailed on to
peruse your Craftsman of December the 12th, wherein I discover you to
be as great an enemy of this country, as you are of your own. You are
pleased to reflect on a project I proposed, of making the children of
Irish parents to be useful to the public instead of being
burdensome;[139] and you venture to assert, that your own scheme is
more charitable, of not permitting our Popish natives to be listed in
the service of any foreign prince.
Perhaps, sir, you may not have heard of any kingdom so unhappy as
this, both in their imports and exports. We import a sort of goods, of
no intrinsic value, which costeth us above forty thousand pounds a year
to dress, and scour, and polish them, which altogether do not yield one
penny advantage;[140] and we annually export above seven hundred
thousand pounds a year in another kind of goods, for which we receive
not one single farthing in return; even the money paid for the letters
sent in transacting this commerce being all returned to England. But
now, when there is a most lucky opportunity offered to begin a trade,
whereby this nation will save many thousand pounds a year, and England
be a prodigious gainer, you are pleased, without a call, officiously
and maliciously to interpose with very frivolous arguments.
It is well known, that about sixty years ago the exportation of live
cattle from hence to England was a great benefit to both kingdoms,
until that branch of traffic was stopped by an act of Parliament on
your side, whereof you have had sufficient reason to repent.[141] Upon
which account, when another act passed your Parliament, forbidding the
exportation of live men to any foreign country, you were so wise to put
in a clause, allowing it to be done by his Majesty's permission, under
his sign manual,[142] for which, among other great benefits granted to
Ireland, we are infinitely obliged to the British legislature. Yet this
very grace and favour you, Mr. D'Anvers, whom we never disobliged, are
endeavouring to prevent; which, I will take upon me to say, is a
manifest mark of your disaffection to his Majesty, a want of duty to
the ministry, and a wicked design of oppressing this kingdom, and a
traitorous attempt to lessen the trade and manufacture of England.
Our truest and best ally, the Most Christian King,[143] hath
obtained his Majesty's licence, pursuant to law, to export from hence
some thousand bodies of healthy, young, living men, to supply his Irish
regiments. The King of Spain, as you assert yourself, hath desired the
same civility, and seemeth to have at least as good a claim. Supposing
then that these two potentates will only desire leave to carry off six
thousand men between them to France and Spain; then, by computing the
maintenance of a tall, hungry Irishman, in food and clothes, to be only
at five pounds a head, here will be thirty thousand pounds per annum
saved clear to the nation; for they can find no other employment at
home, beside begging, robbing, or stealing. But, if thirty, forty, or
fifty thousand (which we could gladly spare) were sent on the same
errand, what an immense benefit must it be to us! And if the two
princes, in whose service they were, should happen to be at war with
each other, how soon would those recruits be destroyed! Then what a
number of friends would the Pretender lose, and what a number of Popish
enemies all true Protestants get rid of! Add to this, that then, by
such a practice, the lands of Ireland, that want hands for tillage,
must be employed in grazing, which would sink the price of wool, raw
hides, butter, and tallow, so that the English might have them at their
own rates, and in return send us wheat to make our bread, barley to
brew our drink, and oats for our houses, without any labour of our own.
Upon this occasion, I desire humbly to offer a scheme, which, in my
opinion, would best answer the true interests of both kingdoms: For
although I bear a most tender filial affection to England, my dear
native country, yet I cannot deny but this noble island hath a great
share in my love and esteem; nor can I express how much I desire to see
it flourish in trade and opulence, even beyond its present happy
condition.
The profitable land of this kingdom is, I think, usually computed at
seventeen millions of acres, all which I propose to be wholly turned to
grazing. Now, it is found by experience, that one grazier and his
family can manage two thousand acres. Thus sixteen millions eight
hundred thousand acres may be managed by eight thousand four hundred
families; and the fraction of two hundred thousand acres will be more
than sufficient for cabins, out-houses, and potatoe-gardens; because it
is to be understood that corn of all sorts must be sent to us from
England.
These eight thousand four hundred families may be divided among the
four provinces, according to the number of houses in each province; and
making the equal allowance of eight to a family, the number of
inhabitants will amount to sixty-seven thousand two hundred souls. To
these we are to add a standing army of twenty thousand English; which,
together with their trulls, their bastards, and their horse-boys, will,
by a gross computation, very near double the count, and be very
sufficient for the defence and grazing of the kingdom, as well as to
enrich our neighbours, expel popery, and keep out the Pretender. And,
lest the army should be at a loss for business, I think it would be
very prudent to employ them in collecting the public taxes for paying
themselves and the civil list.
I advise, that all the owners of these lands should live constantly
in England, in order to learn politeness, and qualify themselves for
employments; but, for fear of increasing the natives in this island,
that an annual draught, according to the number born every year, be
exported to whatever prince will bear the carriage, or transplanted to
the English dominions on the American continent, as a screen between
his Majesty's English subjects and the savage Indians.
I advise likewise, that no commodity whatsoever, of this nation's
growth, should be sent to any other country except England, under the
penalty of high treason; and that all the said commodities shall be
sent in their natural state; the hides raw, the wool uncombed, the flax
in the stub; excepting only fish, butter, tallow, and whatever else
will be spoiled in the carriage. On the contrary, that no goods
whatsoever shall be exported hither, except from England, under the
same penalty: that England should be forced, at their own rates, to
send us over clothes ready made, as well as shirts and smocks to the
soldiers and their trulls; all iron, wooden, and earthen ware, and
whatever furniture may be necessary for the cabins of graziers; with a
sufficient quantity of gin, and other spirits, for those who, can
afford to be drunk on holidays.
As to the civil and ecclesiastical administration, which I have not
yet fully considered, I can say little; only, with regard to the
latter, it is plain, that the article of paying tithe for supporting
speculative opinions in religion, which is so insupportable a burden to
all true Protestants, and to most churchmen, will be very much lessened
by this expedient; because dry cattle pay nothing to the spiritual
hireling, any more than imported corn; so that the industrious shepherd
and cowherd may sit every man under his own blackberry-bush, and on his
own potato-bed, whereby this happy island will become a new Arcadia.
I do likewise propose, that no money shall be used in Ireland except
what is made of leather, which likewise shall be coined in England, and
imported; and that the taxes shall be levied out of the commodities we
export to England, and there turned into money for his Majesty's use;
and the rents to landlords discharged in the same manner. This will be
no manner of grievance, for we already see it very practicable to live
without money, and shall be more convinced of it every day. But whether
paper shall still continue to supply that defect, or whether we shall
hang up all those who profess the trade of bankers, (which latter I am
rather inclined to,) must be left to the consideration of wiser
politicians.
That which maketh me more zealously bent upon this scheme, is my
desire of living in amity with our neighbouring brethren; for we have
already tried all other means without effect, to that blessed end: and,
by the course of measures taken for some years past, it should seem
that we are all agreed in the point.
This expedient will be of great advantage to both kingdoms, upon
several accounts: for, as to England, they have a just claim to the
balance of trade on their side with the whole world: and therefore our
ancestors and we, who conquered this kingdom for them, ought, in duty
and gratitude, to let them have the whole benefit of that conquest to
themselves; especially when the conquest was amicably made without
bloodshed, by a stipulation between the Irish princes and Henry II.; by
which they paid him, indeed, not equal homage with what the electors of
Germany do to the emperor, but very near the same that he did to the
King of France for his French dominions.
In consequence of this claim from England, that kingdom may very
reasonably demand the benefit of all our commodities in their natural
growth, to be manufactured by their people, and a sufficient quantity
of them for our use to be returned hither fully manufactured.
This, on the other side, will be of great benefit to our inhabitants
the graziers; when time and labour will be too much taken up in
manuring their ground, feeding their cattle, shearing their sheep, and
sending over their oxen fit for slaughter; to which employments they
are turned by nature, as descended from the Scythians, whose diet they
are still so fond of. So Virgil describeth it:—
Et lac concretum cum sanguine bibit equino;
Which, in English, is bonnyclabber[144] mingled with the blood of
horses, as they formerly did, until about the beginning of the last
century luxury, under the form of politeness, began to creep in, they
changed the blood of horses for that of their black cattle, and, by
consequence, became less warlike than their ancestors.
Although I proposed that the army should be collectors of the public
revenues, yet I did not thereby intend that those taxes should be paid
in gold or silver; but in kind, as all other rent: For, the custom of
tenants making their payments in money, is a new thing in the world,
little known in former ages, nor generally practised in any nation at
present, except this island and the southern parts of Britain. But, to
my great satisfaction, I foresee better times; the ancient manner
beginneth to be now practised in many parts of Connaught, as well as in
the county of Cork; where the squires turn tenants to themselves,
divide so many cattle to their slaves, who are to provide such a
quantity of butter, hides, or tallow, still keeping up their number of
cattle; and carry the goods to Cork, or other port towns, and then sell
them to the merchants. By which invention there is no such thing as a
ruined farmer to be seen; but the people live with comfort on potatoes
and bonnyclabber, neither of which are vendible commodities abroad.