THE LAST SPEECH AND DYING WORDS OF EBENEZER ELLISTON. WHO WAS EXECUTED THE SECOND DAY OF MAY, 1722.

     
      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.]