JONATHAN   SWIFT


THE   DRAPIER'S   LETTERS
LETTER   IV

TO   THE   WHOLE   PEOPLE   OF   IRELAND
(part I)

 

October 23, 1724.

MY DEAR COUNTRYMEN,

Having already written three letters upon so disagreeable a subject as Mr Wood and his halfpence, I conceived my task was at an end; but I find that cordials must be frequently applied to weak constitutions, political as well as natural. A people long used to hardships, lose by degrees the very notions of liberty: they look upon themselves as creatures at mercy, and that all impositions laid on them by a stronger hand, are, in the phrase of the Report, legal and obligatory. Hence proceed that poverty and lowness of spirit, to which a kingdom may be subject, as well as a particular person. And when Esau came fainting from the field at the point to die, it is no wonder that he sold his birthright for a mess of pottage.

I thought I had sufficiently shown, to all who could want instruction, by what methods they might safely proceed, whenever this coin should be offered to them: and I believe there has not been, for many ages, an example of any kingdom so firmly united in a point of great importance, as this of ours is at present against that detestable fraud. But, however, it so happens, that some weak people begin to be alarmed anew by rumours industriously spread. Wood prescribes to the news mongers in London what they are to write. In one of their papers, published here by some obscure printer, and certainly with a bad design , we are told, "that the papists in Ireland have entered into an association against his coin;" although it be notoriously known that they never once offered to stir in the matter; so that the two houses of parliament, the privy-council, the great number of corporations, the lord mayor and aldermen of Dublin, the grand-juries, and principal gentleman of several countries, are stigmatized in a lump under the name of "papists".

This impostor and his crew do likewise give out, that, by refusing to receive his dross for sterling we "dispute the Kings prerogative, are grown ripe for rebellion, and ready to shake off the dependency of Ireland upon the crown of England." To countenance which reports, he has published a paragraph in another newspaper, to let us know, that "the lord-lieutenant is ordered to come over immediately to settle his halfpence."

I entreat you, my dear countrymen, not to be under the least concern upon these and the like rumours, which are no more than the last howls of a dog dissected alive, as I hope he has sufficiently been. These calumnies are the only reserve that is left him. For surely our continued and (almost) unexampled loyalty, will never be called in question for not suffering ourselves to be robbed of all that we have by one obscure ironmonger.

As to disputing the king's prerogative, give me leave to explain to those who are ignorant, what the meaning of that word prerogative is.

The kings of these realms enjoy several powers, wherein the laws have not interposed: so they can make war and peace without the consent of parliament; and this is a very great prerogative: but, if the parliament does not approve of the war, the king must bear the charge of it out of his own purse; and this is a great check on the crown. So, the king has a prerogative to coin money without consent of parliament: but he cannot compel the subject to take that money, except it be sterling, gold or silver; because herein he is limited by law. Some princes have indeed extended their prerogative farther than the law allowed them: wherein, however, the lawyers of succeeding ages, as fond as they are of precedents, have never dared to justify them. But to say the truth, it is only of late times that the prerogative has been fixed and ascertained. For whoever reads the history of England, will find that some former kings, and those none of the worst, have, upon several occasions, ventured to control the laws, with very little ceremony or scruple, even later than the days of Queen Elizabeth. In her reign, that pernicious counsel of sending base money hither, very narrowly failed of losing the kingdom; being complained of by the lord deputy, the council, and the whole body of the English here: so that, soon after her death, it was recalled by her successor, and lawful money paid in exchange.

Having first given you some notion of what is meant by "the kings prerogative," as far as a tradesman can be thought capable of explaining it, I will only add the opinion of the great lord Bacon, "That, as God governs the world by the settled laws of nature, which he has made, and never transcends those laws but upon high, important occasions; so, among earthly princes, those are the wisest and the best, who govern by the known laws of the country, and seldomest make use of their prerogative."

Now here you may see, that the vile accusation of Wood and his accomplices, charging us with disputing the king's prerogative, by refusing his brass, can have no place; because compelling the subject to take any coin which is not sterling, is no part of the king's prerogative; and I am very confident, if it were so, we should be the last of his people to dispute it: as well from that inviolable loyalty we have always paid to his majesty, as from the treatment we might in such a case justly expect from some, who seem to think we have neither common sense nor, common senses. But, God be thanked, the best of them are only our fellow-subjects, and not our masters. One great merit I am sure we have, which those of English birth can have no pretence to, - that our ancestors reduced this kingdom to the obedience of England; for which we have been rewarded with a worse climate, the privilege of being governed by laws to which we do not consent, a ruined trade, a house of peers without jurisdiction, almost an incapacity for all employments, and the dread of Wood's halfpence.

But we are so far from disputing the king's prerogative in coining, that we own he has power to give a patent to any man for setting his royal image and superscription upon whatever materials he pleases, and liberty to the patentee to offer them in any country from England to Japan; only attended with one small limitation, - that nobody alive is obliged to take them.

Upon these considerations, I was ever against all recourse to England for a remedy against the present impending evil; especially when I observed, that the addresses of both houses, after long expectance, produced nothing, but a REPORT, altogether in favour of Wood; upon which I made some observations in a former letter, and might at least have made as many more; for it is a paper of as singular a nature; as I ever beheld.

But I mistake; for, before this Report was made, his majesty's most gracious answer to the house of lords was sent over; and printed; wherein are these words, granting the patent for coining halfpence and farthings, AGREEABLE TO THE PRACTICE OF HIS ROYAL PREDECESSORS, &c. That king Charles II, and king James II. (AND THEY ONLY), did grant patents for this purpose is indisputable, and I have shown it at large. Their patents were passed under the great seal of Ireland, by references to Ireland; the copper to be coined in Ireland; the patentee was bound, on demand, to receive his coin back in Ireland, and pay silver and gold in return. Wood's patent was made under the great seal of England; the brass coined in England; not the least reference made to Ireland; the sum immense, and the patentee under no obligation to receive it again, and give good money for it. This I only mention, because, in my private thoughts, I have sometimes made a query, whether the penner of those words in his majesty's most gracious answer, "agreeable to the practice of his royal predecessors", had maturely considered the several circumstances, which, in my poor opinion, seem to make a difference.

Let me now say something concerning the other great cause of some people's fear, as Wood has taught the London newswriter to express it, that his excellency the lord-lieutenant is coming over to settle Wood's halfpence.

We know very well, that the lords-lieutenants, for several years past, have not thought this kingdom worthy the honour of their residence, longer than was absolutely necessary for the king's business; which, consequently, wanted no speed in the dispatch. And therefore it naturally fell into most men's thoughts, that a new governor, coming at an unusual time, must portend some unusual business to be done; especially if the common report be true, that the parliament, prorogued to I know not when, is, by a new summons, revoking that prorogation, to assemble soon after the arrival; for which extraordinary proceeding the lawyers on the other side the water have, by great good fortune, found two precedents.

All this being granted, it can never enter into my head, that so little a creature as Wood, could find credit enough with the king and his ministers, to have the lord-lieutenant of Ireland sent hither in a hurry upon his errand.

For, let us take the whole matter nakedly, as it lies before us, without the refinements of some people, with which we have nothing to do. Here is a patent granted under the great seal of England, upon false suggestions, to one William Wood, for coining copper-halfpence for Ireland: the parliament here, upon apprehensions of the worst consequences from the said patent, address the king to have it recalled: this is refused, and a committee of the privy-council report to his majesty, that Wood has performed the conditions of his patent. He then is left to do the best he can with his halfpence, no man being obliged to receive them; the people here, being likewise left to themselves, unite as one man, resolving they will have nothing to do with his ware. By this plain account of the fact, it is manifest that the king and his ministry are wholly out of the case, and the matter is left to be disputed between him and us. Will any man therefore attempt to persuade me, that a lord-lieutenant is to be dispatched over in great haste before the ordinary time, and a parliament summoned by anticipating a prorogation, merely to put a hundred thousand pounds into the pocket of a sharper, by the ruin of a most loyal kingdom?

But supposing all this to be true: by what arguments could a lord-lieutenant prevail on the same parliament, which addressed with so much zeal and earnestness against this evil, to pass it into a law? I am sure their opinion of Wood and his project is not mended since their last prorogation: and, supposing those methods should be used, which detractors tell us have been sometimes put in practice for gaining votes, it is well known, that in this kingdom there are few employments to be given; and if there were more, it is as well known to whose share they must fall.

But, because great numbers of you are altogether ignorant of the affairs of your country, I will tell you some reasons why there are so few employments to be disposed of in this kingdom. All considerable offices for life are here possessed by those to whom the reversions were granted; and these have been generally followers of the chief governors, or persons who had interest in the court of England: so the Lord Berkeley of Stratton holds that great office of master of the rolls; the Lord Palmerstown is first remembrancer, worth near 2000 l. per annum. One Dodington, secretary to the Earl of Pembroke, begged the reversion of clerk of the pells, worth 2,500 l. a year, which he now enjoys by the death of the Lord Newtown. Mr Southwell is secretary of state, and the Earl of Burlington lord high treasurer of Ireland by inheritance. These are only a few among many others, which I have been told of, but cannot remember. Nay, the reversion of several employments during pleasure, is granted the same way. This, among many others is a circumstance, whereby the kingdom of Ireland is distinguished from all other nations upon earth, and makes it so difficult an affair to get into a civil employ, that Mr Addison was forced to purchase an old obscure place, called keeper of the records in Bermingham's tower, of ten pounds a year, and to get a salary of 400 1. annexed to it, though all the records there are not worth half a crown, either for curiosity or use. And we lately saw a favourite secretary descend to be master of the revels, which by his credit and extortion he has made pretty considerable. I say nothing of the under-treasurership, worth about 9000 1. a year, nor of the commissioners of the revenue, four of whom generally live in England; for I think none of these are granted in reversion. But the jest is, that I have known, upon occasion, some of these absent officers as keen against the interest of Ireland, as if they had never been indebted to her for a single groat.

I confess I have been sometimes tempted to wish, that this project of Wood might succeed; because I reflected with some pleasure, what a jolly crew it would bring over among us of lords and 'squires, and pensioner of both sexes, and officers civil and military, where we should live together as merry and sociable as beggars; only with this one abatement, that we should neither have meat to feed, nor manufactures to cloth us, unless we could be content to prance about in coats of mail, or eat brass as ostriches do iron.

I return from this digression to that which gave me the occasion of making it: and I believe you are now convinced, that if the parliament of Ireland were as temptable as any other assembly within a mile of Christendom (which God forbid), yet the managers must of necessity fail, for want of tools to work with. But I will yet go one step farther, by supposing that a hundred new employments were erected, on purpose to gratify compliers; yet still an insuperable difficulty would remain. For it happens, I know not how, that money is neither whig nor tory, neither of town nor country party; and it is not improbable that a gentleman would rather choose to live upon his own estate, which brings him gold and silver, than with the addition of an employment, when his rents and salary must both be paid in Wood's brass, at above eighty per cent discount.

For these, and many other reasons, I am confident you need not be under the least apprehensions from the sudden expectation of the lord-lieutenant , while we continue in our present hearty disposition, to alter which no suitable temptation can possibly be offered. And if, as I have often asserted from the best authority, the law has not left a power in the crown to force any money, except sterling, upon the subject, much less can the crown devolve such a power upon another.

This I speak with the utmost respect to the person and dignity of his excellency the Lord Carteret, whose character was lately given me by a gentleman that has known him from his first appearance in the world. That gentleman describes him as a young nobleman of great accomplishments, excellent learning, regular in his life, and of much spirit and vivacity. He has since, as I have heard, been employed abroad; was principal secretary of state; and is now, about the thirty-seventh year of his age, appointed lord-lieutenant of Ireland. From such a governor, this kingdom may reasonab1y hope for as much prosperity, as, under so many discouragements, it can be capable of receiving.

RJW