PRIOR. Allowing all this to be true, as, to my Sorrow, I see you have some Grounds for your Assertion; are they to be reviled or envy'd for sending us their Goods, if we are so mad as to call for them? Would you have them hinder your buying their Commodities? Or, to go a little further, would we be hinder'd if they did? If we cut our own Throats, in our own wise Judgments, would you have them make a Law to gibbet us for it after we are dead? I allow you many of our Murmurings are just; but for the Love of Truth and Goodness, let us lament our Case with some Sense, and begin at the right End with railing at ourselves. I do not deny, that we are much impoverish'd by their Importations, nay, that by them we are in some Sense of the Word, Beggars; But, dear _Dean_, who ever hated Beggars more than you did, that had Health and Hands, and could work and help themselves, and would not. If our People will neither set up Manufactures, nor encourage them when set up, if they will not promote Agriculture by large Premiums through the Kingdom, but had rather beg Bread from their industrious Neighbours; if they will neither build Granaries, or set up Fisheries or Collieries: If Gentlemen will neither live at home, nor build and improve their Estates, to tempt their Sons to live there; if they see Societies set up for the Service of _Ireland_, and won't spare Shillings a-piece from their Diversions, to increase their Force and Power to help us, are the _English_ to be blamed, or ourselves, if they leave it to our Choice either to mend our Follies, or to suffer by them. SWIFT. The Truth is (though I am loth to confess it) I fear we are too lazy, because we are not extraordinarily encouraged, either here or by _England_; and probably they want to see us more alert, before they help us further; and in the mean time, between our Gentlemen who go abroad for Pleasure, and our Poor for Bread, we are like a Ship that is run a-ground, and the Hands which should have saved her gone off. People that are unfortunate love to have some one to lay the Blame on; and so we rail at _England_, as I remember Mrs. _Halley_ (the Wife of the famous Astronomer) did at the Stars, who used to wring her Hands, and bawl out, My Curse, and God's Curse upon them for Stars, for they have ruined me and my Family; whereas, like _Job_'s Wife, she ought to have cursed her Husband for his star-gazing Folly. At the same Time I never did, nor ever will forgive _England_ for not helping us more than she does: We are a Mint in her Hands, but through her Negligence or Diffidence it is an unwrought one, though the Ore is vastly rich and promising.