SWIFT. I wish I may see such a blessed Change in our Affairs, but Seasons and Aspects are a little unpromising; and what discourages me the more is, another dreadful Quality of our People, that of their being so ready to desert and forsake their Country, which they leave as sillily as Birds quit their Nests, upon every little Fright or Disturbance, or just to gratify a wandering Humour, and to chuse a Situation they like better. Our Noblemen and Gentlemen leave us for Pleasure and Amusement, and our Poor for Bread and Wages, which we cannot or will not provide them at home; and some run off for mere Safety, as they see our Distresses, and fly from us by the same sort of Instinct that Rats forsake a falling House. Thus a Family where the Master first deserts the Children, and then the Servants follow his Example, can hardly be reduced to a worse Condition than we are, by this epidemical Madness of wandering to _England_. Though the great Gain she makes by their residing there, will never allow her to drive them back to us, yet one wou'd expect the very Contempt and Neglect they meet with there, wou'd make them return to a Country, where they wou'd be so much honour'd, and where they well know they are so much wanted. At the same Time I make no doubt, if the old Statutes, which punish'd all Absentees with the Forfeiture of their Lands here, were to be revived, and they were thereby obliged, to improve the Industry, Arts and Manufactures of our People, _England_ wou'd in Time receive great Advantages by the Change. Mean while they, and all the Earth, see the Destruction they bring on us, by their deserting us in so ungenerous a Manner; and tho' the Cause and the Cure are so evident, it avails us no more, than the Knowledge of his Distemper does the poor Wretch that lies a dying. If they stay'd with us, and help'd us, we shou'd soon recover our natural Strength of Constitution, and become both an industrious and an important People; whereas now, we are almost a Cypher in the active and commercial World, and a mere Appendix to another Nation; while, like ill-coupled Hounds, by drawing different Ways, we sometimes rather disturb than help one another. If I had Hopes to get a Law pass'd, to burn every Clergyman who does not reside, to hang every Gentleman, and behead every Nobleman, who desert their Country for their Amusement, I wou'd even be content to return to the World, and sollicit Votes for it; but without taking up the Burden of Life again, I shou'd feel Joy in my Grave, to have their Estates saddled with a constant Tax as a Fine for Absence. How lightly soever Gentlemen regard this Desertion of their native Soil, it is certainly a Crime no good or great Mind can be capable of: And the Officer who quits his Quarters, or the Sailor who forsakes his Ship, do not better deserve to be mulk'd in their Pay than they do.