Ireland in the Days of Dean Swift (Irish Tracts, 1720 to 1734)Swift, Jonathan
History
Ireland in the Days of Dean Swift (Irish Tracts, 1720 to 1734)
Swift, Jonathan
Ireland -- History -- 18th century; Swift, Jonathan, 1667-1745
What I have said may serve as an answer to the desire made me by the
corporation of weavers, that I would offer my notions to the public. As to
anything farther, let them apply themselves to the Parliament in their
next session. Let them prevail on the House of Commons to grant one very
reasonable request; and I shall think there is still some spirit left in
the nation, when I read a vote to this purpose: "Resolved, _nemine
contradicente_, That this House will, for the future, wear no clothes but
such as are made of Irish growth, or of Irish manufacture, nor will permit
their wives or children to wear any other; and that they will, to the
utmost, endeavour to prevail with their friends, relations, dependents,
and tenants, to follow their example." And if, at the same time, they
could banish tea and coffee, and china-ware, out of their families, and
force their wives to chat their scandal over an infusion of sage, or other
wholesome domestic vegetables, we might possibly be able to subsist, and
pay our absentees, pensioners, generals, civil officers, appeals,
colliers, temporary travellers, students, school boys, splenetic visitors
of Bath, Tunbridge, and Epsom, with all other smaller drains, by sending
our crude, unwrought goods to England, and receiving from thence, and all
other countries, nothing but what is fully manufactured, and keep a few
potatoes and oatmeal for our own subsistence.
I have been for a dozen years past wisely prognosticating the present
condition of this kingdom; which any human creature of common sense could
foretell, with as little sagacity as myself. My meaning is, that a
consumptive body must needs die, which has spent all its spirits, and
received no nourishment. Yet I am often tempted to pity, when I hear the
poor farmer and cottager lamenting the hardness of the times, and imputing
them either to one or two ill seasons, which better climates than ours are
more exposed to; or to scarcity of silver, which, to a nation of liberty,
would only be a slight and temporary inconvenience, to be removed at a
month's warning.
TWO LETTERS ON SUBJECTS RELATIVE TO THE IMPROVEMENT OF IRELAND.
I.
TO MESSRS. TRUMAN AND LAYFIELD.
GENTLEMEN,--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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