Your Petitioners do therefore make it their humble request, that this Honourable House, (to many of whom your Petitioners are nearly allied) will please to take this grievance into your most serious consideration: Humbly submitting, whether it would not be proper, that certain officers might, at the public charge, be employed to search for, and discover all such counterfeit footmen, and carry them before the next Justice of Peace; by whose warrant, upon the first conviction, they should be stripped of their coats, and oaken ornaments, and be set two hours in the stocks. Upon the second conviction, besides stripping, be set six hours in the stocks, with a paper pinned on their breast signifying their crime, in large capital letters, and in the following words. "A. B. commonly called A. B. Esq.; a toupee, and a notorious impostor, who presumed to personate a true Irish footman." And for any further offence the said toupee shall be committed to Bridewell, whipped three times, forced to hard labour for a month, and not be set at liberty, till he shall have given sufficient security for his good behaviour. Your Honours will please to observe with what lenity we propose to treat these enormous offenders, who have already brought such a scandal on our honourable calling, that several well-meaning people have mistaken them to be of our Fraternity; in diminution to that credit and dignity wherewith we have supported our station, as we always did, in the _worst of times_.[183] And we further beg leave to remark, that this was manifestly done with a seditious design, to render us less capable of serving the public in any great employments, as several of our Fraternity, as well as our ancestors have done. We do therefore humbly implore your Honours, to give necessary orders for our relief, in this present exigency, and your Petitioners (as in duty bound) shall ever pray, &c. Dublin, 1733. ADVICE TO THE FREEMEN OF THE CITY OF DUBLIN, IN THE CHOICE OF A MEMBER TO REPRESENT THEM IN PARLIAMENT. WRITTEN IN THE YEAR 1733. NOTE. Swift here argues that a holder of an office under the government cannot, of necessity, be an honest representative of the people. There were two candidates before the freemen for the suffrages of the City, one, Lord Mayor French, and the other Mr. John Macarrell. The latter was an office-holder; he was Register to the Barracks, and received his salary from the government. It was not to be expected that he would vote against his employer, be he never so honest a man. Swift openly informs the freemen that the Drapier is against this man. The Lord Mayor was elected. * * * * * The text of this "Advice" is based on that given in the eighth volume of Swift's Collected Works, issued in 1746. The Forster Collection contains a made-up booklet of pp. 196-205, taken from a volume of one of the collected editions.