'English colony' to uphold the viceroy's rights or wrongs, and to every Englishman a resident in Ireland was 'savage and Irish.' Dean Swift, who spent a lifetime endeavouring to disprove the--to him--terrible accusation of being Irish, was moved to declare that the Anglo-Irish families spoke the best English, and were the most civilized persons under the dominion of the English Crown. It is amusing to read his letter to Pope (July 13, 1737), in which he scornfully protests against the confusion existing in English minds concerning the 'savage old Irish' and the 'English gentry in Ireland.' Five years before this he declared to Sir Charles Wigan that the peasantry were distinguished by 'a better natural taste for good sense, humour, and raillery than ever I observed among people of the like sort in England.' Swift's attack on the English administration of Ireland was, however, not intended for the benefit of the country as a whole. He represented the 'English in Ireland,' and was fond of describing them as 'English colonists.' Whigs and Tories alike used the unfortunate country for selfish reasons, and Irish trade was ruined to appease English voters or to guard the vested interests of great noblemen. There was no purely Irish party to attack the abuses of the administration in Dublin; the leading men were placated with office, or else had to join in the scramble for emoluments, for fear that they should be left out in the cold. {137} The Protestant Church was in the ascendancy; the Catholic hierarchy looked on complacently, leaving it to the priests to show that the Catholic religion was not altogether selfish and political. Swift himself was a typical clergyman of the Established Church, irreligious, scornful of his trust, and seeking preferment in the Church because it was the only way to power for a man of humble birth in those days. [Sidenote: Irish society] Dublin Castle seldom housed the viceroy, the administration being left to one or more Lords Justices who escaped criticism, provided their remittances to the absent Lord-Lieutenant were regular and satisfactory in amount. Dublin society was scarcely half formed, and consisted of beggarly exiles from England, compelled to emigrate by reason of their debts and misdeeds, the friends and relatives of the Lords Justices, obscure army officers and their kind, and a few of the wealthier citizens who could not be ignored. Those with English names affected to despise those with Irish; it was considered sheer savagery not to speak well of the Government, for the viceroy and his lady set the fashions, and not to follow them was to court ignominy and insult.