BOOK IV. CHAPTER I. EFFORTS OF THE IRISH PARLIAMENT. SECTION I. AT that still far distant period when religious and political passion will allow a hearing to historical truth, the merits of the small section of resident AngloIrish gentlemen who, under their heavy disadvantages, refused to despair of their country, will not fail of honourable recognition. Wherever the traveller through Ireland discovers, in the midst of the wilderness, the exceptional signs of cultivation long continued-where the fields are cleared of rocks and drained and fenced, where green meadows contrast with the usual brown, where the hill-sides are clothed with thriving plantations, and the farm-buildings are of stone, and the clothes of the human inhabitants show signs of being washed and mended-there, he may assure himself, are the hoof-prints of some English family which has stood to its post through many generations. An English colonist has resided there, and his sons, and his sons' sons, after him; and, to the best of their ability, they have done their duty to the land and the people. Even among the colonists however the immense majority fell off into recklessness and СНАР. I. 1720 BOOK 1720 waste. The peasantry took to whiskey-drinking and Whiteboyism. The squire and the squireen raced, betted, smuggled, fought, ravished, drowned themselves and their fortunes in claret, debt, and prodigality. Of those who lacked backbone to swim against the stream, but who were unable, in such an atmosphere, to find satisfaction for their ambition or their conscience, the larger number deserted their posts, and disowned all connexion with Ireland, save in the due exaction of their rents. A few fought bravely on, striving still, under hard conditions, to lift their country out of the slough, and imitate, so far as Enggland would allow them, the forethought and industry which gave her strength to their jealous mistress. In the first rank of this honourable body stood Swift, the Dean of St. Patrick's. It could hardly be said of Swift that he had chosen to remain in Ireland, for he too, had the chance been allowed him, would have preferred an English rectory to the metropolitan cathedral of the miserable land of his birth. But, as fate had cast him there, and disdaining the tricks by which he might have flattered his way, even under Walpole and the House of Hanover, into the high places in the Church, he became, in the best and noblest sense, an Irish patriot. Perverse as Swift was, and worse than perverse in his hatred of the Presbyterians, it was the single crack in the clear granite of his intellect. Fettered with restrictions, robbed of her markets, blockaded round with prohibitions, he saw that, if her people were worthy of her, Ireland might still be sufficient for herself, and, out of her own resources, might develop her own industry. England might lay a veto on every healthy effort of Parliamentary legislation; I. 1720 but England could not touch the self-made laws which CHAP. the conscience and spirit of the nation might impose upon themselves. By their own energy the Irish might still, if they chose, rise superior to their miseries, and, by their success, inflict the bitterest humiliation on their tyrant. England might close their ports, reject their tillage bills, discourage the legislative efforts for the better management of their lands; but she could not prevent them from ploughing their own fields, wearing their own frieze jerkins, and buying and selling among themselves. Excluded through his Tory connexions from all share of public business, after years of silence and personal study of the country,' the Dean, on the second rejection of the Tillage Bill, broke from his retirement, and shook the Council and the Castle secretaries with a pamphlet which no hand but his could have written. Agriculture,' he said, 'the principal care of all wise nations, and for the encouragement of which there were so many statute laws in England, was in Ireland so well countenanced, that the landlords prohibited their tenants from ploughing by penal clauses.' The wealth of a country was in the people whom it could raise.' 'The politic gentlemen of Ireland''depopulated' their estates 'for the feeding of sheep.' By England the Irish were looked on 'as if they were one of their colonies of outcasts in America.' Pallas, defeated in spinning by Arachne, had turned her rival into a spider. Ireland had been 1 It is sometimes said that Swift had little knowledge of Ireland, and never travelled there save between Laracor and Dublin. A moderately careful examination of his writings shows that, at least with Leinster and Munster, he was inti- 2 It will be remembered that the BOOK IV. 1720 dealt with yet more hardly, for her bowels and vitals were extracted, without allowing her even to spin and weave them. 'Oppression,' it was said, 'made a wise man mad. The reason,' he supposed, 'why Irishmen were not mad, was because they were not wise.' 'It was to be wished, then, that oppression might teach wisdom to fools.' If Irishmen would resolve that bare Irish backs should be clothed only with Irish broadcloth, frieze, or linen; that Irish houses should be furnished with Irish stuffs and carpets, and Irish stomachs fed with home-grown corn, and ale, and milk, the money that went abroad for silks and velvets, and claret, and brandy, and the other idle luxuries of ladies and gentlemen, would set the Irish looms at work again, and supply work yet for every idle hand. The late Archbishop of Tuam, Dr. Vesey, had remarked that Ireland would never be happy till a law was made for burning everything that came from England except the people and the coals. Swift acknowledged a strong sympathy with the Archbishop's sentiment. He urged the Irish Lords and Commons, though they could pass no Act of Parliament to such effect, yet to vote a unanimous resolution that no cloth or stuff should be used in any of their families which was not of Irish manufacture, and, setting the example themselves, stigmatize every Irishman as an enemy of his country who refused to follow it. The clergy, he said, must preach it from their pulpits. The entire nation must act upon it. One and all, they must agree never to appear in public wearing any single thread that came from England, till even an English staylace was thought scandalous, and a common topic for censure at tea tables."1 เ 1 'Proposal for the Universal Use of Irish Manufactures,' Swift's Works, vol. vii. 1 The pamphlet was anonymous, but, containing genuine fire, and the combustible matter lying thick and ready to kindle, it produced a sensation so considerable, that the Government was rash enough to order a prosecution. The author being unknown, the printer was tried for propagating sedition; and Chief Justice Whitshed, in charging the jury, laid his hand upon his breast, and swore that the object of the publication was to bring in the Pretender. This time Irish proclivities were on the side of equity and good sense. Nine times the jury returned a verdict of Not Guilty;' nine times they were sent back to reconsider themselves. Worn out at length, they gave a neutral verdict, leaving the printer to the judge. But the judge, on such a doubtful answer, did not venture to pass a sentence. A second trial was intended; but wiser counsels prevailed in time to prevent another defeat, and the prosecution was dropped. Swift meanwhile, having drawn the sword, did not mean again to sheathe it while strength and mind remained. The Drapier letters and the Copper swindle will have a section to themselves. Besides these, before and after them, he poured out tract on tract denouncing Irish misgovernment, each one of which was composed with supreme literary power, a just and burning indignation shining through the most finished irony, and played like a flash of forked lightning round the exasperated Castle politicians. In these tracts, in colours which will never fade, lies the picture of Ireland, as England, half in ignorance, half in wilful despair of her amendment, had willed that she should be. Three parts in four of the land were owned by absentees whose tenants had once been kindly dealt with, but were then ground by agents who were as hard as CHAP. I. 1720 |