The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D. — Volume 10 / Historical Writings

by Jonathan Swift

SIR,

I arrived here yesterday [King had been on a visit to Paris], and I am now ready to obey your commands. I hope you are come to a positive resolution concerning the History. You need not hesitate about the dates, or the references which are to be made to any public papers, for I can supply them without the least trouble. As well as I remember, there is but one of those public pieces which you determined should be inserted at length; I mean Sir Thomas Hanmer's Representation; this I have now by me. If you incline to publish the two tracts as an Appendix to the History, you will be pleased to see if the character given of the Earl of Oxford in the pamphlet of 1715 agrees with the character given of the same person in the History. Perhaps on a review, you may think proper to leave one of them quite out. You have (I think) barely mentioned the attempt of Guiscard, and the quarrel between Rechteren and Mesnager. But as these are facts which are probably now forgot or unknown, it would not be amiss if they were related at large in the notes, which may be done from the Gazettes, or any other newspapers of those times," etc. See Sir W. Scott's edit, vol xix, pp 20-21 [T.S.]

I am persuaded that foreigners, as well as those at home, who live too remote from the scene of business to be rightly informed, will not be displeased with this account of a person, who in the space of two years, hath been so highly instrumental in changing the face of affairs in Europe, and hath deserved so well of his own Prince and country.[13]

[Footnote 13: See also Swift's "Enquiry" (vol. v., pp. 425-476). [W.S.J.]

In that perplexed condition of the public debts, which I have already described, this minister was brought into the treasury and exchequer, and had the chief direction of affairs. His first regulation was that of exchequer bills, which, to the great discouragement of public credit, and scandal to the crown, were three per cent. less in value than the sums specified in them. The present treasurer, being then chancellor of the exchequer, procured an Act of Parliament, by which the Bank of England should be obliged, in consideration of forty-five thousand pounds, to accept and circulate those bills without any discount. He then proceeded to stop the depredations of those who dealt in remittances of money to the army, who, by unheard of exactions in that kind of traffic, had amassed prodigious wealth at the public cost, to which the Earl of Godolphin had given too much way,[14] possibly by neglect; for I think he cannot be accused of corruption.

[Footnote 14: Added in the author's own handwriting. [ORIGINAL NOTE.] P. Fitzgerald gives the addition as "either through ignorance, connivance, or neglect." [W.S.J.]

But the new treasurer's chief concern was to restore the credit of the nation, by finding some settlement for unprovided debts, amounting in the whole to ten millions, which hung on the public as a load equally heavy and disgraceful, without any prospect of being removed, and which former ministers never had the care or courage to inspect. He resolved to go at once to the bottom of this evil; and having computed and summed up the debt of the navy, and victualling, ordnance, and transport of the army, and transport debentures made out for the service of the last war, of the general mortgage tallies for the year one thousand seven hundred and ten, and some other deficiencies, he then found out a fund of interest sufficient to answer all this, which, being applied to other uses, could not raise present money for the war, but in a very few years would clear the debt it was engaged for. The intermediate accruing interest was to be paid by the treasurer of the navy; and, as a farther advantage to the creditors, they should be erected into a company for trading to the South Seas, and for encouragement of fishery. When all this was fully prepared and digested, he made a motion in the House of Commons (who deferred extremely to his judgment and abilities) for paying the debts of the navy, and other unprovided deficiencies, without entering into particulars, which was immediately voted. But a sudden stop was put to this affair by an unforeseen accident. The chancellor of the exchequer (which was then his title) being stabbed with a penknife, the following day, at the Cockpit, in the midst of a dozen lords of the council, by the Sieur de Guiscard, a French papist; the circumstances of which fact being not within the compass of this History, I shall only observe, that after two months' confinement, and frequent danger of his life, he returned to his seat in Parliament.[15]

[Footnote 15: See the particular account in "The Examiner." [ORIGINAL NOTE.] The reference is to Nos. 33, 41, and 42 of that paper (see vol. ix, of this edition). [W.S.J.]

The overtures made by this minister, of paying so vast a debt, under the pressures of a long war, and the difficulty of finding supplies for continuing it, was, during the time of his illness, ridiculed by his enemies as an impracticable and visionary project: and when, upon his return to the House, he had explained his proposal, the very proprietors of the debt were, many of them, prevailed on to oppose it; although the obtaining this trade, either through Old Spain, or directly to the Spanish West Indies, had been one principal end we aimed at by this war. However, the bill passed; and, as an immediate consequence, the naval bills rose to about twenty per cent., nor ever fell within ten of their discount. Another good effect of this work appeared by the parliamentary lotteries, which have been since erected. The last of that kind, under the former ministry, was eleven weeks in filling; whereas the first, under the present, was filled in a very few hours, although it cost the government less; and the others, which followed, were full before the Acts concerning them could pass. And to prevent incumbrances of this kind from growing for the future, he took care, by the utmost parsimony, or by suspending payments, where they seemed less to press, that all stores for the navy should be bought with ready money; by which cent. per cent. hath been saved in that mighty article of our expense, as will appear from an account taken at the victualling office on the 9th of August, one thousand seven hundred and twelve. And the payment of the interest was less a burthen upon the navy, by the stores being bought at so cheap a rate.

It might look invidious to enter into farther particulars upon this head, but of smaller moment. What I have above related, may serve to shew in how ill a condition the kingdom stood, with relation to its debts, by the corruption as well as negligence of former management; and what prudent, effectual measures have since been taken to provide for old incumbrances, and hinder the running into new. This may be sufficient for the information of the reader, perhaps already tired with a subject so little entertaining as that of accounts: I shall therefore now return to relate some of the principal matters that passed in Parliament, during this session.

Upon the eighteenth of January the House of Lords sent down a bill to the Commons, for fixing the precedence of the Hanover family, which probably had been forgot in the Acts for settling the succession of the crown. That of Henry VIII. which gives the rank to princes of the blood, carries it no farther than to nephews, nieces, and grandchildren of the crown, by virtue of which the Princess Sophia is a princess of the blood, as niece to King Charles I of England, and precedes accordingly, but this privilege doth not descend to her son the Elector, or the electoral prince. To supply which defect, and pay a compliment to the presumptive heirs of the crown, this bill, as appeareth by the preamble, was recommended by Her Majesty to the House of Lords, which the Commons, to shew their zeal for every thing that might be thought to concern the interest or honour of that illustrious family, ordered to be read thrice, passed nemine contradicente and returned to the Lords, without any amendment, on the very day it was sent down.

But the House seemed to have nothing more at heart than a strict inquiry into the state of the nation, with respect to foreign alliances. Some discourses had been published in print, about the beginning of the session, boldly complaining of certain articles in the Barrier Treaty, concluded about three years since by the Lord Viscount Townshend, between Great Britain and the States General, and shewing, in many particulars, the unequal conduct of these powers in our alliance, in furnishing their quotas and supplies. It was asserted by the same writers, "That these hardships, put upon England, had been countenanced and encouraged by a party here at home, in order to preserve their power, which could be no otherwise maintained than by continuing the war, as well as by Her Majesty's general abroad, upon account of his own peculiar interest and grandeur." These loud accusations spreading themselves throughout the kingdom, delivered in facts directly charged, and thought, whether true or not, to be but weakly confuted, had sufficiently prepared the minds of the people, and, by putting arguments into every body's mouth, had filled the town and country with controversies, both in writing and discourse. The point appeared to be of great consequence, whether the war continued or not for, in the former case, it was necessary that the allies should be brought to a more equal regulation, and that the States in particular, for whom Her Majesty had done such great things, should explain and correct those articles in the Barrier Treaty which were prejudicial to Britain, and, in either case, it was fit the people should have at least the satisfaction of knowing by whose counsels, and for what designs, they had been so hardly treated.

In order to this great inquiry, the Barrier Treaty, with all other treaties and agreements entered into between Her Majesty and her allies, during the present war, for the raising and augmenting the proportions for the service thereof, were, by the Queen's directions, laid before the House.

Several resolutions were drawn up, and reported at different times, upon the deficiencies of the allies in furnishing their quotas, upon certain articles in the Barrier Treaty, and upon the state of the war; by all which it appeared, that whatever had been charged by public discourses in print against the late ministry, and the conduct of the allies, was much less than the truth. Upon these resolutions (by one of which the Lord Viscount Townshend, who negotiated and signed the Barrier Treaty, was declared an enemy to the Queen and kingdom), and upon some farther directions to the committee, a Representation was formed; and soon after the Commons in a body presented it to the Queen, the endeavours of the adverse party not prevailing to have it re-committed.

This Representation (supposed to be the work of Sir Thomas Hanmer's[16] pen) is written with much energy and spirit, and will be a very useful authentic record, for the assistance of those who at any time shall undertake to write the history of the present times.

[Footnote 16: But to which the Dean himself contributed a large share. [S.] Swift writes in his "Journal," under date February 21st: "I left them at 7, being engaged to go to Sir Tho. Hanmer, who desired I would see him at that hour. His business was, that I would help him to draw up the representation, which I consented to do" (vol. ii., p. 340). [W.S.J.]

I did intend, for brevity sake, to have given the reader only an abstract of it; but, upon trial, found myself unequal to such a task, without injuring so excellent a piece. And although I think historical relations are but ill patched up with long transcripts already printed, which, upon that account, I have hitherto avoided; yet this being the sum of all debates and resolutions of the House of Commons in that great affair of the war, I conceived it could not well be omitted.[1]

[Footnote 17: This "Representation" was printed by S. Keble by order of the Speaker, and is also to be found in the "Journals of the House of Commons," vol. xvii., pp. 119-123. [W.S.J.]