Ireland in the Days of Dean Swift (Irish Tracts, 1720 to 1734)

by Jonathan Swift; J. Bowles Daly

But we are so far from disputing the King’s prerogative in coining, that we own he has power to give a patent to any man for selling his royal image and superscription upon whatever materials he pleases, and liberty to the patentee to offer them in any country from England to Japan; only attended with one small limitation—that nobody alive is obliged to take them....

Let me now say something concerning the other great cause of some people’s fear, as Wood has taught the London newswriter to express it, that his excellency the Lord-Lieutenant is coming over to settle Wood’s halfpence. We know very well, that the Lord-Lieutenants for several years past, have not thought this kingdom worthy the honour of their residence longer than was absolutely necessary for the King’s business, which, consequently, wanted no speed in the despatch. And therefore it naturally fell into most men’s thoughts, that a new governor, coming at an unusual time, must portend some unusual business to be done; especially if the common report be true, that the Parliament, prorogued to I know not when, is, by a new summons, revoking that prorogation, to assemble soon after the arrival; for which extraordinary proceeding, the lawyers on the other side the water have, by great good fortune, found two precedents.

All this being granted, it can never enter into my head, that so little a creature as Wood could find credit enough with the King and his ministers, to have the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland sent hither in a hurry upon his errand.

For, let us take the whole matter nakedly as it lies before us, without the refinements of some people, with which we have nothing to do.

Here is a patent granted under the great seal of England, upon false suggestions, to one William Wood for coining copper halfpence for Ireland. The Parliament here, upon apprehensions of the worst consequences from the said patent, address the King to have it recalled. This is refused; and a Committee of the Privy-council report to his Majesty, that Wood has performed the conditions of his patent. He then is left to do the best he can with his halfpence, no man being obliged to receive them; the people here, being likewise left to themselves, unite as one man, resolving they will have nothing to do with his ware.

By this plain account of the fact it is manifest, that the King and his ministry are wholly out of the case, and the matter is left to be disputed between him and us. Will any man, therefore, attempt to persuade me, that a Lord-Lieutenant is to be despatched over in great haste before the ordinary time, and a Parliament summoned by anticipating a prorogation, merely to put a hundred thousand pounds into the pocket of a sharper by the ruin of a most loyal kingdom?

But, supposing all this to be true, by what arguments could a Lord-Lieutenant prevail on the same Parliament, which addressed with so much zeal and earnestness against this evil, to pass it into a law? I am sure their opinion of Wood and his project is not mended since their last prorogation; and, supposing those methods should be used, which detractors tell us have been sometimes put in practice for gaining votes, it is well known, that, in this kingdom, there are few employments to be given; and, if there were more, it is as well known to whose share they must fall. But, because great numbers of you are altogether ignorant of the affairs of your country, I will tell you some reasons why there are so few employments to be disposed of in this kingdom. All considerable offices for life are here possessed by those to whom the reversions were granted; and these have been generally followers of the chief governors, or persons who had interest in the Court of England. So, the Lord Berkeley of Stratton holds that great office of Master of the rolls; the Lord Palmerstown is first remembrancer, worth near 2000l. per annum. One Doddington, secretary to the Earl of Pembroke, begged the reversion of clerk of the pells, worth 2500l. a-year, which he now enjoys by the death of the Lord Newtown. Mr. Southwell is secretary of State, and the Earl of Burlington lord high treasurer of Ireland by inheritance. These are only a few among many others which I have been told of, but cannot remember. Nay, the reversion of several employments, during pleasure, is granted the same way. This, among many others, is a circumstance, whereby the kingdom of Ireland is distinguished from all other nations upon earth; and makes it so difficult an affair to get into a civil employ, that Mr. Addison was forced to purchase an old obscure place, called keeper of the records in Bermingham’s Tower, of 10l. a year, and to get a salary of 400l. annexed to it, though all the records there are not worth half-a-crown, either for curiosity or use. And we lately saw a favourite secretary descend to be master of the revels,[8] which, by his credit and extortion, he has made pretty considerable. I say nothing of the under-treasurership, worth about 9000l. a year, nor of the commissioners of the revenue, four of whom generally live in England, for I think none of these are granted in reversion; but the jest is, that I have known, upon occasion, some of these absent officers as keen against the interest of Ireland, as if they had never been indebted to her for a single groat.

I confess, I have been sometimes tempted to wish that this project of Wood’s might succeed; because I reflected with some pleasure, what a jolly crew it would bring over among us of lords and squires, and pensioners of both sexes, and officers civil and military, where we should live together as merry and sociable as beggars, only with this one abatement, that we should neither have meat to feed, nor manufactures to clothe us, unless we could be content to prance about in coats of mail, or eat brass as ostriches do iron.

I return from this digression to that which gave me the occasion of making it. And I believe you are now convinced, that if the Parliament of Ireland were as temptable as any other assembly within a mile of Christendom (which God forbid!), yet the managers must of necessity fail for want of tools to work with. But I will yet go one step farther, by supposing that a hundred new employments were erected on purpose to gratify compliers, yet still an insuperable difficulty would remain. For it happens, I know not how, that money is neither Whig nor Tory—neither of town nor country party, and it is not improbable that a gentleman would rather choose to live upon his own estate, which brings him gold and silver, than with the addition of an employment, when his rents and salary must both be paid in Wood’s brass, at above eighty per cent. discount.

For these, and many other reasons, I am confident you need not be under the least apprehension from the sudden expectation of the Lord-Lieutenant,[9] while we continue in our present hearty disposition, to alter which no suitable temptation can possibly be offered. And if, as I have often asserted from the best authority, the law has not left a power in the crown to force any money, except sterling, upon the subject, much less can the crown devolve such a power upon another....