The accession of George I. exiled Swift to Ireland, at that time the most impoverished country on the face of the globe. Swift regarded Dublin as a “good enough place to die in.” No wonder, when he showed that there were not found in it five gentlemen who could give a dinner at which a scholar and gentleman could find congenial companionship. Ireland then was in a state of national ruin and semi-barbarism; one of the most palpable evils of Irish life was absenteeism. It was the habit of the English officials elected to remunerative offices, to employ a deputy to perform the duty on the tenth of the salary—to come over in batches, landing at Ringsend on Saturday night, receiving the sacrament at the nearest church on Sunday morning, taking the oaths on Monday in the Courts, and setting sail for England in the afternoon, leaving no trace of their existence in Ireland, save their names on the civil list as recipients of a salary.
Out of a total rental of 1,800,000l. about 600,000l. was spent in England. There was nothing to encourage a landlord to live in the country; no political career was open to him; all the offices in his country went to strangers. He was without education or any intellectual interest; nothing was left him but lavish displays of brutal luxury, endless carouses, and barbaric hospitality. The Irish landlords were despised for their rude manners by the fresh importations from England; they repaid this contempt on their tenants.
The vast majority of the Catholics were without the protection of the law; absolutely ignorant and sunk in an abyss of poverty. The poor peasant, as soon as the potatoes were planted, shut up his damp, smoky hut, and started soliciting alms through the country: idle and lazy, he wandered from house to house. Begging became a recognized profession. Adepts were hired to complete the family group, and these shared the spoils of the season; girls were debauched, in order that they might, as fictitious widows, move compassion and earn alms. In winter they camped together in companies; the length and breadth of the country was cursed with a brood of hedgers, born of adultery and incest, herding together in troops, when the ties of relationship were as completely lost as in a herd of cattle.
The English clique at the Castle were too much occupied in checking fancied disaffection and dispensing patronage to secure the support of hungry partisans, to care for the welfare of the masses. The local gentry, despised by the governing clique, allowed matters to drift from bad to worse. The better part of the population left the country in disgust. Such was the condition of Ireland when Swift stood out as its defender. The wrongs of Ireland cried to heaven for adjustment.
Since the days of Charles II. the Irish had been forbidden to seek a market in England for their cattle. Since the last years of William III. harsh laws crushed out the woollen trade, restricting it to a precarious market formed by a contraband trade with France, every year getting worse. Misery wanted only a voice to utter its lamentation. Swift assumed this function in his “Proposal for the universal use of manufactures,” published in 1720. Comments on the pamphlets are needless.
The evil of absenteeism was of ancient date and the efforts to eradicate it still older. By a statute of Richard II., two-thirds of the estate of an absentee were forfeited to the Crown. The Lancastrian kings pursued the same policy. Henry VIII. made a strong effort to correct the abuse, by resuming whole Irish estates of some English nobles who were habitual absentees. Under the early Stuarts the same course was pursued, but the evil continues to our own day without any abatement. In Swift’s time, residence had not been encouraged; statutes to enforce it remained on the statute-book, but they were a dead letter. The landlord drew the rent from Ireland, without helping to pay the taxes. He spent it in England and frequently more than the amount, leaving the estates encumbered with mortgages in the hands of English mortgagees. The holder of an Irish office thought only of its emoluments, and was indignant at any suggestion of living in the country burdened with his support, and nominally entitled to his services. The land was reduced to a state of bankruptcy and desolation; famine swept through it, and the people were perishing in thousands. It was at this terrible juncture that Swift put forth in despair his “Modest Proposal,” one of the last efforts of his marvellous genius, and it shamed the government into taking some steps to redress the suffering which prevailed.
“Swift’s pieces relating to Ireland,” says Edmund Burke, “are those of a public nature, in which the Dean appears, as usual, in the best light, because they do honour to his heart as well as his head, furnishing some additional proofs, that though he was very free in his abuse of the inhabitants of that country, as well natives as foreigners, he had their interest sincerely at heart, and perfectly understood it. His sermon on doing good, though peculiarly adapted to Ireland, and Wood’s design upon it, contains perhaps the best motives to Patriotism that was ever delivered within so small a compass.”
There is no need to refer here to the other works of genius that came from his pen; they are well known. The object of the present writer is to deal exclusively with what has reference to Ireland, and while exhibiting Swift as a patriot, no attempt is made to exclude his faults or deny his imperfections; those faults were redeemed by devoted friendship and noble generosity.
His friendship with Addison continued till the day of his death, and so strong was the bond between them, that when the two met for an evening, they never wished for a third person to support or enliven the conversation. Of him, Pope said:—“Nothing of you can die; nothing of you can decay; nothing of you can suffer; nothing of you can be obscured or locked up from esteem and admiration, except what is at the Deanery. May the rest of you be as happy hereafter as honest men may expect and need not doubt, while they know that their Maker is merciful.” One can imagine how dear he was to those friends, when Bolingbroke writes:—“I love you for a thousand things, for none more than for the just esteem and love which you have for all the sons of Adam.” No one esteemed Swift more than Lord Carteret, who, when hearing of his illness, wrote:—“That you may enjoy the continuation of all happiness is my wish. As to futurity I know your name will be remembered, when the names of Kings, Lord-Lieutenants, Archbishops, and Parliamentary politicians will be forgotten. At last you yourself must fall into oblivion, which may be less than one thousand years, though the term may be uncertain and will depend on the progress that barbarity and ignorance may make, notwithstanding the sedulous endeavours of the great Prelates in this and succeeding ages.”
The account of Swift thus coming from men of the greatest genius of their age, carries with it incontestable evidence in his favour, and completely pulverizes the slanderous accusations heaped on him by his enemies. The manly tone of his writing penetrated the character of the whole English colony and bore fruit, long after the proud heart was laid at rest in the great Irish cathedral. The place is marked by an inscription written by himself, and touchingly refers to a time when the heart can no longer be tortured with fierce indignation born from the contemplation of licensed injustice. The character of Swift has long been vindicated, for animosity perishes, but humanity is eternal.