THE PRESENT MISERABLE STATE OF IRELAND.
This letter was addressed to Sir Robert Walpole on Swift’s return to Ireland in 1726 before his final rupture with the Premier the following year. Swift endeavoured to combat the English prejudices of the minister on the mode of managing Ireland, seeking the emancipation of his country rather than personal advancement. Here he seems to assume the character of the Drapier besides adding his initials.
Sir,
By the last packets I had the favour of yours, and am surprised that you should apply to a person so ill-qualified as I am, for a full and impartial account of the state of our trade. I have always lived as retired as possible; I have carefully avoided the perplexed honour of city-offices; I have never minded anybody’s business but my own; upon all which accounts, and several others, you might easily have found among my fellow-citizens, persons more capable to resolve the weighty questions you put to me than I can pretend to be. But being entirely at leisure, even at this season of the year, when I used to have scarce time sufficient to perform the necessary offices of life, I will endeavour to comply with your requests, cautioning you not implicitly to rely upon what I say, excepting what belongs to that branch of trade in which I am more immediately concerned.
The Irish trade is, at present, in the most deplorable condition that can be imagined; to remedy it, the causes of its languishment must be inquired into. But as those causes (you may assure yourself) will not be removed, you may look upon it as a thing past hope of recovery.
The first and greatest shock our trade received was from an act passed in the reign of King William, in the Parliament of England, prohibiting the exportation of wool manufactured in Ireland, an act (as the event plainly shows) fuller of greediness than good policy; an act as beneficial to France and Spain, as it has been destructive to England and Ireland. At the passing of this fatal act, the condition of our trade was glorious and flourishing, though no way interfering with the English; we made no broadcloths above 6s. per yard; coarse druggets, bays and shalloons, worsted damasks, strong draught-works, slight half-works, and gaudy stuffs, were the only products of our looms: these were partly consumed by the meanest of our people, and partly sent to the northern nations, from which we had in exchange timber, iron, hemp, flax, pitch, tar, and hard dollars. At the time the current money of Ireland was foreign silver, a man could hardly receive 100l., without finding the coin of all the northern powers, and every prince of the empire among it.
This money was returned into England for fine cloths silks, &c., for our own wear, for rent, for coals, for hardware, and all other English manufactures, and in a great measure supplied the London merchants with foreign silver for exportation.
The repeated clamours of the English weavers produced this act, so destructive to themselves and us.
They looked with envious eyes upon our prosperity, and complained of being undersold by us in those commodities which themselves did not deal in. At their instances the act was passed, and we lost our profitable northern trade. Have they got it? No; surely you have found out they have ever since declined in the trade they so happily possessed? You shall find (if I am rightly informed) towns without one loom in them, which subsisted entirely upon the woollen manufactory before the passing of this unhappy bill; and I will try if I can give the true reasons for the decay of their trade, and our calamities.