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 dispatched over in great haste before the ordinary time, and a Parliament summoned by anticipating a prorogation, merely to put an 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 the 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 in 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 here are 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[7] holds that great office of master of the rolls, the Lord Palmerstown[8] is first remembrancer worth near 2000l. per ann. One Dodington[9] secretary to the Earl of Pembroke,[10] 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,[11] and the Earl of Burlington[12] 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 are 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 of Bermingham's Tower of ten pounds a year, and to get a salary of 400l. annexed to it,[13] 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, which by his credit and extortion he hath made pretty considerable.[14] I say nothing of the under-treasurership worth about 8000l. a year, nor the commissioners of the revenue, four of whom generally live in England; For I think none of these are granted in reversion. But the test 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.
[Footnote 7: Berkeley was one of the Junta in Harley's administration of 1710-1714. He had married Sir John Temple's daughter. His connection with a person so disliked by Swift may account for his inclusion here. [T.S.]
[Footnote 8: This was Henry Temple, first Viscount Palmerston, with whom Swift later had an unpleasant correspondence. Palmerston could not have been more than seven years old when he was appointed (September 21st, 1680), with Luke King, chief remembrancer of the Court of Exchequer in Ireland, for their joint lives. King died in 1716, but the grant was renewed to Palmerston and his son Henry for life. He was raised to the peerage as Baron Temple of Mount Temple, and Viscount Palmerston of Palmerston, in March, 1722-1723. Sir Charles Hanbury Williams called him "Little Broadbottom Palmerston." He died in 1757. [T.S.] ]
[Footnote 9: George Bubb (1691-1762) was Chief Secretary during Wharton's Lord lieutenancy in 1709. He took the name of Doddington on the death of his uncle in 1720. [T.S.]
[Footnote 10: Thomas Herbert, eighth Earl of Pembroke (1656-1733), had preceded the Earl of Wharton as Lord lieutenant of Ireland. He bears a high character in history and on four successive coronations, namely, those of William and Mary, Anne, George I. and George II., he acted as sword carrier. Although a Tory, even Macaulay acknowledges Pembroke's high breeding and liberality. [T.S.]
[Footnote 11: This is the Edward Southwell to whom Archbishop King wrote the letters quoted from Monck Mason in previous notes. He was the son of Sir Robert Southwell, the diplomatist and friend of Sir William Temple, to whom Swift bore a letter of introduction from the latter, soliciting the office of amanuensis. In June, 1720, Edward Southwell had his salary as secretary increased by £300; and in July of the same year the office was granted to him and his son for life. The Southwell family first came to Ireland in the reign of James I., at the time of the plantation of Munster. [T.S.]
[Footnote 12: Richard Boyle, third Earl of Burlington (or Bridlington of Yorks), and fourth Earl of Cork (1695-1753), was appointed Lord High-Treasurer of Ireland in August, 1715. His great-grandfather, the first Earl of Cork, had held the same office in 1631. The Lord-lieutenancy of the West Riding of Yorkshire, and the office of Custos Rotulorum of the North and West Ridings, seem also to have been inheritances of this family. The third Earl had a taste for architecture, and spent enormous sums of money in the reconstruction of Burlington House, a building that was freely satirized by Hogarth and Lord Hervey. His taste, however, seems to have run to the ornamental rather than the useful, and its gratification involved him in such serious financial difficulties, that he was compelled to sell some of his Irish estates. Swift notes that "My Lord Burlington is now selling in one article £9,000 a year in Ireland for £200,000 which must pay his debts" (Scott's edit. 1814, vol. xix., p. 129). [T.S.]
[Footnote 13: This post was found for Addison on his appointment in 1709 as secretary to the Earl of Wharton, Lord-lieutenant of Ireland. Tickell, in his preface to his edition of Addison's works, says the post was granted to Addison as a mark of Queen Anne's special favour. Bermingham's Tower was that part of Dublin Castle in which the records were kept. [T.S.]