[Footnote 15: A writer, signing himself M.M., replying to this letter of Swift's in a broadside entitled, "Seasonable Advice to M.B. Drapier, Occasioned by his Letter to the R—t. Hon. the Lord Visct. Molesworth," actually takes this paragraph to mean that Swift intended seriously to turn informer: "Now sir, some people are of opinion that you carried this too far, inasmuch as you become a precedent to informers: others think that you intimate to his lordship, the miserable circumstance you are in by the menaces of the prentice to whom you dictate; they conceive your declaring to inform, if not fee'd, to the contrary, signifies your said prentice on the last occasion to swear, if you don't forthwith deliver him his indentures, and half of your stock to set up trade with, he will inform against you, bring you to justice, be dismissed by law, and get the promised £300 to begin trade with; how near these conceptions be to truth I can't tell; but I know people think that word inform unseasonable. . . ." [T.S.]
In the meantime, I beg your lordship to receive my confession, that if there be any such thing as a dependency of Ireland upon England, otherwise than as I have explained it, either by the law of God, of nature, of reason, of nations, or of the land (which I shall never hereafter contest,) then was the proclamation against me, the most merciful that ever was put out, and instead of accusing me as malicious, wicked and seditious, it might have been directly as guilty of high treason.
All I desire is, that the cause of my country against Mr. Wood may not suffer by any inadvertency of mine; Whether Ireland depends upon England, or only upon God, the King and the law, I hope no man will assert that it depends upon Mr. Wood. I should be heartily sorry that this commendable resentment against me should accidentally (and I hope, what was never intended) strike a damp upon that spirit in all ranks and corporations of men against the desperate and ruinous design of Mr. Wood. Let my countrymen blot out those parts in my last letter which they dislike, and let no rust remain on my sword to cure the wounds I have given to our most mortal enemy. When Sir Charles Sidley[16] was taking the oaths, where several things were to be renounced, he said "he loved renouncing," asked "if any more were to be renounced, for he was ready to renounce as much as they pleased." Although I am not so thorough a renouncer; yet let me have but good city security against this pestilent coinage, and I shall be ready not only to renounce every syllable in all my four letters, but to deliver them cheerfully with my own hands into those of the common hangman, to be burnt with no better company than the coiner's effigies, if any part of it hath escaped out of the secular hands of the rabble.
[Footnote 16: This must be Sir Charles Sedley (properly Sidley), the famous wit and dramatist of Charles II.'s reign. In his reprint of 1735, Faulkner prints the name "Sidley," though the original twopenny tract and the "Hibernian Patriot" print it as "Sidney." Sir W. Scott corrects it to "Sedley." [T.S.]
But whatever the sentiments of some people may be, I think it is agreed that many of those who subscribed against me, are on the side of a vast majority in the kingdom who opposed Mr. Wood; and it was with great satisfaction that I observed some right honourable names very amicably joined with my own at the bottom of a strong declaration against him and his coin. But if the admission of it among us be already determined the worthy person who is to betray me ought in prudence to do it with all convenient speed, or else it may be difficult to find three hundred pounds in sterling for the discharge of his hire; when the public shall have lost five hundred thousand, if there be so much in the nation; besides four-fifths of its annual income for ever.
I am told by lawyers, that in all quarrels between man and man, it is of much weight, which of them gave the first provocation or struck the first blow. It is manifest that Mr. Wood hath done both, and therefore I should humbly propose to have him first hanged and his dross thrown into the sea; after which the Drapier will be ready to stand his trial. "It must needs be that offences come, but woe unto him by whom the offence cometh." If Mr. Wood had held his hand every body else would have held their tongues, and then there would have been little need of pamphlets, juries, or proclamations upon this occasion. The provocation must needs have been great, which could stir up an obscure indolent Drapier to become an author. One would almost think the very stones in the street would rise up in such a cause: And I am not sure they will not do so against Mr. Wood if ever he comes within their reach. It is a known story of the dumb boy, whose tongue forced a passage for speech by the horror of seeing a dagger at his father's throat. This may lessen the wonder that a tradesman hid in privacy and silence should cry out when the life and being of his political mother are attempted before his face, and by so infamous a hand.
But in the meantime, Mr. Wood the destroyer of a kingdom walks about in triumph (unless it be true that he is in jail for debt) while he who endeavoured to assert the liberty of his country is forced to hide his head for occasionally dealing in a matter of controversy. However I am not the first who hath been condemned to death for gaining a great victory over a powerful enemy, by disobeying for once the strict orders of military discipline.
I am now resolved to follow (after the usual proceeding of mankind, because it is too late) the advice given me by a certain Dean. He shewed the mistake I was in of trusting to the general good-will of the people, "that I had succeeded hitherto better than could be expected, but that some unfortunate circumstantial lapse would probably bring me within the reach of power. That my good intentions would be no security against those who watched every motion of my pen, in the bitterness of my soul." He produced an instance of "a writer as innocent, as disinterested, and as well meaning as myself, where the printer, who had the author in his power, was prosecuted with the utmost zeal, the jury sent back nine times, and the man given up to the mercy of the court."[17] The Dean further observed "that I was in a manner left alone to stand the battle, while others who had ten thousand times better talents than a Drapier, were so prudent to lie still, and perhaps thought it no unpleasant amusement to look on with safety, while another was giving them diversion at the hazard of his liberty and fortune, and thought they made a sufficient recompense by a little applause." Whereupon he concluded with a short story of a Jew at Madrid, who being condemned to the fire on account of his religion, a crowd of school-boys following him to the stake, and apprehending they might lose their sport, if he should happen to recant, would often clap him on the back, and cry, "Sta firme Moyse (Moses, continue steadfast)."
[Footnote 17: This was for the publication of "A Proposal for the Universal Use of Irish Manufactures." [T.S.]
I allow this gentleman's advice to have been good, and his observations just, and in one respect my condition is worse than that of the Jew, for no recantation will save me. However it should seem by some late proceedings, that my state is not altogether deplorable. This I can impute to nothing but the steadiness of two impartial grand juries, which hath confirmed in me an opinion I have long entertained, that, as philosophers say, "virtue is seated in the middle," so in another sense, the little virtue left in the world is chiefly to be found among the middle rank of mankind, who are neither allured out of her paths by ambition, nor driven by poverty.