His suggestions may be briefly quoted as bearing equally on certain conditions not altogether unfamiliar to us in the United States. He argued that the persons who compose society must become individually industrious, frugal, public-spirited and religious. Sumptuary laws, he thought, might do something toward mitigating existing distress, and public amusements might be regulated, and masquerades prohibited. The drama, too, should be reformed. But the prime necessity was that sensuality must give way to religious love and reverence. “Let us be industrious, frugal and religious, if we are to be saved at all,” was his counsel.
In 1721 he returned to Ireland, from which he had been so long absent. He had retained all along his post in Trinity College, and was now shortly installed as chaplain to the Duke of Trafton, the viceroy.
There occurred in 1723 a curious and romantic incident in which Swift was concerned, or rather “Vanessa”—one of the two unhappy women whose passion for and devotion to the cynical dean have become familiar to all readers. Vanessa, like Stella, the other victim of unrequited affection, followed the dean to Dublin, and there learned of Swift’s connection with Stella—to whom he had been secretly married. Heart-crushed by the revelation, she revoked a will she had made in favor of the man she loved, and substituted Berkeley as the beneficiary and legatee. This is all the more curious and unaccountable as Vanessa (Esther Vanhumrigh) seems to have met Berkeley but once, and that only by chance. At all events he was the gainer by some 4,000 pounds.
Fortune had begun to favor him. He was appointed dean of Derry (Londonderry), an important ecclesiastical dignity in the Irish church, said to be worth £1,100 a year. While in possession of this lucrative position the project of the great university in the new world seems to have taken root in his mind, and quickly became a passionate enthusiasm. This is the project which links Berkeley’s name with America—indeed it was to recall his romantic initiative and devotion to this early scheme for higher education that I venture on this sketch.
Swift says the design had been long in Berkeley’s mind. His generous aim involved the surrender of his opulent position as dean, and the employment of his means, including the Vanessa legacy, in promoting this project, on which he had evidently set his heart, and it also necessitated other sacrifices as we shall see. Of course, it was not possible for him unaided to carry out or even to begin his undertaking. He relied on obtaining aid from sympathizers, and an indispensable charter from the king, George I.
It is a curious fact that he was indebted to a Catholic—the Abbe Gualteri, whom he had met in Italy—for the opportunity of making his application to the king under favorable conditions. The abbe was a distinguished Venetian scientist, who had the ear of court circles, and he interested himself warmly in Berkeley’s behalf, with the result that a charter was granted in June, 1725, for a college in the Island of Bermuda, and constituting “Dr. Berkeley, Dean of Londonderry, principal of said college.”
Berkeley’s enthusiasm and persuasive eloquence enlisted promise of support in other powerful quarters. The prime minister, Sir Robert Walpole, promised a grant of £20,000; the private subscriptions seem to have aggregated about £5,000.
All this took time and extensive preparation. The doctor or dean had secured the co-operation of several of the Trinity College fellows, who agreed to go out with him, and there was to be another addition to the party who was to intimately share the principal’s life and fortunes thenceforth—Mrs. Berkeley!