ourselves to be, there should so many be found to close in with those counsels, who have been ever averse from all overtures towards a peace. But yet there is no great mystery in the matter. Let any man observe the equipages in this town; he shall find the greater number of those who make a figure, to be a species of men quite different from any that were ever known before the Revolution, consisting either of generals and colonels, or of such whose whole fortunes lie in funds and stocks: so that power, which according to the old maxim, was used to follow land, is now gone over to money; and the country gentleman is in the condition of a young heir, out of whose estate a scrivener receives half the rents for interest, and hath a mortgage on the whole, and is therefore always ready to feed his vices and extravagancies while there is any thing left. So that if the war continues some years longer, a landed man will be little better than a farmer at a rack rent, to the army, and to the public funds. It may perhaps be worth inquiring from what beginnings, and by what steps we have been brought into this desperate condition and in search of this, we must run up as high as the Revolution. Most of the nobility and gentry who invited over the Prince of Orange, or attended him in his expedition, were true lovers of their country and its constitution, in Church and State; and were brought to yield to those breaches in the succession of the crown, out of a regard to the necessity of the kingdom, and the safety of the people, which did, and could only, make them lawful; but without intention of drawing such a practice into precedent, or making it a standing measure by which to proceed in all times to come; and therefore we find their counsels ever tended to keep things as much as possible in the old course. But soon after, an under set of men, who had nothing to lose, and had neither borne the burthen nor heat of the day, found means to whisper in the king's ear, that the principles of loyalty in the Church of England, were wholly inconsistent with the Revolution. Hence began the early practice of caressing 1 Commenting on this passage, "The Observator" of Nov. 8th remarked: 66 One would take the author to be some very great man, since he speaks so contemptuously of both Houses of Parliament; for they the dissenters, reviling the universities, as maintainers of arbitrary power, and reproaching the clergy with the doctrines of divine-right, passive obedience and non-resistance.1 At the same time, in order to fasten wealthy people to the new government, they proposed those pernicious expedients of borrowing money by vast premiums, and at exorbitant interest: a practice as old as Eumenes, one of Alexander's captains, who setting up for himself after the death of his master, persuaded his principal officers to lend him great sums, after which they were forced to follow him for their own security. 2 This introduced a number of new dexterous men into business and credit: It was argued, that the war could not last above two or three campaigns, and that it was easier for the subject to raise a fund for paying interest, than to tax them annually to the full expense of the war. Several persons who had small or encumbered estates, sold them, and turned their money into those funds to great advantage: merchants, as well as other moneyed men, finding trade was dangerous, pursued the same method: But the war continuing, and growing more expensive, taxes were increased, and funds multiplied every year, till they have arrived at the monstrous height we now behold them. And that which was at first a corruption, is at last grown necessary, and what every good subject must now fall in with, though he may be allowed to wish it might soon have an end; because it is with a kingdom, as with a private fortune, where every actually found those doctrines, as then preached up, to be inconsistent with the Revolution, and declared it loudly to the world without whispering." [T. S.] 1 Writing to the Earl of Peterborough (Feb. 171), Swift refers to "a pamphlet come out, called 'A Letter to Jacob Banks,' showing that the liberty of Sweden was destroyed by the principle of passive obedience." The pamphlet was written by one W. Benson, and bore the title, "A Letter to Sir J- B- -, By Birth a S, . . . Concerning the late Minehead doctrine," etc., 1711. "This dispute," says Swift to Peterborough, "would soon be ended, if the dunces who write on each side, would plainly tell us what the object of this passive obedience is in our country. (Scott, vol. xv., p. 423.) See also, on this matter, "Examiner," Nos. 34 and 40 post. [T. S.] 2 Eumenes of Cardia was secretary to Alexander the Great, and distinguished himself both as a statesman and general. He was killed B.C. 316. [T. S.] new incumbrance adds a double weight. By this means the wealth of the nation, that used to be reckoned by the value of land, is now computed by the rise and fall of stocks: and although the foundation of credit be still the same, and upon a bottom that can never be shaken; and though all interest be duly paid by the public, yet through the contrivance and cunning of stock-jobbers, there has been brought in such a complication of knavery and cozenage, such a mystery of iniquity, and such an unintelligible jargon of terms to involve it in, as were never known in any other age or country of the world. I have heard it affirmed by persons skilled in these calculations, that if the funds appropriated to the payment of interest and annuities, were added to the yearly taxes, and the four-shilling aid' strictly exacted in all counties of the kingdom, it would very near, if not fully, supply the occasions of the war, at least such a part, as in the opinion of very able persons, had been at that time prudence not to exceed. For I make it a question, whether any wise prince or state, in the continuance of a war, which was not purely defensive, or immediately at his own door, did ever propose that his expense should perpetually exceed what he was able to impose annually upon his subjects? Neither if the war lasts many years longer, do I see how the next generation will be able to begin another, which in the course of human affairs, and according to the various interests and ambition of princes, may be as necessary for them as it has been for us. And had our fathers left us as deeply involved as we are like to leave our children, I appeal to any man, what sort of figure we should have been able to make these twenty years past. Besides, neither our enemies, nor allies, are upon the same foot with us in this particular. France and Holland, our nearest neighbours, and the farthest engaged, will much sooner recover themselves after a war. The first, by the absolute power of the prince, who being master of the lives and fortunes of his subjects, will quickly find expedients to pay his debts and so will the other, by their prudent administration, the greatness of their trade, their wonderful parsimony, the willingness of their people to undergo all kind of taxes, and their justice in applotting as well as The land tax at the time was four shillings in the pound. [T. S.] collecting them. But above all, we are to consider that France and Holland fight in the continent, either upon, or near their own territories, and the greatest part of the money circulates among themselves; whereas ours crosses the sea either to Flanders, Spain, or Portugal, and every penny of it, whether in specie or returns, is so much lost to the nation for ever. Upon these considerations alone, it was the most prudent course imaginable in the Queen, to lay hold of the disposition of the people for changing the Parliament and ministry at this juncture, and extricating herself, as soon as possible, out of the pupillage of those who found their accounts only in perpetuating the war. Neither have we the least reason to doubt, but the ensuing Parliament will assist her Majesty with the utmost vigour,1 till her enemies again be brought to sue for peace, and again offer such terms as will make it both honourable and lasting; only with this difference, that the Ministry perhaps will not again refuse them.2 Audiet pugnas vitio parentum 1 In her speech to Parliament on Nov. 27th, 1710, Anne said: "The carrying on the war in all its parts, but particularly in Spain, with the utmost vigour, is the likeliest means, with God's blessing, to procure a safe and honourable peace for us and all our allies, whose support and interest I have truly at heart" ("Journals of House of Lords,” xix. 166). 2 This is a dig at the Duke of Marlborough, for what the Tories thought an unnecessarily harsh insistence on the inclusion of a clause in the preliminaries of the Gertruydenberg Treaty, which it was thought he must have known would be rejected by Louis. They suspected Marlborough did this in order to keep the war going, and so permit himself further opportunities for enriching himself. The treaty for peace, carried on at Gertruydenberg in 1710, was discussed by Marlborough and Townshend acting for England, the Marquis de Torcy acting for France, and Buys and Vanderdussen for the States. Several conferences took place, and preliminary articles were even signed, but the Allies demanded a security for the delivering of Spain. This Louis XIV. refused to do, and the conference broke up in July, 1710. See Swift's "Conduct of the Allies" (vol. v., pp. 55-123). [T. S.] 3 Horace, "Odes," I. ii. 23, 24. "Our youth will hear, astonished at our crimes, That Roman armies Romans slew ; Our youth, alas! will then be few."-A. MAYNWARING. [T. S.] NUMB. 15.1 FROM THURSDAY NOVEMBER 2, TO THURSDAY NOVEMBER 9. 1710. E quibus hi vacuas implent sermonibus aures, AM prevailed on, through the importunity of friends, to interrupt the scheme I had begun in my last paper, by an Essay upon the Art of Political Lying. We are told, "the Devil is the father of lies, and was a liar from the beginning"; so that beyond contradiction, the invention is old: And which is more, his first essay of it was purely political, employed in undermining the authority of his Prince, and seducing a third part of the subjects from their obedience. For which he was driven down from Heaven, where (as Milton expresseth it) he had been viceroy of a great western province; and forced to exercise his talent in 1 No. 14 in the reprint. [T.S.] 2 Ovid, "Metamorphoses," xii. 56-61. "The troubled air with empty sounds they beat, Error sits brooding there, with added train And Rumours raised, and Murmurs mixed, and panic Fear." "We 3 "Paradise Lost," v. 708-710. Milton makes Satan say: possess the quarters of the North," and places his throne in "the limits of the North." By speaking of a western province Swift intends Ireland, then under the government of the Earl of Wharton. This paper may be read in connection with the 23rd number of "The Examiner," and the "Short Character of Wharton " (vol. v., pp. 1-28). [T. S.] |