The Drapier's Letters (1714) - Letter IV: Extracts

Comment: Swift's Drapier's Letters - in which he pretends to be a common drapier [cloth-seller] advising his neighbours of the threat poses to their livelihood by the introduction of alloy coins in Ireland (in fact an ungrounded fear in economic terms) - is the prime example of Anglo-Irish political rhetoric and the original masterpiece of Irish Protestant patriotic writing. (Swift himself celebrated it in his verses on his own death: “The Dean did by his pen defeat / An infamous destructive cheat”.)
 In the Fourth Letter he develops the idea first fostered by his near contemporary William Molyneux that the English government possesses no right to impose laws upon the Irish since this right belongs only to the king who is monarch of Ireland and England - each enjoying full rights in regard to his power and sovereignty and neither being beholden to the other.
 The Drapier's Letters reach a brilliant climax with the annunciation of a political idea that was to form the foundation-stone of republican thinking in American and France - two countries where an anti-colonial and anti-monarchical revolution was to take place by the end of the century that Swift's vibrant political diatribe ushered in.
 'For in Reason’, wrote Swift, ‘all Government without the Consent of the Governed, is the very Definition of Slavery’. This was a sentence and a sentiment that was to be closely echoed - and even frankly purloined - by Thomas Jefferson and others.

'[...] I thought I had sufficiently shewn to all who could want Instruction, by what Methods they might safely proceed, whenever this Coyn should be offered to them: And I believe there hath not been for many Ages an Example of any Kingdom so firmly united in a Point of great Importance, as this of Ours is at present, against that detestable Fraud. But however, it so happens that some weak People begin to be allarmed anew, by Rumours industriously spread. Wood prescribes to the News-Mongers in London what they are to write. In one of their Papers published here by some obscure Printer (and probably with no good Design) we are told, that the Papists in Ireland have entered into an Association against his Coyn, although it be notoriously known, that they never once offered to stir in the Matter; so that the Two Houses of Parliament, the Privy Council, the great Number of Corporations, the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of Dublin, the Grand-juries, and Principal Gentlemen of several Counties are stigmatized in a Lump under the Name of Papists.

Now, here you may see that the Vile Accusation of Wood and his Accomplices, charging us with Disputing the King’s Prerogative by refusing his Brass, can have no Place, because compelling the Subject to take any Coin which is not Sterling is no Part of the King’s Prerogative, and I am very confident if it were so, we should be the last of his People to dispute it, as well from that, inviolable Loyalty we have always paid to his Majesty, as from the Treatment we might in such a Case justly expect from some who seem to think, we have neither Common Sense nor Common Senses. But God be thanked, the Best of them are only our Fellow Subjects, and not our Masters. One great Merit I am sure we have, which those of English Birth can have no Pretence to, That our Ancestors reduced this Kingdom to the Obedience of ENGLAND, for which we have been rewarded with a worse Climate, the Priviledge of being governed by Laws to which we do not consent, a Ruined Trade, a House of Peers without Jurisdiction, almost an Incapacity for all Employments; and the Dread of Wood’s Half-pence. (Gulliver’s Travels and Selected Prose, London: Nonesuch Edn. 1944, "Irish Tracts", p.484ff.)

'For in Reason, all Government without the Consent of the Governed, is the very Definition of Slavery; But in Fact, Eleven Men well armed, will certainly subdue one single man in his Shirt. But I have done. For those who have used Power to cramp Liberty have gone so far as to Resent even the Liberty of Complaining, altho’ a Man upon the Rack was never known to be refused the Liberty of Roaring as loud as he thought fit.’ ("Drapier’s Letters" [No. 4]; Works, ed. Davis, Vol. 10, pp.62-3; see also Joseph McMinn, Swift’s Irish Pamphlets, 1991, p.80).


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