Headnote

Probably composed November 1730; published posthumously, 1758; copy text 1758 (see Textual Account).

The context for this response is a revival in Ireland of the fear of popery at the end of the 1720s and early 1730s. Sir Robert Walpole's ministry had given permission for French recruiting officers to go to Ireland to recruit for the Irish brigade that was in French service. This necessitated their recruiting Catholics (who could not serve in British forces), which in turn led to reports that the French were actually recruiting under the name of the Pretender. The result was a scare based around common fears of Jacobite conspiracies, articulated in the paper originally titled ‘The CRAFTSMAN's First Letter of ADVICE’, published Saturday 7 November 1730 (see Appendix B, pp. 333–43).

Swift's response is notable for being written by the persona of the Modest Proposer, who begins by referring to his earlier tract, and proceeds to deliver a similar extreme argument in favour of the total depopulation of Ireland, as well as using anti-Jacobite paranoia to open up the other political and economic issues concerning Ireland with which Swift was preoccupied. The Answer was unfinished, and unpublished in Swift's lifetime, presumably because the presence of French recruiting officers had been rescinded by the government, and the issue resolved by the end of 1730 (see Ehrenpreis, vol. III, pp. 682–5; Ferguson, p. 180).

THE ANSWER TO THE CRAFTSMAN.

SIR,

I detest reading your Papers, because I am not of your Principles, and because I cannot endure to be convinced. Yet, I was prevailed on to peruse your Craftsman of December the 12th, wherein I discover you to be as great an Enemy of this Country, as you are of your own. You are pleased to reflect on a Project I proposed of making the Children of Irish Parents to be useful to the Publick instead of being burthensome; and you venture to assert, that your own Scheme is more charitable, of not permitting our Popish Natives to be listed in the Service of any foreign Prince.

Perhaps, Sir, you may not have heard of any Kingdom so unhappy as this, both in their Imports and Exports.