Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- General Editors’ Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Chronology
- List of Abbreviations
- Note
- Introduction
- The Conduct of the Allies
- Some Advice Humbly Offer’d to the Members of the October Club
- Some Remarks on the Barrier Treaty
- The New Way of Selling Places at Court
- Some Reasons to Prove . . . In a Letter to a Whig-Lord
- It’s Out at Last: Or, French Correspondence Clear as the Sun
- A Dialogue Upon Dunkirk, Between a Whig and a Tory
- A Hue and Cry After Dismal
- A Letter From the Pretender, to a Whig-Lord
- A Defence of Erasmus Lewis, or The Examiner (2 February 1713)
- Vote of Thanks by the House of Lords (9 April 1713) and The Humble Address of the . . . Lords (11 April 1713)
- The Importance of the Guardian Considered
- The Publick Spirit of the Whigs
- A Discourse Concerning the Fears From the Pretender
- Some Free Thoughts Upon the Present State of Affairs
- Some Considerations Upon the Consequences Hoped and Feared from the Death of the Queen
- Contributions to the Post Boy and the Evening Post
- Textual Introduction and Accounts of Individual Works
- Textual Introduction Ian Gadd
- The Conduct of the Allies: Textual Account
- Appendix: Transcripts of the British Library Manuscripts of the Vote of Thanks and The Humble Address of . . . the Lords
- Bibliography
- Index
The Conduct of the Allies: Textual Account
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 September 2021
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- General Editors’ Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Chronology
- List of Abbreviations
- Note
- Introduction
- The Conduct of the Allies
- Some Advice Humbly Offer’d to the Members of the October Club
- Some Remarks on the Barrier Treaty
- The New Way of Selling Places at Court
- Some Reasons to Prove . . . In a Letter to a Whig-Lord
- It’s Out at Last: Or, French Correspondence Clear as the Sun
- A Dialogue Upon Dunkirk, Between a Whig and a Tory
- A Hue and Cry After Dismal
- A Letter From the Pretender, to a Whig-Lord
- A Defence of Erasmus Lewis, or The Examiner (2 February 1713)
- Vote of Thanks by the House of Lords (9 April 1713) and The Humble Address of the . . . Lords (11 April 1713)
- The Importance of the Guardian Considered
- The Publick Spirit of the Whigs
- A Discourse Concerning the Fears From the Pretender
- Some Free Thoughts Upon the Present State of Affairs
- Some Considerations Upon the Consequences Hoped and Feared from the Death of the Queen
- Contributions to the Post Boy and the Evening Post
- Textual Introduction and Accounts of Individual Works
- Textual Introduction Ian Gadd
- The Conduct of the Allies: Textual Account
- Appendix: Transcripts of the British Library Manuscripts of the Vote of Thanks and The Humble Address of . . . the Lords
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Swift probably began working on Conduct of the Allies in either August or September 1711. Allusions to ‘some business’ in his letters to Stella appear as early as 6 August; on 25 August, Swift wrote that ‘[t]here is now but one business the ministry wants me for’ (Williams, JSt, pp. 327, 343; Ehrenpreis, vol. II, p. 483). There are similar cryptic references during September: ‘something I am doing’ (9 September), ‘a plaguy deal of business’ (21 September), ‘something of weight I have upon my hands, and which must soon be done’ (29 September) (Williams, JSt, pp. 356, 365, 373). By 13 October, Swift hoped that his busyness ‘will be over’ within a fortnight (p. 383). Five days later, Swift visited ‘a printer’ (presumably John Barber rather than, as Williams surmises, John Morphew) to settle ‘some things’; on 30 October, he again visited ‘a printer’ and was to meet with Henry St John the following day ‘about the same [matter]’ (pp. 386, 397). By 10 November, this work – still unnamed and undescribed – was nearing publication:
something is to be published of great moment, and three or four great people are to see there are no mistakes in point of fact: and ‘tis so troublesome to send it among them, and get their corrections, that I am weary as a dog. I dined to-day with the printer, and was there all the afternoon; and it plagues me, and there's an end, and what would you have?
(Williams, JSt, p. 408)One of those ‘great people’ was St John, who on 17 November returned a sheet, ‘which is I think very correct’, to Swift; St John had initially written on 16 November but enclosed the wrong papers (Woolley, Corr., vol. I, pp. 396–7). This was, as Woolley suggests, probably the corrected ‘fifth sheet’ – sheet E – that Swift gave to Barber on 21 November (Williams, JSt, p. 417). On 24 November, Swift finished ‘my pamphlet’ (the first time it was so styled), ‘which has cost me so much time and trouble; it will be published in three or four days, when the parliament begins sitting’ (p. 420).
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- English Political Writings 1711–1714'The Conduct of the Allies' and Other Works, pp. 341 - 516Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2008