Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Content
- List of Illustrations
- General Editors’ Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Chronology
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Upon Giving Badges to the Poor
- Considerations About Maintaining the Poor
- A Short View of the State of Ireland
- An Answer to a Paper, Called A Memorial of the Poor Inhabitants, Tradesmen and Labourers of the Kingdom of Ireland
- The Intelligencer
- Intelligencer, No. 1
- Intelligencer, No. 3
- Intelligencer, No. 5
- Intelligencer, No. 7
- Intelligencer, No. 9
- Intelligencer, No. 19
- A Letter to the Archbishop of Dublin, Concerning the Weavers
- An Answer to Several Letters from Unknown Persons
- An Answer to Several Letters Sent Me From Unknown Hands
- A Letter on M’culla’s Project About Halfpence, and a New One Proposed
- A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People From Being a Burthen to Their Parents, or Country; and for Making Them Beneficial to the Publick
- A Proposal That All the Ladies and Women of Ireland Should Appear Constantly in Irish Manufactures
- Maxims Controlled In Ireland
- Advertisement by Dr Swift, in His Defence Against Joshua, Lord Allen
- The Substance of What Was Said by the Dean of St Patrick’s to the Lord Mayor and Some of the Aldermen, When His Lordship Came to Present the Said Dean With His Freedom in a Gold-Box
- A Vindication of His Excellency the Lord Carteret, From the Charge Of Favouring None but Toryes, High-Churchmen and Jacobites
- The Answer to the Craftsman
- A Proposal for an Act of Parliament, to Pay Off the Debt of the Nation, Without Taxing the Subject
- An Examination of Certain Abuses, Corruptions, and Enormities in the City of Dublin
- The Humble Petition of the Footmen in and About the City of Dublin
- Some Considerations Humbly Offered to the Right Honourable the Lord-Mayor, the Court of Aldermen, and Common Council of the Honourable City of Dublin, in the Choice of a Recorder
- Prefatory Letter to Mary Barber, Poems on Several Occasions
- Advice to the Free-Men of the City of Dublin in the Choice of a Member to Represent Them in Parliament
- Observations Occasioned by Reading a Paper, Entitled, The Case of the Woollen Manufacturers of Dublin, &c.
- A Letter on the Fishery
- The Rev. Dean Swift’s Reasons Against Lowering the Gold and Silver Coin
- A Proposal for Giving Badges to the Beggars in all the Parishes of Dublin
- Associated Materials
- Appendices
- General Textual Introduction and Textual Accounts of Individual Works
- Bibliography
- Index
An Answer to a Paper, Called A Memorial of the Poor Inhabitants, Tradesmen and Labourers of the Kingdom of Ireland
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 September 2021
- Frontmatter
- Content
- List of Illustrations
- General Editors’ Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Chronology
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Upon Giving Badges to the Poor
- Considerations About Maintaining the Poor
- A Short View of the State of Ireland
- An Answer to a Paper, Called A Memorial of the Poor Inhabitants, Tradesmen and Labourers of the Kingdom of Ireland
- The Intelligencer
- Intelligencer, No. 1
- Intelligencer, No. 3
- Intelligencer, No. 5
- Intelligencer, No. 7
- Intelligencer, No. 9
- Intelligencer, No. 19
- A Letter to the Archbishop of Dublin, Concerning the Weavers
- An Answer to Several Letters from Unknown Persons
- An Answer to Several Letters Sent Me From Unknown Hands
- A Letter on M’culla’s Project About Halfpence, and a New One Proposed
- A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People From Being a Burthen to Their Parents, or Country; and for Making Them Beneficial to the Publick
- A Proposal That All the Ladies and Women of Ireland Should Appear Constantly in Irish Manufactures
- Maxims Controlled In Ireland
- Advertisement by Dr Swift, in His Defence Against Joshua, Lord Allen
- The Substance of What Was Said by the Dean of St Patrick’s to the Lord Mayor and Some of the Aldermen, When His Lordship Came to Present the Said Dean With His Freedom in a Gold-Box
- A Vindication of His Excellency the Lord Carteret, From the Charge Of Favouring None but Toryes, High-Churchmen and Jacobites
- The Answer to the Craftsman
- A Proposal for an Act of Parliament, to Pay Off the Debt of the Nation, Without Taxing the Subject
- An Examination of Certain Abuses, Corruptions, and Enormities in the City of Dublin
- The Humble Petition of the Footmen in and About the City of Dublin
- Some Considerations Humbly Offered to the Right Honourable the Lord-Mayor, the Court of Aldermen, and Common Council of the Honourable City of Dublin, in the Choice of a Recorder
- Prefatory Letter to Mary Barber, Poems on Several Occasions
- Advice to the Free-Men of the City of Dublin in the Choice of a Member to Represent Them in Parliament
- Observations Occasioned by Reading a Paper, Entitled, The Case of the Woollen Manufacturers of Dublin, &c.
- A Letter on the Fishery
- The Rev. Dean Swift’s Reasons Against Lowering the Gold and Silver Coin
- A Proposal for Giving Badges to the Beggars in all the Parishes of Dublin
- Associated Materials
- Appendices
- General Textual Introduction and Textual Accounts of Individual Works
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Headnote
Composed March 1728 (dated 25 March); published March 1728; copy text 1728 (see Textual Account).
This is a product of the reaction to A Short View of the State of Ireland; after its publication in March 1728, Swift received a short pamphlet, To the R—d Dr. J—n S—t, The Memorial of the Poor Inhabitants, Tradesmen, and Labourers of the Kingdom of Ireland (see Appendix A, below), usually attributed to John Browne. The Answer to a Paper, Swift's refutation of the pamphlet's assertions, is dated less than a week after the publication of A Short View, and it was published quickly, appearing in Dublin only a few days later (see Ferguson, pp. 151–2).
The related rising price of corn after two bad harvests, complaints ofmonopolies and profiteering, and the issue of whether Ireland could feed itself, led to Swift recommending (as other writers were to do, and Parliament was to pick up on during the following session) the need to increase the amount of land in Ireland under tillage.
In the parliamentary session of 1727–8, two bills were brought forward to promote tillage: the first was rejected by the British privy council; the second eventually received the royal assent as I Geo. II c. 10 inMay 1728. The tillage bill was part of a broader concern with regulating the market in corn. A separate Act was passed for regulating the assize of bread, enacted 1728 (I Geo. II c. 16). The tillage bill was much solicited by Archbishop Boulter (see his letter to Newcastle, 24 Feb. 1727[/8] Boulter Letters, vol. I, p. 177)). Swift also comments on the monopolising of land by graziers to the detriment of the ordinary cottier and labourer. The context of this particular agricultural problem begins with the passage by the Irish Parliament in 1704 of an Act (II Anne c. 15) to prevent butchers becoming graziers, in an attempt to halt the process by which land in certain parts of Ireland was increasingly being let to large-scale graziers.
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- Irish Political Writings after 1725A Modest Proposal and Other Works, pp. 27 - 39Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2018