Headnote

Probably composed September 1726; published posthumously, 1765; copy text 1765a (see Textual Account); the footnote that forms part of this text was provided by the editor, Deane Swift.

A fragment printed alongside Upon Giving Badges to the Poor in 1765, and generally thought to be from the same period of composition (c. 1726), Considerations revisits the same issues of poverty and vagrancy, reflecting the deteriorating situation inDublin from 1726 onwards, whichmarked the beginning of continuing bad harvests for three years. It was becoming increasingly clear that the Dublin workhouse could not cope with the increased numbers of indigent coming to the city from the countryside, and there was therefore much discussion of amelioration.

Near the end of the fragment, Swift refers to a complaint against the workhouse under its former governors (see below, pp. 308–9). This might indicate (if the reference is specific, rather than general) that the draft was written after the restructuring of its governing body after an Act of Parliament in 1728, and not at the same time as Upon Giving Badges, as is usually assumed.

CONSIDERATIONS ABOUT MAINTAINING THE POOR.

We have been amused, for at least thirty years past, with numberless schemes in writing and discourse, both in and out of parliament, for maintaining the poor, and setting them to work, especially in this city; most of which were idle, indigested, or visionary, and all of them ineffectual, as it hath plainly appeared by the consequences. Many of those projectors were so stupid, that they drew a parallel from Holland and England, to be settled in Ireland; that is to say, from two countries with full freedom and encouragement for trade, to a third where all kind of trade is cramped, and the most beneficial parts are entirely taken away. But the perpetual infelicity of false and foolish reasoning, as well as proceeding and acting upon it, seems to be fatal to this country.

For my own part, who have much conversed with those folks who call themselves Merchants, I do not remember to have met with a more ignorant and wrong thinking race of people in the very first rudiments of trade; which, however, was not so much owing to their want of capacity, as to the crazy constitution of this kingdom, where pedlars are better qualified to thrive than the wisest merchants.