This "Answer" forms an excellent continuation of the "Modest Proposal." It is in an entirely different vein, but is, in its own way, an admirable example of Swift's strength in handling a public question. The English government had been offering every facility to French officers for recruiting their army from Ireland. The "Craftsman" made some strong remarks on this, and Primate Boulter, in his letter to the Duke of Newcastle, under date October 14th, 1730, told his Grace, "that after consulting with the Lords Justices on the subject he found that they apprehend there will be greater difficulties in this affair than at first offered." He enters into the difficulties to be overcome in order to act in consonance with the wishes of his Majesty, and promises that "effectual care shall be taken that none of the officers who are come hither, suffer on this account" (Letter, pp. 26-27, vol. ii., Dublin, edit. 1770). Swift uses the matter for his own purposes and ironically welcomes this chance for the depopulation of Ireland. "When our island is a desert, we will send all our raw material to England, and receive from her all our manufactured articles. A leather coinage will be all we want, separated, as we shall then be, from all human kind. We shall have lost all; but we may be left in peace, and we shall have no more to tempt the plunderer." Scott styles this "Answer" a masterpiece.
The text of this edition is based on that given by Faulkner in the ninth volume of his edition of Swift issued in 1772.
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 public instead of being burdensome;[139] 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. We import a sort of goods, of no intrinsic value, which costeth us above forty thousand pounds a year to dress, and scour, and polish them, which altogether do not yield one penny advantage;[140] and we annually export above seven hundred thousand pounds a year in another kind of goods, for which we receive not one single farthing in return; even the money paid for the letters sent in transacting this commerce being all returned to England. But now, when there is a most lucky opportunity offered to begin a trade, whereby this nation will save many thousand pounds a year, and England be a prodigious gainer, you are pleased, without a call, officiously and maliciously to interpose with very frivolous arguments.