publication of
"Gulliver's Travels," but Sir Henry Craik thinks that Swift had
other thoughts. "As regards politics," says this biographer, "he
was encouraged to hope that without loss either of honour or
consistency, it was open to him to make terms with the new powers.
In the end, the result proved that he either over-estimated his own
capacity of surrendering his independence, or under-estimated the
terms that would be exacted." This remark would leave it open for a
reader to conclude that Swift would, at a certain price, have been
ready to join Walpole and his party. But the letters referred to do
not in the least warrant such a conclusion. Swift's thought was for
Ireland, and had he been successful with Walpole in his pleading
for Ireland's cause that minister might have found an ally in
Swift; but the price to be paid was not to the man. From Swift's
letter to Peterborough we are at once introduced to Ireland's case,
and his point of view on this was so opposed to Walpole's
preconceived notions of how best to govern Ireland, as well as of
his settled plans, that Swift found, as he put it, that Walpole
"had conceived opinions ... which I could not reconcile to the
notions I had of liberty." Not at all of his own liberty, but of
that of the liberty of a nation; for, as he says (giving now the
quotation in full): "I had no other design in desiring to see Sir
Robert Walpole, than to represent the affairs of Ireland to him in
a true light, not only without any view to myself, but to any party
whatsoever ... I failed very much in my design; for I saw that he
had conceived opinions, _from the example and practices of the
present, and some former governors_, which I could not reconcile to
the notions I had of liberty." The part given here in italics is
omitted by Sir H. Craik in his quotation.

Swift saw Walpole twice--once at Walpole's invitation at a dinner
at Chelsea, and a second time at his own wish, expressed through
Lord Peterborough. At the first meeting nothing of politics could
be broached, as the encounter was a public one. The second meeting
was private and resulted in nothing. The letter to Peterborough was
written by Swift the day after he had seen Walpole, and
Peterborough was requested to show it to that minister. The letter
is