eive 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.

[T. S.]

ANSWER TO THE CRAFTSMAN.[138]

SIR,

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.

It is well known, that about sixty years ago the exportation of live
cattle from hence to England was a great benefit to both kingdoms, until
that branch of traffic was stopped by an act of Parliament on your side,
whereof you have had sufficient reason to repent.[141] Upon which
account, when another act passed your Parliament, forbidding the
exportation of live men to any foreign country, you were so wise to put
in a clause, allowing it to be done by his Majesty's permission, under
his sign manual,[142