nd our
Plenty, our Weather and our Climate, as if we strove to bring over a
greater Crowd of _English_ Refugees hither.

PRIOR. Refugees! dear _Dean_, how can you indulge such an Acrimony of
Speech? That is not only an invidious, but a sarcastical and barbarous
Expression.

SWIFT. Not a whit. I speak only of such as come over to us, for their
Love to Religion, for the hope of Liberty of Conscience, whatever they
believe, or Preferments in the Church, whatever they Practice, or to
avoid Persecution from Men arm'd with Power and the Laws, the
Rapaciousness of Creditors, and the Insolence of Sheriffs and Bailiffs,
and to live at peace here, with quiet Minds and easy Circumstances.
This is a true Notion of a Refugee, and I think such People come over
fast enough without such ostentatious Proclamations to give them new
Encouragements: My Conduct always took a different Turn, and if I had
liv'd a little longer, I had wrote a Treatise to prove _Ireland_, the
most inhospitable and barbarous of all habitable Islands, and the very
Piss-pot of the Western World. I even made it a Rule to rail at it all
I could, to frighten such People from coming hither, lest hearing there
was Corn in the Land, shou'd invite them over to eat it up, while we
were kept Starving. You pretend to take Offence at my Expressions, but
I see plainly, what vext you was, because forsooth I reflected with
some Spleen, on your little huckstering Society, with its two-penny
Rewards and three-penny Premiums, for going any silly Errands you sent
People on; and so in mere Contradiction you make them reform our Heaven
and our Earth, and mend our very Climate and the Face of Nature. For my
part as to the Face of Nature and the Country, I know no great
Alterations, but the shaving her Beard close, and cutting down all her
Woods, so that we now pay 40,000 _l._ per Annum for imported Timber.
When I was an Inhabitant of this lower World, I remember I lov'd the
Country well enough in the Summer Season; but I cou'd not bear to spend
much Time in it, as I never cou'd Walk or ride in a single Field; that
did not put me in a Passion, either to see it as wild as ever Nature
left it after the Mud of the Deluge; or at least not so much improv'd
as it might be, if the Owner had common Sense or common Industry. What
ever enrag'd me most was, that tho' such Fellows I knew by Experience,
wou'd venture their Limbs or their Necks for a Guinea, yet they had not
the Skill to make Five