e lately issued a Placart,
forbidding all their Subjects (excepting Day-Labourers who are too poor
to trangress it) to wear any Silk or Woollen Goods not Fabricated in
their Provinces. The greatest Personages are restrain'd herein by
severe Penalties, and tho' we cannot make such a Law, (nor perhaps
shou'd not desire it in Respect to one Country at least) yet certainly
we shou'd form general Resolutions, and try to Establish an universal
Custom (which is equal to any Law) of Feeding and Encouraging our own
Workmen and Tradesmen.

PRIOR. Laws, Mr. _Dean_, are not so much wanting, as the Will to favour
our own Goods, and our own People; and surely as you observe, all who
please, may determine in their several Families, to use the Produce of
our _Irish_ Looms; and in the mean Time I cannot but make this sad
Reflection, that if Industry and Labour be the great Standard of Value
in most Things, what (under such Discouragements) can our unemploy'd
Country be worth, which except our Linens, sends abroad all the
Materials for Labour to others, and lies abed like a _Spaniard_,
burning Day-Light, and proud of doing Nothing.

SWIFT. I remember to have Read, when I used to lose Time upon Men and
Books, that among the _Turks_, every Man of them learns some Trade or
other. This Fashion they probably borrow'd from the _Jews_, who made it
a Maxim, that he who does not give his Son a Trade, teaches him to be a
Thief: And yet till our Protestants Taught the _Irish_ better Manners,
a Trade was as seldom learn'd as a Psalter. It is true of late Years
this Folly has been pretty much subdued, and Numbers of our Natives
have distinguish'd themselves, by their Skill in different Arts and
Handicrafts, but till this Humour wears off, of slighting whatever is
wrought at Home, it were better they had learn'd to Fast than to Work.
We keep Crowds of our Artificers naked who well-deserve to be cloathed;
many are as ill hutted as so many _Greenlanders_ or _Russian_ Peasants,
who ought to be well housed, if any one thought them worth taking Care
of and Encouraging. But what is still more unhappy, Thousands of them
are forced for fear of Jails and Beggary, to run from us to wiser
Countries, where they and their Arts are well receiv'd and favour'd by
our Enemies or Rivals, whose Industry and Exports they Encrease, and
thereby help to Starve the Friends they have forsaken. One wou'd expect
common Charity to them and ourselves, and common Sense in conduct