Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 5.djvu/231

No. 19., that rats and cats and dead horses have been often bought for gold in a town besieged.

There is a person of quality in my neighbourhood, who, twenty years ago, when he was just come to age, being unexperienced, and of a generous temper, let his lands, even as times went then, at a low rate to able tenants; and consequently, by the rise of lands since that time, looked upon his estate to be set at half value: but numbers of these tenants or their descendants, are now offering to sell their leases by cant, even those which were for lives, some of them renewable for ever, and some feefarms, which the landlord himself has bought in at half the price they would have yielded seven years ago. And some leases let at the same time for lives, have been given up to him, without any consideration at all.

This is the most favourable face of all things at present among us; I say, among us of the North, who were esteemed the only thriving people of the kingdom. And how far, and how soon, this misery and desolation may spread, it is easy to foresee.

The vast sums of money daily carried off by our numerous adventurers to America, have deprived us of our gold in these parts, almost as much as of our silver. And the good wives, who come to our houses, offer us their pieces of linen, upon which their whole dependance lies, for so little profit, that it can neither half pay their rents, nor half support their families.

It is remarkable, that this enthusiasm spread among