Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 9.djvu/321

Rh some concerns of his own; and he began to use me accordingly, neglecting by degrees all common civility in his behaviour. I shall never forget the speech he made me one morning, which he delivered with all the gravity in the world. He put me in mind of the vast obligations I lay under to him in sending me so many of his people for my own good, and to teach me manners: that it had cost him ten times more than I was worth to maintain me: that it had been much better for him if I had been damned, or burnt, or sunk to the bottom of the sea: that it was reasonable I should strain myself as far as I was able to reimburse him some of his charges: that from henceforward he expected his word should be a law to me in all things; that I must maintain a parish watch against thieves and robbers, and give salaries to an overseer, a constable, and others, all of his own choosing, whom he would send from time to time to be spies upon me: that to enable me the better in supporting these expenses, my tenants should be obliged to carry all their goods cross the river to his own town market, and pay toll on both sides, and then sell them at half value. But because we were a nasty sort of people, and that he could not endure to touch any thing we had a hand in, and likewise, because he wanted work to employ his own folks, therefore we must send all our goods to his market just in their naturals; the milk immediately from the cow, without making it into cheese or butter; the corn in the ear; the grass as it is mowed; the wool as it comes from the sheep's back; and bring the fruit upon the branch, that he might not be obliged to eat it after our filthy hands: that if a tenant carried but a piece of bread and Rh