Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 9.djvu/369

Rh our linen, to the value, as I am told, of thirty thousand pounds a year. But, while we deal like pedlars, we shall practise like pedlars, and sacrifice all honesty to the present urging advantage.

What I have said may serve as an answer to the desire made me by the corporation of weavers, that I would offer my notions to the publick. As to any thing farther, let them apply themselves to the parliament in their next session. Let them prevail on the house of commons to grant one very reasonable request; and I shall think there is still some spirit left in the nation, when I read a vote to this purpose: "Resolved, nemine contradicente, That this house will, for the future, wear no cloths but such as are made of Irish growth or of Irish manufacture, nor will permit their wives or children to wear any other; and that they will, to the utmost, endeavour to prevail with their friends, relations, dependents, and tenants, to follow their example." And if, at the same time, they could banish tea and coffee, and chinaware, out of their families, and force their wives to chat their scandal over an infusion of sage, or other wholesome domestick vegetables, we might possibly be able to subsist, and pay our absentees, pensioners, generals, civil officers, appeals, colliers, temporary travellers, students, schoolboys, splenetick visitors of Bath, Tunbridge, and Epsom, with all other smaller drains, by sending our crude unwrought goods to England, and receiving from thence, and all other countries, nothing but what is fully manufactured, and keep a few potatoes and oatmeal for our own subsistence.

I have been for a dozen years past wisely prognosticating the present condition of this kingdom; Rh