Therefore by this expression, a “depending kingdom,” there is no more understood than that by a statute made here in the 33d year of Henry 8th.  “The King and his successors are to be kings imperial of this realm as united and knit to the imperial crown of England.”  I have looked over all the English and Irish statutes without finding any law that makes Ireland depend upon England, any more than England does upon Ireland.  We have indeed obliged ourselves to have the same king with them, and consequently they are obliged to have the same king with us.  For the law was made by our own Parliament, and our ancestors then were not such fools (whatever they were in the preceding reign) to bring themselves under I know not what dependence, which is now talked of without any ground of law, reason or common sense.[18]

[Footnote 18:  This was the passage selected by the government upon which to found its prosecution.  As Sir Walter Scott points out, it “contains the pith and essence of the whole controversy.” [T.S.]]

Let whoever think otherwise, I M.B.  Drapier, desire to be excepted,[19] for I declare, next under God, I depend only on the King my sovereign, and on the laws of my own country; and I am so far from depending upon the people of England, that if they should ever rebel against my sovereign (which God forbid) I would be ready at the first command from His Majesty to take arms against them, as some of my countrymen did against theirs at Preston.  And if such a rebellion should prove so successful as to fix the Pretender on the throne of England, I would venture to transgress that statute so far as to lose every drop of my blood to hinder him from being King of Ireland.[20]

[Footnote 19:  For a humorous story which accounts for Swift’s use of the words “desire to be excepted,” see the Drapier’s sixth letter. [T.S.]]

[Footnote 20:  Great offence was taken at this paragraph.  Swift refers to it again in his sixth letter.  Sir Henry Craik, in his “Life of Jonathan Swift” (vol. ii., p. 74), has an acute note on this paragraph, and the one already alluded to in the sixth letter.  I take the liberty of transcribing it:  “The manoeuvre by which Swift managed to associate a suspicion of Jacobitism with his opponents, is one peculiarly characteristic; and so is the skill with which, in the next letter, he meets the objections to this paragraph, by half offering an extent of submission that might equally be embarrassing—­a submission even to Jacobitism, if Jacobitism were to become strong enough.  He does not commit himself, however:  he fears a ‘spiteful interpretation.’  In short, he places the English Cabinet on the horns of a dilemma.  ’Am I to resist Jacobitism?  Then what becomes of your doctrine of Ireland’s dependency?’ or, ’Am I to become a Jacobite, if England bids me?  Then what becomes of your Protestant succession?  Must even that give way to your desire to tyrannize?’” [T.S.]]