The text of this edition is based on that given by Faulkner in the
     ninth volume of his edition of Swift issued in 1772.

     [T.  S.]

ANSWER TO THE CRAFTSMAN.[138]

 SIR,

I detest reading your papers, because I am not of your principles, and because I cannot endure to be convinced.  Yet I was prevailed on to peruse your Craftsman of December the 12th, wherein I discover you to be as great an enemy of this country, as you are of your own.  You are pleased to reflect on a project I proposed, of making the children of Irish parents to be useful to the public instead of being burdensome;[139] and you venture to assert, that your own scheme is more charitable, of not permitting our Popish natives to be listed in the service of any foreign prince.

Perhaps, sir, you may not have heard of any kingdom so unhappy as this, both in their imports and exports.  We import a sort of goods, of no intrinsic value, which costeth us above forty thousand pounds a year to dress, and scour, and polish them, which altogether do not yield one penny advantage;[140] and we annually export above seven hundred thousand pounds a year in another kind of goods, for which we receive not one single farthing in return; even the money paid for the letters sent in transacting this commerce being all returned to England.  But now, when there is a most lucky opportunity offered to begin a trade, whereby this nation will save many thousand pounds a year, and England be a prodigious gainer, you are pleased, without a call, officiously and maliciously to interpose with very frivolous arguments.

It is well known, that about sixty years ago the exportation of live cattle from hence to England was a great benefit to both kingdoms, until that branch of traffic was stopped by an act of Parliament on your side, whereof you have had sufficient reason to repent.[141] Upon which account, when another act passed your Parliament, forbidding the exportation of live men to any foreign country, you were so wise to put in a clause, allowing it to be done by his Majesty’s permission, under his sign manual,[142] for which, among other great benefits granted to Ireland, we are infinitely obliged to the British legislature.  Yet this very grace and favour you, Mr. D’Anvers, whom we never disobliged, are endeavouring to prevent; which, I will take upon me to say, is a manifest mark of your disaffection to his Majesty, a want of duty to the ministry, and a wicked design of oppressing this kingdom, and a traitorous attempt to lessen the trade and manufacture of England.