if they go on, as they have hitherto done, to lay out such large Sums in indulging this Humour, we may in Time expect to pay Part of the dreadful Importation of French Claret, by our Irish Horses.

Swift. I wonder you don't brag of our Importing Jack-Asses, and breeding Mules here, among your other mighty Nothings you boast of so magnificently. For my part, Tom, I see no great Advantage to the Service of Ireland, that a few private Gentlemen have improv'd the Breed of the horned Cattle. You may as well argue, that some of our Irish Senators marrying a few celebrated Toasts for their Beauty, wou'd improve the natural homeliness of the Commonality.

Indeed the Improvement made in the Breed of our Irish Horses, I believe will grow very general, and have more enlarged Consequences, among our People, as Racing favours some of their darling Passions, their Indolence and Idleness, Gaming and Drinking, and the helping our Fox-Hunters off, with their Time and their Fortunes, which I ever thought, two of the greatest Burdens to our Irish Gentlemen in the World. If they wou'd turn themselves, to breed Cattle to mount our Troops, or draw our Carriages, they might indeed save us 5000l. a Year, and do something truly beneficial to our Country; but, Tom, they have Souls above the little Views of being useful, and managing their Expences, and keeping our Cash in the Kingdom, are low Arts and Tricks, fitter for the mean Notions of a Merchant or a Mechanick, than Men of Fortune and Family, that are as proud and as thoughtless as so many noble Spaniards.

Prior. Well, Dean, in spite of all your Objections, I think I have nam'd several considerable Improvements, in our poor Country, which gave me Reason to say, she was on the mending Hand; and I have not nam'd all, for the very encrease of our Numbers of late Years, is a vast Addition to our Strength, Credit, and Figure, as a Nation. I think the Dealers in Political Arithmetick, compute that every Nation, unwasted by Famines, Wars, or Plagues, doubles the Quantity of its People in 250 Years; but I have seen Computations, that between our early Marriages, the Breedyness of our People, the Importations of our Neighbours, the Mildness of our Climate, and the Fertility of our Soil, evidently prove, that we have frequently doubled the Amount of our Inhabitants in half that Time. The Truth is, the matter of Fact is so incontestable, that I need not recollect all the Proofs, on which they ground their Assertion; but I shall only observe to you, Dean, that this is a very singular Advantage, since it is certain, that we out breed the Jews, and in spite of our Wars and Massacres, we seem to multiply like the Polypus, by being cut to Pieces.

Swift. Stuff and Nonsense! To tell me of our Numbers, when they only serve to multiply our Wretchedness and Miseries: Does this prove us on the mending Hand, as you term it? Why you talk like a Physician, that wanted more Fees for doing nothing! 'Tis hard, Tom, you cannot be in the Right sometimes, and speak Truth now and then. Did ever Man before you boast of having Crowds of Beggars? And what are we else? For I verily think, tho' Sir William Petty says, Nature never design'd above one in 500 to beg by forcing them on the Charity of others, (thro' some Lameness, Crookedness, or other accidental Debility, that incapacitates them to Labour) that in Ireland one in seventy are Beggars, (at least for the Summer Season,) and sixty of the Remainder incapable of relieving them, thro' their own Distresses. All the Advantages we have thro' the encrease of our Inhabitants, is, that for want of being employ'd, they furnish us with Thieves, Pilferers and Sharpers, private Wenches, and common Whores, Cheats and Robbers, Pickpockets, Gamesters, Tinkers and Vagabonds. We get also by this blessed means some Foundlings for our Hospitals, and Brats for our Charter Schools, Shoe-boys, and News Criers, and when they're grown up, Recruits for the holy Convents and Nunneries, and the wise and reverend Body of the Popish Priests. We have also the Advantage of able bodied Volunteers, for the Armies of our dear Allies the French; Shoals of Transports, that escape from the Gallows, to the Plantations abroad, and a superfetation of Felons, to give a little Business to our Judges, Justices, and Hangmen at home, and to keep up an Appearance of our being govern'd like other Nations. How many Thousands do we see, take their flight abroad every Year, like Birds of Passage, to search for Food and Subsistance in other Countries? How many Thousands never return again to us, no more than Prisoners to their Confinement, when they've broke loose from their hard Fare, and their Fetters. I do not exaggerate in the least; our Numbers, till we can give them Business at home, are as much a Curse and a Burthen as too large a Garrison in a besieged Town that wants Provisions: If, as political Writers agree, the true Interests of any Country consists in the Prosperity not of some, but of all the People in it, then I am sure Ireland, with her boasted Numbers, is in a bad way; as all her poor Popish Natives, or in other Words, three-fourths of her swarming Inhabitants, have neither Houses, Cloaths, Work, Food, or Fire. This is a dismal self-evident Truth, that demands the serious Consideration of every Irishman, that can think, or can learn to think. At the same Time, our Nobility and Gentry set their Lands excessively high, get their Rents paid to a Penny, have as little fear of Wars or Taxes as of Famines, and live as well (rambling, and squandering their Fortunes all over the World) as any People whatever, without one uneasy Thought, as to the Circumstances of those Crowds of their Countrymen that are starving here. The Truth is, few Men are sick of other People's Ailments; and as these honest Gentlemen find themselves quite at Ease, they can't think others are in Misery. It puts me in mind, Tom, of the famous La Bruyere's Account of a great Statesman in France, who sign'd an Arret, that wou'd have starv'd some Millions of People; however, says he, in his sarcastical way, he is to be excused, for how cou'd he, with his Stomach full of Meat, and his Head fuming with Wine, have any notion of a whole Province perishing with Hunger? In other Countries, where some Care is taken to employ their Hands, and secure them Necessaries of Life, within the reach of their Labour, their Numbers are their Strength and their Happiness; but here where nobody thinks for us, and we are too sottish or desperate to think for ourselves; our Numbers only increase our Misfortunes, like Lice on a diseased and famish'd Beggar. Our common Irish are cloathed with Rags, that wou'd disgrace a Dunghill in Holland; they live five Months in the Year without Food, unless you will call Potatoes and Salt by that Name; nay, they live without Houses, unless Holes twice as big, and twice as dirty, as an English Hogsty, deserve that Title, which they Build too, just for a Year, as Birds build their Nests, and then away to another Place in the Spring. And to brag of our Numbers, in such deplorable Circumstances, is just as rational, as for a Miller to brag of having Thousands of Rats in his Mill, tho' they are starving and thieving, and ready to eat up one another, for a little more Room and Plunder.

Prior. Dear Dean, you are too severe, and have too imbitter'd a way of Speeching, on all Things relating to Ireland. I reckon the encrease of our Hands the greater Blessing, as the advancement of our Linen Business is likely in some Years, to find Employment for Crowds of our People; and consequently to give them all the Conveniences, as well as the Necessaries of Life, in a reasonable Plenty: The prodigious Progress which this useful Manufacture, had made among us, was also another Reason for my saying, I left