Intelligencer, No. 19

Summary

Headnote

Published c. 3–7 Dec.; copy text 1728 (see Textual Account).

Like An Answer to Several Letters from Unknown Persons (see below, pp. 94– 103), this paper is constructed as a response to two correspondents with Swift on Irish economic affairs, the pseudonymous ‘Andrew Dealer and Patrick Pennyless’ of the title, who had written to the Intelligencer (their letter has not survived; see Ferguson, p. 161).

Their letter and Swift's response arise from the continuing economic crisis in Ireland, following three bad harvests beginning in 1726. The effects of these were particularly felt in Ulster, hence Swift's pseudonym, ‘A. North’, a landowner and MP from County Down who explains the reasons for Ireland's financial woes, reiterating ideas Swift had previously put forward in A Short View and An Answer to The Memorial. Particular reference is made to the lack of a mint in Ireland, a point to which Swift would return in discussing the weakness of the currency.

The paper stimulated one of the earliest responses to Swift's work from America, To The Author of those Intelligencers Printed at Dublin, an anonymous pamphlet published in New York in 1733 (see below, Appendix D, pp. 349– 65).

THE INTELLIGENCER, &c

Having on the 12th of October last, receiv’d a LETTER Sign’d Andrew Dealer, and Patrick Pennyless; I believe the following PAPER, just come to my Hands, will be a sufficient Answer to it.

Sic vos non vobis vellera fertis oves.

Virg.

SIR,

I am a Country Gentleman, and a Member of Parliament, with an Estate of about 1400 l. a Year, which as a Northern Landlord, I receive from above two Hundred Tenants, and my Lands having been Let, near twenty Years ago, the Rents, till very lately, were esteemed to be not above half Value; yet by the intolerable Scarcity of Silver, I lye under the greatest Difficulties in receiving them, as well as in paying my Labourers, or buying any thing necessary for my Family from Tradesmen, who are not able to be long out of their Money. But the sufferings of me, and those of my Rank, are Trifles in Comparison, of what the meaner sort undergo; such as the Buyers and Sellers, at Fairs, and Markets; The Shop-keepers in every Town, the Farmers in general.