A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People From Being a Burthen to Their Parents, or Country; and for Making Them Beneficial to the Publick

Summary

Headnote

Composed 1729; published October 1729; copy text 1729a (see Textual Account).

A Modest Proposal has become Swift's most famous pamphlet satire, but also reflects the general direction of Swift's Irish prose writings in the years 1728–9 in its depiction of the present state of Ireland, and the impossibility of its being improved, without some fundamental reappraisal of the Anglo-Irish constitutional relationship (albeit a premise in the pamphlet veiled in complex and contentious layers of irony). It also reflects particular issues which were heavily discussed in 1729, particularly the emigration ofUlster Presbyterians to North America, as well as the ongoing problem of vagrancy inDublin, and the countryside at large. Ironically perhaps, it appeared after the first good harvest in four years, which would in due course relieve some of the stress in the Irish economy. It may also be significant that it appeared at the beginning of the Parliamentary session of 1729–30, during whichMPs would be considering a range of initiatives designed for Irish economic recovery.

It was published in Dublin before the end of October 1729, and quickly reprinted (in slightly different versions) in London; the edition reprinted in London in A Libel on Dr Delany (1730) was the first to add the qualifier ‘in Ireland’ to its title. Henceforth the pamphlet was included in every significant edition of Swift's writings, from the Miscellanies of 1732 and the Faulkner Works of 1735 onwards. For further context and discussion, see Introduction, pp. lxxiv–lxxxvii.

A MODEST PROPOSAL &c

It is a melancholly Object to those, who walk through this great Town, or travel in the Country, when they see the Streets, the Roads, and Cabbin- Doors, crowded with Beggars of the female Sex, followed by three, four, or six Children, all in Rags, and importuning every Passenger for an Alms. These Mothers instead of being able to work for their honest livelyhood, are forced to employ all their time in Stroling, to beg Sustenance for their helpless Infants, who, as they grow up either turn Thieves for want of work, or leave their dear native Country to fight for the Pretender in Spain, or sell themselves to the Barbadoes.