D - To The Author of Those Intelligencers Printed at Dublin

Summary

This 1733 pamphlet attempts to refute the claims made in Intelligencer 19 concerning Irish emigration to America (above pp. 94–7). It was published in New York, and thus represents an unusually early American response to Swift. Although its authorship is unknown, it is possible that it was written by James Alexander, the editor of the New York Journal (which shared the same publisher, John Peter Zenger), and a supporter of the Lewis Morris faction, or ‘Country party’, inNew York, which had a strongDissenting constituency. See MichaelKammen: ColonialNewYork:AHistory,New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1975, pp. 203–7. An abridged version was printed as Appendix K of Woolley, Intelligencer.

To the Author of those Intelligencers printed at Dublin, to which is prefixed the following Motto,

Omne vafer vitium ridenti Flaccus amico

Tangit, & admissus circum præcordia ludit.

Persius.

Being a Defence of the Plantations against the virulent Aspersions of that Writer, and such as copy after him.

Non pugnam aspicere hanc oculis, non fædera possum,

Tu pro Germano, si quid præsentius audes

Perge, decet.- - - - - -

Though your Works put in a noisy Claim to a Resemblance of this Masterly Picture, yet they can have no Title to it in the Eyes of competent Judges, if from Distance or Misinformation you suffer your self to be deceived in Facts: For then, what you would seem to intend for gentle pleasing Reformation, becomes undeserved Scandal and bitter Reproach; and consequently, Reflections arising from Facts falsely introduced, such as have no Foundation in Truth, will destroy the Character which they are meant to support.

I SHALL make no Apology for so late an Answer, because it was promised that the Cause of the Plantations should have been undertaken by a more able Pen; but that Promise is not perform’d as yet: And moreover you will please to observe, that this Letter is from North America, where we receive all the Productions of Europe from the last Hand;3 and the Fame of your Intelligencers had reach’d me long before I could obtain a Sight of them.

Your 6th and 19th Numbers contain a melancholy Description of Ireland and its Inhabitants; but upon this Subject, and without one just Cause assign’d.