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Swift's View of the Dutch

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Ellen Douglass Leyburn
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Extract

In the midst of the large passionateness of Gulliver's Travels it is something of a shock to come upon the passage near the beginning of the Voyage to Laputa: “I OBSERVED among them a Dutchman, who seemed to be of some Authority, although he were not the Commander of either Ship. He knew us by our Countenances to be Englishmen, and jabbering to us in his own Language, swore we should be Tyed Back to Back, and thrown into the Sea.” He continues to be vindictive until Gulliver gets into the canoe: “while the Dutchman, standing upon the Deck, loaded me with all the Curses and injurious Terms his Language could afford.” Swift emphasizes his cruelty by contrast with the lenity of the Japanese pirates. The idea that Dutch Christianity is a mockery suggested by this contrast with the heathen pirates is intensified at the end of the book when Gulliver pretending to be a Hollander yet contrives to avoid trampling on the crucifix, so that the Emperor began to doubt “whether I were a real Hollander or no; but rather suspected I must be a CHRISTIAN. However, for the Reasons I had offered, but chiefly to gratify the King of Luggnagg, by an uncommon Mark of his Favour he would comply with the Singularity of my Humour; but the Affair must be managed with Dexterity, and his Officers should be commanded to let me pass as it were by Forgetfulness. For he assured me, that if the secret should be discovered by my Countrymen, the Dutch, they would cut my Throat in the Voyage” (200–201). Such venom against a particular nation is out of keeping with Swift's claim that the same vices and follies obtain in every civilized country of Europe and that all are equally indicted in his work. Furthermore, it interrupts the artistic scheme which demands that the satire, both general and particular, be digested into the allegory. Swift's rancor against the Dutch must have had a peculiar force to make him thus break the announced largeness of his plan of vexing the world rather than particular nations and break also the artistic pattern of his mockery.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 66 , Issue 5 , September 1951 , pp. 734 - 745
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1951

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References

Note 1 in page 734 Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, ed. Herbert Davis (Oxford, 1941), xi, 138–139.

Note 2 in page 734 Correspondence of Jonathan Swift, ed. F. Elrington Ball (London, 1910), iii, 407.

Note 3 in page 735 It is worth noting that while Swift does include the other allies in his chastisement in The Conduct of the Allies, it is against the Dutch that he seems to wish to stir up real dislike; the subsequent pamphlets on the Barrier Treaty he aims solely at the Dutch; and in The History of the Four Last Years he hardly bothers to bring the other allies into his denunciation of the States General.

Note 4 in page 735 The Allies and the Late Ministry Defended against France And the Present Friends of France, In Answer to a Pamphlet, entitled, The Conduct of the Allies (London, 1712). Actually published 1711, the first of four strongly argued pamphlets by Francis Hare.

Note 5 in page 735 See especially An Enquiry into the Behaviour of the Queen's Last Ministry, in The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, ed. Temple Soctt (London, 1901), v, 425–476.

Note 6 in page 735 The Dutch Barrier Our's: or the Interest of England and Holland Inseparable, with Reflections on the Insolent Treatment the Emperor and States-General have met with from the Author of the Conduct, and his Brethren. To which is added. An Enquiry into the Cases of the Clamour against the Dutch (London, 1712), p. 4; and Remarks on a False, Scandalous, and Seditious Libel, intituled, The Conduct of the Allies, And of the Late Ministry &c. (London, 1711).

Note 7 in page 736 A Full Answer to the Conduct of the Allies: To which is added, Some Observations on the Remarks on the Barrier Treaty (London, 1712), p. 16.

Note 8 in page 736 See, e.g., Journal to Stella, ed. Harold Williams (Oxford, 1948), ii, 397, 487.

Note 9 in page 736 The Dutch themselves apparently did very little in the pamphlet war. In the collection of Dutch political pamphlets in the Fagel Library in Trinity College, Dublin, most of the pamphlets on the subject are Dutch or French translatons of those already published in England. Professor Pieter Geyl of Utrecht first suggested to me that part of the success of Swift and Arbuthnot was due to the fact that the Dutch had no comparable pamphleteers.

Note 10 in page 736 A Further Search into the Conduct of the Allies (London, 1712), p. 3.

Note 11 in page 737 John Forster, Life of Swift (London, 1875), I, 14, 18, 260.

Note 12 in page 737 G. N. Clark, The Later Stuarts, 1660–1714 (Oxford, 1934), p. 225.

Note 13 in page 737 A passage from The Dutch Barrier Our's illustrates this attitude in rebuke: “Only, I cannot omit reflecting on the unfair Treatment the Dutch meet with from these Men, who condemn them Unheard and what is more barbarous, bring Things to remembrance for which they have expiated with their Blood: We having begun Three terrible Wars with that Nation for Old Claims in the Indies, and some Disputes between Merchants, which we wou'd always have decided by Arms. We have forgot the Generous Assistance they gave us at the Spanish Invasion. We have forgot the Tyranny of the Earl of Leicester, and his Military Government, which had like to have ruin'd their State in its Infancy. We blame the Dutch for taking possession of Places we abandon'd as the Cape in particular, and forget how we drove them out of those they were possess'd of, as New-York. We have forgot their sending an Embassy to Engage the Parliament, to make Peace with King Charles the First, which they told them concern'd all Protestans and particularly themselves, And that the Two Houses were so well satisfy'd of their good Intentions to the King, that they would give ‘em no Answer. We have forgot their doing more for his son K. Charles the Second, in his Exile, than all the States in Europe; in so much that that Prince said to them when he left Holland, He should never forget it; and afterwards, That he believ'd his own impatient Subjects cou'd not receive him with more Affection. This He himself forgot in 4 or 5 Years. As we have done since, our Attempt to Surprize their Turky Fleet in Time of Peace; our Burnings and Ravages at the Isle of Vlie; and many other such unmannerly Exploits, which the Dutch, as ill bred as they are said to be, have never been so unmannerly as to upbraid us with, or so ill natur'd at [sic] to remember. Do not we imagine that the States might have a Reckoning for us, if they wou'd retrospect; and that if it were possible for ‘em to have such Libellers, as the Remarker and his Brethren, in their Dominions, they might not find Matter enough to retort upon us? . . . And shou'd we foment Divisions between us in a Time of a Joint War, which wou'd be Madness to encourage in Time of Peace?” (p. 18).

Note 14 in page 737 See esp. The History of John Bull, ed. H. Teerink (Amsterdam, 1925), pp. 141, 143.

Note 15 in page 738 Works, ed. Temple Scott, v, 78.

Note 16 in page 738 The Barrier-Treaty Vindicated (London, 1712), p. 14.

Note 17 in page 738 The History of the Four Last Years of the Queen, in Prose Works, ed. Temple Scott, x, 41–42. The corollary to this scorn of the plebeian taste of Dutchmen was often an almost fawning respect for the elegant taste of Frenchmen; but there was no such accompaniment to Swift's dislike of the Dutch.

Note 18 in page 739 The Conduct of the Allies, ed. C. B. Wheeler (Oxford, 1916), p. xxvi.

Note 19 in page 739 Walter Sichel, Bolingbroke and His Times (London, 1901), p. 205.

Note 20 in page 739 G. M. Trevelyan, England under Queen Anne (New York, 1930–34), ii, 133–134, and iii, 31, 211–212; and Keith Feiling, History of the Tory Party, 1640–1714 (Oxford, 1924), p. 448 (see also pp. 169 and 172).

Note 21 in page 739 C. G. Robertson feels that the English especially dislike and mistrust foreign alliances: “As a nation we dislike war intensely and we have always treated it like the big speculator in the money market—if unsuccessful, cut the loss, get out as soon as possible and wait for a better time; if successful, get out also as quickly as you decently can, and take your profits in so doing. By 1708 the mentality of 1702 had evaporated and the British mind was convinced that a reasonable peace was not only possible but urgently needed. We have never liked or understood foreign allies and both Bolingbroke and Swift had grasped the growing public opinion that a continuance of the war was a submission to the selfish greed of allies that it was not our interest to satisfy. The British mind was to exhibit in very different circumstances the same attitude towards war and allies in 1747–48, in 1761–3, in 1781–3 and in 1814–15; and some would add in 1855–6 and in 1918–19.” Bolingbroke (London, 1947), pp. 3–4.

Note 22 in page 739 Swift's mistrust of a national debt colors his feeling about England's incurring so large an expense in the war. See The History of the Four Last Years of the Queen, in Prose Works, ed. Temple Scott, x, 83 ff.

Note 23 in page 739 Trevelyan, n, 133, 161; iii, 28–29.

Note 24 in page 740 The Later Stuarts, p. 225.

Note 25 in page 740 The usefulness of Drummond to the English ministry is made clear in St. John's recommendation of him to the new ambassador: “No one man contributed so much to give the Dutch a true notion of our affairs, to quiet their minds, & to resettle a confidence as this gentleman.” Brit. Mus. Birch MS. 4163.

Note 26 in page 740 Letters and Correspondence, Public and Private, of the Right Honourable Henry St. John, Lord-Visc. Bolingbroke (London, 1798), i, 26–27.

Note 27 in page 741 I, 191–195. See also St. John's “A Letter to the Examiner,” rptd. as Appendix A in Prose Works of Swift, ed. Davis, iii, 220–227.

Note 28 in page 741 Brit. Mus. Add. MS. 22205.

Note 29 in page 742 Bolingbroke's Defense of the Treaty of Utrecht being Letters VI-VIII of the Study and Use of History, ed. G. M. Trevelyan (Cambridge, 1932), pp. 124–128.

Note 30 in page 742 The references to the negotiations in The Journal to Stella fully reveal his attitude.

Note 31 in page 743 Homer ?. Woodbridge, Sir William Temple, the Man and his Work (New York: MLA, 1940), pp. 128 ff.

Note 32 in page 743 Observations upon the United Provinces of the Netherlands, ed. G. N. Clark (Cambridge, 1932), p. 77.

Note 33 in page 744 If St. John played up their smallness of mind more than moderation in their contentment with lives barren of luxury, Swift is shrewd enough not to use this argument in the Conduct, where Marlborough's grasping at luxury is being reproved.

Note 34 in page 744 Another evidence of the way Temple's views remained in Swift's mind is the parallel in the analysis of the legitimate causes of war which opens The Conduct of the Allies with the following passage from Temple's Survey of the Constitutions and Interests of the Empire, Sweden, etc.: “It may be laid (I believe) for a Maxim, That no wise state will ever begin a War, unless it be upon designs of Conquests, or necessity of Defence; for all other Wars serve only to exhaust Forces and Treasure, and end in untoward Peace, patcht up out of weakness or weariness of the Parties.” Works of Temple (London, 1720), i, 90.

Note 35 in page 745 Sentiments of a Church of England Man, in Prose Works, ed. Temple Scott, iii, 57–58.

Note 36 in page 745 There is a most interesting discussion of the reasons for Swift's feeling about both Roman Catholics and dissenters by G. V. Jourdain, “The Religion of Dean Swift,” Church Quarterly Review (June-Sept. 1938), pp. 281–282.