er hated Beggars more than you did, that had Health and
Hands, and could work and help themselves, and would not. If our People
will neither set up Manufactures, nor encourage them when set up, if
they will not promote Agriculture by large Premiums through the
Kingdom, but had rather beg Bread from their industrious Neighbours; if
they will neither build Granaries, or set up Fisheries or Collieries:
If Gentlemen will neither live at home, nor build and improve their
Estates, to tempt their Sons to live there; if they see Societies set
up for the Service of _Ireland_, and won't spare Shillings a-piece from
their Diversions, to increase their Force and Power to help us, are the
_English_ to be blamed, or ourselves, if they leave it to our Choice
either to mend our Follies, or to suffer by them.

SWIFT. The Truth is (though I am loth to confess it) I fear we are too
lazy, because we are not extraordinarily encouraged, either here or by
_England_; and probably they want to see us more alert, before they
help us further; and in the mean time, between our Gentlemen who go
abroad for Pleasure, and our Poor for Bread, we are like a Ship that is
run a-ground, and the Hands which should have saved her gone off.
People that are unfortunate love to have some one to lay the Blame on;
and so we rail at _England_, as I remember Mrs. _Halley_ (the Wife of
the famous Astronomer) did at the Stars, who used to wring her Hands,
and bawl out, My Curse, and God's Curse upon them for Stars, for they
have ruined me and my Family; whereas, like _Job_'s Wife, she ought to
have cursed her Husband for his star-gazing Folly. At the same Time I
never did, nor ever will forgive _England_ for not helping us more than
she does: We are a Mint in her Hands, but through her Negligence or
Diffidence it is an unwrought one, though the Ore is vastly rich and
promising.

PRIOR. I must agree with you there, and yet I am convinced, that the
Fear of making their own People jealous, the Weight of their Debts,
their violent Parties, and their decayed Trade, prevent their doing all
they would for us or themselves; the Charity, the unbounded Charity,
_England_ extended to us at the Revolution, her Encouragement to our
Linens, our Woollen Yarn, and our Cambricks, and to name no more, her
Benefactions to our Charter-Schools, are Evidences of her Love to us
which can never be forgotten. But beside all this, if _England_ has a
Zeal for her own Welfare, she must have a