Page:Jonathan Swift (Whibley).djvu/33

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With characteristic frankness he disclaimed the name of patriot. "I do profess without affectation," he wrote to Pope, "that your kind opinion of me as a patriot, since you will call it so, is what I do not deserve; because what I do is owing to perfect rage and resentment, and the mortifying sight of slavery, folly, and baseness about me, among which I am forced to live." He was furiously enraged against the Irish for not making the best of their resources, against the English for the unjust restrictions which they put upon Irish industries. It irked him that all the profitable offices in the country should be held by those to whom reversions had been granted, that the notorious Bubb Dodington, for instance, should be Clerk of the Pells, at a salary of £2500 a year. And when once he had been convinced of the prevailing injustice, he put all the eloquence of his scorn at the service of Ireland. First came his proposal for the universal use of Irish manufactures, utterly rejecting and renouncing everything wearable that was made in England. He