The Drapier’s Letters (1724): Letter V. To Lord Viscount Molesworth

Abstract

Appearing in print on December 31, 1724, this Letter is addressed to Robert Molesworth (1656–1725), a prominent Whig statesman and political writer, and an M.P. in both the British and Irish parliaments, whose country seat two miles north of Dublin served as a well-known meeting place for liberal and unorthodox thinkers, including William Molyneux, the churchman Edward Synge, and the Dissenting philosopher Francis Hutcheson. In earlier days Molesworth was attacked by Swift for his anti-clericalism, but he later won Swift’s respect through his strong support of the “Irish interest.” According to a prefatory set of “Directions to the Printer,” the Letter “contains only a short Account of my self and an humble Apology for my former Pamphlets, especially the last; with little mention of Mi. Wood, or his Half-pence…” The more relaxed and personal tone suggested here is a reflection of Swift’s sense that the worst of the coinage crisis was over, underscored by the Drapier’s judicial triumph a month earlier in relation to his paper, Seasonable Advice (see notes 32 and 36, below). Nevertheless, this Letter takes its place alongside the earlier ones as a serious political statement in its espousal of liberty as the ultimate political goal, and if anything, is even more subversive than the others in its author’s identification with thinkers and writers who represent a radical Whig, even Republican tradition.