Swift: The Drapier’s First Letter (1724)
Swift wrote this letter in the voice of one M.B. Drapier, an Irishman who is protesting the recent act that sought to relieve the shortage of currency in Ireland by allowing a man named Mr. Wood to mint 108,000 pounds worth of copper coin. Drapier argues that such a plan would be the ruin of the Irish economy and he urges his countrymen not to take this copper money in payment for any goods or service, which he argues they are entitled to do under English law.
The style of this letter is much more earnest than, say, the Argument Against the Abolition of Christianity, this despite the fact that Swift is again writing in the voice of a character. However, according to most scholars it seemed that Swift actually agreed with Drapier’s cause, at least to a point, so it makes one wonder why Swift chose to create the character of Drapier rather than write about the controversy under his own name.
Besides that, there isn’t much to this piece that can’t be gotten more thoroughly by re-skimming Thompson’s Models of Value book. We can see in Drapier’s argument that the English economy is in flux, its citizens not quite sure whether their economy is founded on principles of the real, instrinsic value of their coin or in an arbitrary, symbolic value. Drapier is relentless in his argument that silver and gold are the only real, lawful money of England because they have intrinsic value. However, the main support that Drapier has for his position is a hundreds-of-years-old piece of law that (we can only presume) would have limited applicability to Britain’s “new economy.” To what extent Swift wanted us to question Drapier’s position is, however, impossible to tell.
One more thing: there is one great image in the piece, and that is of farmer’s paying their rents with this copper currency, which Drapier asserts would take dozens of cart-loads of coin for the average farmer’s six-month rent. He also talks about ladies going into town to by fabric and being accompanies by several horses all drawing carts loaded up with this near-worthless money, whose real value he asserts is only one-twelfth that of real sterling coin.
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