# The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift/Volume 10/A Letter to the Writer of the occasional Paper

A
LETTER
TO THE
WRITER
OF THE
OCCASIONAL PAPER.
[SEE THE CRAFTSMAN, 1727.]
SIR,
ALTHOUGH, in one of your papers, you declare an intention of turning them, during the dead season of the year, into accounts of domestick and foreign intelligence; yet, I think, we your correspondents should not understand your meaning so literally, as if you intended to reject inserting any other paper, which might probably be useful for the publick. Neither indeed am I fully convinced, that this new course you resolve to take, will render you more secure than your former laudable practice, of inserting such speculations, as were sent you by several well-wishers to the good of the kingdom; however grating such notices might be to some, who wanted neither power nor inclination to resent them at your cost: for, since there is a direct law against spreading false news, if you should venture to tell us in one of the Craftsmen ​that the dey of Algiers had got the tooth-ach, or the king of Bantam had taken a purge; and the facts should be contradicted in succeeding packets; I do not see what plea you could offer, to avoid the utmost penalty of the law, because you are not supposed to be very gracious among those who are most able to hurt you.
Besides, as I take your intentions to be sincerely meant for the publick service; so your original method of entertaining and instructing us, will be more general, and more useful in this season of the year, when people are retired to amusements more cool, more innocent, and much more reasonable, than those they have left; when their passions are subsided or suspended; when they have no occasions of inflaming themselves, or each other: where they will have opportunity of hearing common sense, every day in the week, from their tenants or neighbouring farmers; and thereby be qualified, in hours of rain or leisure, to read and consider the advice or information you shall send them.
Another weighty reason why you should not alter your manner of writing, by dwindling to a newsmonger, is, because there is no suspension of arms agreed on between you and your adversaries; who fight with a sort of weapons which have two wonderful qualities, that they are never to be worn out, and are best wielded by the weakest hands, and which the poverty of our language forces me to call, by the trite appellations of scurrility, slander, and Billingsgate. I am far from thinking that these gentlemen, or rather their employers, (for the operators themselves are too obscure to be guessed at) should be answered after their own way, although it were possible to drag them ​out of their obscurity: but I wish you would inquire what real use such a conduct is, to the cause they have been so largely paid to defend. The author of the three first Occasional Letters, a person altogether unknown, has been thought to glance (for what reasons he best knows) at some publick proceedings, as if they were not agreeable to his private opinions. In answer to this, the pamphleteers retained on the other side, are instructed by their superiours, to single out an adversary, whose abilities they have most reason to apprehend; and to load himself, his family, and friends, with all the infamy, that a perpetual conversation in Bridewell, Newgate, and the stews, could furnish them; but, at the same time, so very unluckily, that the most distinguishing parts of their characters, strike directly in the face of their benefactor; whose idea, presenting itself along with his guineas perpetually to their imagination, occasioned this desperate blunder.
But, allowing this heap of slander to be truth, and applied to the proper person; what is to be the consequence? Are our publick debts to be the sooner paid; the corruptions that author complains of, to be the sooner cured; an honourable peace, or a glorious war, the more likely to ensue; trade to flourish; the Ostend company to be demolished; Gibraltar and Port Mahon left entire in our possession; the balace of Europe to be preserved; the malignity of parties to be for ever at an end; none but persons of merit, virtue, genius, and learning, to be encouraged? I ask whether any of these effects will follow, upon the publication of this author's libel, even supposing he could prove every syllable of it to be true?
​At the same time, I am well assured, that the only reason of ascribing those papers to a particular person, is built upon the information of a certain pragmatical spy of quality, well known to act in that capacity, by those, into whose company he insinuates himself; a sort of persons, who, although without much love, esteem, or dread of people in present power, yet have too much common prudence, to speak their thoughts with freedom, before such an intruder; who, therefore, imposes grossly upon his masters, if he makes them pay for any thing but his own conjectures.
It is a grievous mistake in a great minister to neglect or despise, much more to irritate men of genius and learning. I have heard one of the wisest persons in my time observe, that an administration was to be known and judged, by the talents of those who appeared their advocates in print. This I must never allow to be a general rule; yet I cannot but think it prodigiously unfortunate, that among the answerers, defenders, repliers, and panegyrists, started up in defence of present persons and proceedings, there has not yet arisen one, whose labours we can read with patience, however we may applaud their loyalty and good will: and all this, with the advantages of constant ready pay, of natural and acquired venom, and a grant of the whole fund of slander, to range over and riot in as they please.
On the other side, a turbulent writer of Occasional Letters, and other vexatious papers, in conjunction perhaps with one or two friends as bad as himself, is able to disconcert, tease, and sour us, whenever he thinks fit, merely by the strength of genius and truth; and after so dextrous a manner, that when we are vexed to the soul, and well know the reasons why we ​are so, we are ashamed to own the first, and cannot tell how to express the other. In a word it seems to me that all the writers are on one side, and all the railers on the other.
However, I do not pretend to assert that it is impossible for an ill minister to find men of wit, who maybe drawn, by a very valuable consideration, to undertake his defence: but the misfortune is, that the heads of such writers rebel against their hearts; their genius forsakes them, when they would offer to prostitute it to the service of injustice, corruption, party rage, and false representation of things and persons.
And this is the best argument I can offer in defence of great men, who have been of late so very unhappy in the choice of their paper-champions: although I cannot much commend their good husbandry, in those exorbitant payments, of twenty, and sixty guineas at a time, for a scurvy pamphlet; since the sort of work they require, is what will all come within the talents of any one, who has enjoyed the happiness of a very bad education, has kept the vilest company, is endowed with a servile spirit, is master of an empty purse, and a heart full of malice.
But, to speak the truth in soberness; it should seem a little hard, since the old whiggish principle has been recalled, of standing up for the liberty of the press, to a degree that no man, for several years past, durst venture out a thought, which did not square to a point, with the maxims and practices that then prevailed: I say, it is a little hard, that the vilest mercenaries should be countenanced, preferred, rewarded, for discharging their brutalities against men of honour, only upon a bare conjecture.
If it should happen that these profligates have ​attacked an innocent person, I ask, what satisfaction can their hirers give in return? Not all the wealth raked together by the most corrupt rapacious ministers, in the longest course of unlimited power, would be sufficient to atone for the hundredth part of such an injury.
In the common way of thinking, it is a situation sufficient in all conscience to satisfy a reasonable ambition, for a private person to command the laws, the forces, the revenues of a great kingdom; to reward and advance his followers and flatterers as he pleases, and to keep his enemies (real or imaginary) in the dust. In such an exaltation, why should he be at the trouble to make use of fools to sound his praises, (because I always thought the lion was hard set, when he chose the ass for his trumpeter) or knaves to revenge his quarrel, at the expense of innocent men's reputations?
With all those advantages, I cannot see why persons in the height of power, should be under the least concern on account of their reputadon, for which they have no manner of use; or to ruin that of others, which may perhaps be the only possession their enemies have left them. Supposing times of corruption, which I am very far from doing; if a writer displays them in their proper colours, does he do any thing worse than sending customers to the shop? "Here only, at the sign of the Brazen Head, are to be sold places and pensions: beware of counterfeits, and take care of mistaking the door."
For my own part, I think it very unnecessary to give the character of a great minister in the fullness of his power, because it is a thing that naturally does itself, and is obvious to the eyes of all mankind: for ​his personal qualities are all derived into the most minute parts of his administration. If this be just, prudent, regular, impartial, intent upon the publick good, prepared for present exigencies, and provident of the future; such is the director himself in his private capacity: if it be rapacious, insolent, partial, palliating long and deep diseases of the publick, with empirical remedies, false, disguised, impudent, malicious, revengeful; you shall infallibly find the private life of the conductor, to answer in every point: nay, what is more, every twinge of the gout or gravel, will be felt in their consequences by the community: as the thief-catcher, upon viewing a house broke open, could immediately distinguish, from the manner of the workmanship, by what hand it was done.
It is hard to form a maxim against which an exception is not ready to start up; so, in the present case, where the minister grows enormously rich, the publick is proportionably poor; as, in a private family, the steward always thrives the fastest, when his lord is running out. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *