page_title: Drapier's Letters
section_title: To the Whole People of Ireland
hierarchical_section_title: Drapier's Letters / Pamphlets / To the Whole People of Ireland
caption_attribution_description: Title page from Jonathan Swift's To the Whole People of Ireland
context_page_description: Drapier's Letters is the collective name for a series of seven pamphlets written between 1724 and 1725 by the Dean of St Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin, Jonathan Swift, to arouse public opinion in Ireland against the imposition of a privately minted copper coinage that Swift believed to be of inferior quality. William Wood was granted letters patent to mint the coin, and Swift saw the licensing of the patent as corrupt. In response, Swift represented Ireland as constitutionally and financially independent of Britain in the Drapier's Letters. Since the subject was politically sensitive, Swift wrote under the pseudonym M. B., Drapier, to hide from retaliation.
  Although the letters were condemned by the Irish government, with prompting from the British government, they were still able to inspire popular sentiment against Wood and his patent. The popular sentiment turned into a nationwide boycott, which forced the patent to be withdrawn; Swift was later honoured for this service to the people of Ireland. Many Irish people recognised Swift as a hero for his defiance of British control over the Irish nation.
context_section_description: The Drapier's fourth letter, To the Whole People of Ireland, A Word or Two to the People of Ireland, A Short Defense of the People of Ireland, was written on 13 October 1724 and was either published on 21 October 1724 or on 22 October 1724, the day Lord Carteret arrived in Dublin. Throughout the letter, the Drapier pretends that Carteret's transfer to Ireland to enforce Wood's patent was a rumour produced by Wood's allies, although Swift had knowledge to the contrary.
  The fourth letter was written in response to the many charges put forth by the British supporters of Wood's patent against the Irish, including claims of papal influence and of treason. A large portion of the letter is a response to these accusations and to refuting further arguments that Wood's coin could be beneficial to the Irish people. The tone of the letter is clear: Wood's allies are promoting an evil that will harm Ireland. However, Wood is only a secondary target—figures like Walpole are mocked for their role in the controversy.
  The majority of the fourth letter is devoted to an argument revolving around the political liberty of the Irish people. It is for this argument that the Drapier was persecuted, because his words were seen as a call to challenge British authority and possibly to declare independence from the king. The Drapier walks a fine line between loyalty and disloyalty, because he charges that the Irish are loyal only to their king, who had the title "King of Ireland", but not to England. To this the Drapier states:
  Let whoever think otherwise, I M.B. Drapier, desire to be excepted, for I declare, next under God, I depend only on the King my sovereign, and on the laws of my own country; and I am so far from depending upon the people of England, that if they should ever rebel against my sovereign (which God forbid) I would be ready at the first command from His Majesty to take arms against them, as some of my countrymen did against theirs at Preston. And if such a rebellion should prove so successful as to fix the Pretender on the throne of England, I would venture to transgress that statute so far as to lose every drop of my blood to hinder him from being King of Ireland.
  In defence of his nation, the Drapier turns around claims of treason and papal loyalty against Wood and his defenders (especially Walpole), calling them as treasonous as the Jacobite rebels and the Parliamentary rebels. The Drapier believed that God's providence supported the people of Ireland, but his will required the people of Ireland to stand up against the treasonous British.
  The most famous and controversial statement of the Drapier's Letters follows claims of loyalty to the Irish king:
  I have digressed a little to refresh and continue that spirit so seasonably raised amongst you, and to let you see that by the laws of GOD, of NATURE, of NATIONS, and of your own COUNTRY, you ARE and OUGHT to be as FREE a people as your brethren in England.
  This line of argument follows the political philosophy of John Locke in the Two Treatises on Government (1689). Locke wrote that the people had the right to resist their government when their property rights were violated, and that nations have the same sovereign rights even when they have been conquered by another.
  A secondary rhetorical battle began between Walpole and the Irish in regard to Wood's patent; the rest of the constitutional debate was over the nature of Poynings' Law, a law that was brought back into use through the Declaratory Act (1720). Poyning's Law was a law that the British claimed allowed them to control all of Ireland's legal actions and to revoke the Irish parliamentary independence. Traditionally, the rulers of Ireland viewed themselves as a kingdom and not a colony that would be controlled by Poyning's Law. The Drapier agreed with the Irish interpretation of the law and incorporated aspects of Molyneux's arguments that combined proof the law was misinterpreted and Locke's political philosophy.
  Lord Carteret read passages from the fourth letter about Irish constitutional independence to the Irish Privy 
caption: Title page from the 1724 pamphlet To the Whole People of Ireland
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