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The Drapier's Letters is the collective name for a series of seven pamphlets written by Jonathan Swift in 1724 and 1725 to arouse public opinion in Ireland against the imposition of a privately-minted copper coinage of inferior quality. As the subject was politically sensitive, Swift wrote under the pseudonym M. B. Drapier.
Background
In 1722, a man called William Wood was granted a patent to produce copper coinage to the value of £108,000 for use in Ireland. The patent had been secured by a bribe of £10,000 to the Duchess of Kendal, mistress to King George I, and assays showed the coins to be significantly underweight, undersized and made from inferior materials. Despite this, they were approved for use in Ireland, though not technically as legal tender.
Pamphleteering
Swift, then Dean of St Patrick's in Dublin, was already known for his concern for the Irish people, having written several pamphlets on the subject already. One of these, Proposal for the Universal use of Irish Manufacture (1720) had so inflamed the English authorities that the printer was prosecuted although the pamphlet had done little more than recommend the Irish use what they made rather than exporting it to England. Swift's political pamphleteering had been honed during the Tory Government of Queen Anne when he had been, in modern terms, a spin doctor and the obvious disadvantages of Wood's inferior coinage were forensically detailed in the first of the pamphlets A Letter to the Tradespeople and Shopkeepers of Ireland (1724).
Six more pamphlets of further invective and declamation followed over the next few months and ultimately public opinion was so hostile to Wood's coinage that the patent was withdrawn in 1725. A significant reward of £300 was at one stage offered for the identity of the drapier but Swift was not arrested or charged.
References in Swift's later works
At least three of Swift's later works refer to the Drapier campaign. These are :
- A Modest Proposal (1729) contains a passing reference to Swift's earlier Irish pamphlets
- Lines on the Death of Doctor Swift, DSPD (1732) reveals Swift as the Drapier in a footnote
- Gulliver's Travels (1726), in a passage in Book III not printed until 1899, allegorises the campaign as the revolt of "Lindalino"
References
"The Drapier's Letters"