Swift's Vindication of Lord Carteret: Authorial Intention and Historical Context

Swift's Vindication of Lord Carteret: Authorial Intention and Historical Context JAMES S. MALEK Swift's A Vindication of His Excellency Lord Carteret first appeared in Dublin in April, 1730. The work purports to be a defense of Carteret "from die charge of favouring none but Tories, High-Churchmen and Jacobites" while Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, but is more complex than diis announcement on die tide-page suggests. Aldiough die Vindication does provide a legitimate defense which differs from die weak defense offered by the persona, much of the work is only peripherally related to defending Carteret from diis specific charge. Moreover, April of 1730 was Carteret's last mondi as Lord-Lieutenant, so there was little need for a serious defense. Herbert Davis suggests diat die Vindication is designed to amuse and compliment Carteret and to provide an excuse for attacking certain of Swift's enemies;1 in addition, die work serves to defend Swift's role as an informal advisor during Carteret's administration , and to satirize botii moderate and orthodox Whig political arguments . Swift's intentions were apparently manifold and complex in composing die Vindication, and the difficulty of describing his achievement is made greater by die obliqueness of some of die work, which perhaps results from die somewhat touchy public relationship between die two men. Aldiough die virtuosity of much of die Vindication has been recognized ,2 we can appreciate more fully the precise nature of Swift's James S. Malek is chairman of the English Department at the University of Idaho. His book, The Arts Compared: An Aspect of Eighteenth-Century British Aesthetics, was published in December 1974 by the Wayne State University Press. 1 The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift (Oxford: Blackwell, 1955), XII, xxvii. 2 See, for example, William Bragg Ewald, Jr., The Masks of Jonathan Swift (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1954); Davis, Prose Works, intro. to Vol. XII; and Charles Allen Beaumont, Swift's Classical Rhetoric (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1961). 10SWIFT'S VINDICATION OF LORD CARTERET intentions and accomplishments if we are aware of die work's historical milieu, because die Vindication raises several questions which can be answered only by reference to extra-textual material. Part I of dus essay oudines diose considerations which are antecedent to a discussion of die text; Part II assesses die work's achievements in light of its historical context. I John Carteret, Earl Granville, was Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland from 1724 to 1730, but Swift knew and admired him as early as 1710. Thenfriendship enabled Swift to promote Irish interests more effectively dian he could during the administrations of any of Carteret's predecessors or successors, but it was occasionally strained because die duties of Carteret's position sometimes forced him to disagree widi his friend on political matters. At die beginning of Carteret's administration, die Irish political situation was extremely tense. The administration of die Duke of Grafton, Carteret's predecessor, had been a colossal failure: die imposition of Wood's Halfpence led to overt defiance from most segments of Irish society; die Irish Treasury was in desperate condition resulting from die subordination of its economic interests to diose of England; and die appointment of Englishmen to die most influential and lucrative positions in church and state had caused considerable discontent . It was unlikely that any man could bring domestic peace and economic stability to Ireland in 1724." The difficulty of Carteret's assignment was increased by die hostility of die most powerful segment of die Whig party. Carteret's appointment was not an advancement in his political career. He had been a brilliandy successful statesman in 1719-20, having engineered a series of peace treaties among Sweden, Denmark, Prussia, and Russia, and as an influential member of die House of Lords, had joined die Stanhope/ * For a more detailed discussion of Irish conditions at the time of Carteret's appointment, see Davis' introduction to his edition of The Drapier's Letters (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1935) or Oliver W. Ferguson, Jonathan Swift and Ireland (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1962). ROCKY MOUNTAIN REVIEW11 Sunderland faction of die Whig party in opposition to die Walpole/ Tbwnshend faction. From 1721 to 1724, he...