Letter 23.
1 The day on which the Club met. See letter from Swift to St. John, May 11,
1711.
2 Henry Barry, fourth Lord Barry of Santry (1680-1734), was an Irish Privy
Councillor, and Governor of Derry. In 1702 he married Bridget, daughter of
Sir Thomas Domville, Bart., and in an undated letter (about 1735) to Lady
Santry Swift spoke of his esteem for her, "although I had hardly the least
acquaintance with your lord, nor was at all desirous to cultivate it, because
I did not at all approve of his conduct." Lord Santry's only son and heir,
who was born in 1710, was condemned to death for the murder of a footman in
1739, when the barony became extinct by forfeiture. See B. W. Adams's History
of Santry.
3 Probably Captain Cammock, of the Speedwell, of 28 guns and 125 men
(Luttrell, vi. 331), who met on July 13, 1708, off Scotland, two French
privateers, one of 16, the other of 18 guns, and fought them several hours.
The first privateer got off, much shattered; the other was brought into
Carrickfergus.
4 See Letter 7, note 21.
5 See Letter 13, note 10.
6 This valuable pamphlet is signed "J.G.," and is believed to be by John Gay.
7 Edmund Curll's collection of Swift's Miscellanies, published in 1711, was an
expansion of a pamphlet of 1710, "A Meditation upon a Broomstick, and somewhat
beside, of the same Author's."
8 "In this passage DD signifies both Dingley and Stella" (Deane Swift).
9 Sir Henry Craik's reading. The old editions have, "It would do: DD goes
as well as Presto," which is obviously corrupt.
10 Cf. Journal, June 17, 1712.
11 Cf. "old doings" (see Letter 9, note 19.)
12 See Letter 17, note 11.
13 Rymer's Foedera, in three volumes, which Swift obtained for Trinity
College, Dublin.
14 See Letter 6, note 43 and 9th Feb. 1710-11.
15 Stephen Colledge, "the Protestant joiner," was hanged in 1681. He had
published attacks on the Roman Catholics, and had advocated resistance to
Charles II.
16 See Letter 3, note 39.
17 Mitford Crowe was appointed Governor of Barbados in 1706, and before his
departure for that island went to Spain, "to settle the accounts of our army
there, of which he is paymaster" (Luttrell, vi. 104). In 1710 charges of
bribery brought against him by merchants were inquired into by the Privy
Council, but he seems to have cleared himself, for in June 1711 Swift speaks
of him as Governor of Jamaica. He died in 1719.
18 See Letter 8, note 21.
19 Swift's uncle Adam "lived and died in Ireland," and left no son. Another
daughter of his became Mrs. Whiteway.
20 William Lowndes, M.P., secretary to the Treasury, whom Walpole called "as
able and honest a servant as ever the Crown had."
21 The Lord Treasurer's staff: since the dismissal of Godolphin, the
Treasurership had been held in commission.
22 "As I hope to be saved."
23 Stella's maid.
24 See letter from King to Swift, May 15, 1711. Alderman Constantine, a High
Churchman, indignant at being passed over by a junior in the contest for the
mayoralty, brought the matter before the Council Board, and produced an old
by-law by which aldermen, according to their ancientry, were required to keep
their mayoralty. King took the side of the city, but the majority was for the
by-law, and disapproved of the election; whereupon the citizens repealed the
by-law and re-elected the same alderman as before.
