Note 21 — ENGLAND.
Reading edition
This was a project for the establishment of a national bank for Ireland. Swift ridiculed the proposal (see p. 31), no doubt, out of suspicion of the acts of stock-jobbers and the monied interests which were enlisted on the side of the Whigs. His experience, also, of the abortive South Sea Schemes would tend to make his opposition all the stronger. But the plans for the bank were not ill-conceived, and had Swift been in calmer temper he might have seen the advantages which attached to the proposals. [T. S.]