Swift

Swift's True Proposals:

Therefore let no man talk to me of other expedients:

of taxing our absentees at five shillings a pound;
of using neither clothes, nor household furniture, except what is of our own growth and manufacture;
of utterly rejecting the materials and instruments that promote foreign luxury;
of curing the expensiveness of pride, vanity, idleness, and gaming in our women;
of introducing a vein of parsimony, prudence, and temperance;
of learning to love our country, where in we differ even from Laplanders, and the inhabitants of Topinamboo;
of quitting our animosities, and factions, nor act any longer like the Jews, who were murdering one another at the very moment their city was taken;
of being a little cautious not to sell our country and consciences for nothing;
of teaching landlords to have at least one degree of mercy towards their tenants.
Lastly, of putting a spirit of honesty, industry, and skill into our shop-keepers, who, if a resolution could now be taken to buy only our native goods, would immediately unite to cheat and exact upon us in the price, the measure, and the goodness, nor could ever yet be brought to make one fair proposal of just dealing, though often and earnestly invited to it.