According to the speaker in Swift's "Modest Proposal," the children of Ireland, if they are fortunate enough to reach adulthood, will become mercenaries, "fighting for the Pretender in Spain," become thieves in order to feed themselves, or "sell themselves to Barbadoes" as indentured servants working on sugar plantations. All of these remedies are a reaction to the desperate conditions in Ireland, and Swift notes that the impoverished women of Ireland spend most of their time begging to feed their babies, who will only grow up to face such terrible choices. Having laid out this grim scenario, Swift proceeds to offer his "modest proposal" that the children be sold as food for wealthy British people. Even this horrific fate, he seems to suggest, is better than that inflicted on the Irish population by the British in the early eighteenth century. Swift claims that his plan will transform Irish children from burdens into salable commodities.
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