The “several ways … of abusing one another”: Jonathan Swift's political journalism

The Examiner papers, the Conduct of the Allies, the History of the Four Last Years of the Queen, and the other productions which Jonathan Swift composed during his years as chief publicist for the Tory administration of Harley and St. John (1710–1714) are among the most effective examples of persuasive discourse in the history of British political pamphleteering. Much of this effectiveness is attributable to the skill with which Swift‐steadily aware of the prejudices and demands of his predominantly rural and conservative audience—manipulated such specific rhetorical devices as imagery, anecdote, analogy, historical example, allegory, insinuation, and other such items from the vast catalogue available to the polemicist.