Question

Select the correct answer from each drop-down menu. complete the sentences based on your reading of this excerpt from "a modest proposal" by jonathan swift: for first, as i have already observed, it would greatly lessen the number of papists, with whom we are yearly over-run, being the principal breeders of the nation, as well as our most dangerous enemies, and who stay at home on purpose with a design to deliver the kingdom to the pretender, hoping to take their advantage by the absence of so many good protestants, who have chosen rather to leave their country, than stay at home and pay tithes against their conscience to an episcopal curate. the "principal breeders" of the nation refer to . in the last line, the writer talks about the "good protestants" to

Answer 1

The “principal breeders” refers to Catholics in Ireland, and the “good Protestants” refers to Protestants who chose exile over paying tithes against their conscience.

Step-by-step explanation:

The excerpt from Jonathan Swift's “A Modest Proposal” refers to the “principal breeders” of the nation as Papists, which is a term Swift uses to describe Catholics. He is critiquing the prolific birth rate among the Catholic population in Ireland, which was a Protestant country at the time, as well as their political alliance with the Jacobite cause (the “Pretender”). Meanwhile, the “good Protestants” in the last sentences denote those Protestant individuals who chose to leave Ireland rather than pay tithes to an Anglican church, which went against their religious beliefs.