How can carbon skeletons vary?

Explanation:

. . . And besides, it is not improbable that some scrupulous people might be apt to censure such a practice, (although indeed very unjustly) as a little bordering upon cruelty, which, I confess, hath always been with me the strongest objection against any project, how well soever intended.

–“A Modest Proposal,”

Jonathan Swift

Which statement best explains Swift’s use of rhetorical devices in this passage?

Swift uses verbal irony when he mentions objections to his plan in order to prove that no one could possibly object to the proposal.

Swift uses verbal irony when he says his plan is “a little bordering upon cruelty” because his plan is not at all cruel.

Swift uses understatement and irony when he says his plan is “a little bordering on cruelty” to highlight how cruel the plan really is.