TO THE SHOP-KEEPERS, TRADESMEN, FARMERS, AND COMMON-PEOPLE OF IRELAND.

NOTE

About the year 1720 it was generally acknowledged in Ireland that there was a want there of the small change, necessary in the transaction of petty dealings with shopkeepers and tradesmen.  It has been indignantly denied by contemporary writers that this small change meant copper coins.  They asserted that there was no lack of copper money, but that there was a great want of small silver.  Be that as it may, the report that small change was wanting was sufficiently substantiated to the English government to warrant it to proceed to satisfy the want.  In its dealings with Ireland, however, English governments appear to have consistently assumed that attitude which would most likely cause friction and arouse disturbance.  In England coins for currency proceeded from a mint established under government supervision.  In Scotland such a mint was specially provided for in the Act of Union.  But in Ireland, the government acted otherwise.

The Irish people had again and again begged that they should be permitted to establish a mint in which coins could be issued of the same standard and intrinsic value as those used in England.  English parliaments, however, invariably disregarded these petitions.  Instead of the mint the King gave grants or patents by which a private individual obtained the right to mint coins for the use of the inhabitants.  The right was most often given for a handsome consideration, and held for a term of years.  In 1660 Charles ii. granted such a patent to Sir Thomas Armstrong, permitting him to coin farthings for twenty years.  It appears, however, that Armstrong never actually coined the farthings, although he had gone to the expense of establishing a costly plant for the purpose.

Small copper coins becoming scarce, several individuals, without permission, issued tokens; but the practice was stopped.  In 1680 Sir William Armstrong, son of Sir Thomas, with Colonel George Legg (afterwards Lord Dartmouth), obtained a patent for twenty-one years, granting them the right to issue copper halfpence.  Coins were actually struck and circulated, but the patent itself was sold to John Knox in the very year of its issue.  Knox, however, had his patent specially renewed, but his coinage was interrupted when James ii. issued his debased money during the Revolution (see Monck Mason, , and the notes on this matter to the Drapier’s Third Letter, in present edition).

Knox sold his patent to Colonel Roger Moore, who overstocked the country with his coins to such an extent that the currency became undervalued.  When, in 1705, Moore endeavoured to obtain a renewal of his patent, his application was refused.  By 1722, owing either to Moore’s bad coinage, or to the importation of debased coins from other countries, the copper money had degraded considerably.  In a pamphlet issued by George Ewing in Dublin (1724), it is stated that in that year, W. Trench presented a memorial to the Lords of the Treasury, complaining of the condition of the copper coinage, and pointing out that the evil results had been brought about by the system of grants to private individuals.  Notwithstanding this memorial, it was attempted to overcome the difficulty by a continuance of the old methods.  A new patent was issued to an English iron merchant, William Wood by name, who, according to Coxe, submitted proposal with many others, for the amelioration of the grievance.  Wood’s proposals, say this same authority, were accepted “as beneficial to Ireland.”  The letters patent bear the date July 12th, 1722, and were prepared in accordance with the King’s instructions to the Attorney and Solicitor General sent in a letter from Kensington on June 16th, 1722.  The letter commanded “that a bill should be prepared for his royal signature, containing and importing an indenture, whereof one part was to pass the Great Seal of Great Britain.”  This indenture, notes Monck Mason, between His Majesty of the one part, “and William Wood, of Wolverhampton, in the County of Stafford, Esq.,” of the other, signifies that His Majesty

“has received information that, in his kingdom of Ireland, there was a great want of small money for making small payments, and that retailers and others did suffer by reason of such want.”

By virtue, therefore, of his prerogative royal, and in consideration of the rents, covenants, and agreements therein expressed, His Majesty granted to William Wood, his executors, assigns, etc., “full, free, sole, and absolute power, privilege, licence, and authority,” during fourteen years, from the annunciation of the Blessed Virgin, 1722, to coin halfpence and farthings of copper, to be uttered and disposed of in Ireland, and not elsewhere.  It was provided that the whole quantity coined should not exceed 360 tons of copper, whereof 100 tons only were to be coined in the first year, and 20 tons in each of the last thirteen, said farthings and halfpence to be of good, pure, and merchantable copper, and of such size and bigness, that one avoirdupois pound weight of copper should not be converted into more farthings and halfpence than would make thirty pence by tale; all the said farthings and halfpence to be of equal weight in themselves, or as near thereunto as might be, allowing a remedy not exceeding two farthings over or under in each pound.  The same “to pass and to be received as current money, by such as shall or will, voluntarily and willingly, and not otherwise, receive the same, within the said kingdom of Ireland, and not elsewhere.”  Wood also covenanted to pay to the King’s clerk or comptroller of the coinage, L200 yearly, and L100 per annum into his Majesty’s treasury.

Most of the accounts of this transaction and its consequent agitation in Ireland, particularly those given by Sir W. Scott and Earl Stanhope, are taken from Coxe’s “Life of Walpole.”  Monck Mason, however, in his various notes appended to his life of Swift, has once and for all placed Coxe’s narrative in its true light, and exposed the specious special pleading on behalf of his hero, Walpole.  But even Coxe cannot hide the fact that the granting of the patent and the circumstances under which it was granted, amounted to a disgraceful job, by which an opportunity was seized to benefit a “noble person” in England at the expense of Ireland.  The patent was really granted to the King’s mistress, the Duchess of Kendal, who sold it to William Wood for the sum of L10,000, and (as it was reported with, probably, much truth) for a share in the profits of the coining.  The job was alluded to by Swift when he wrote: 

“When late a feminine magician,
Join’d with a brazen politician,
Expos’d, to blind a nation’s eyes,
A parchment of prodigious size.”

Coxe endeavors to exonerate Walpole from the disgrace attached to this business, by expatiating on Carteret’s opposition to Walpole, an opposition which went so far as to attempt to injure the financial minister’s reputation by fomenting jealousies and using the Wood patent agitation to arouse against him the popular indignation; but this does not explain away the fact itself.  He lays some blame for the agitation on Wood’s indiscretion in flaunting his rights and publicly boasting of what the great minister would do for him.  At the same time he takes care to censure the government for its misconduct in not consulting with the Lord Lieutenant and his Privy Council before granting the patent.  His censure, however, is founded on the consideration that this want of attention was injudicious and was the cause of the spread of exaggerated rumours of the patent’s evil tendency.  He has nothing to say of the rights and liberties of a people which had thereby been infringed and ignored.

The English parliament had rarely shown much consideration for Irish feelings or Irish rights.  Its attitude towards the Irish Houses of Legislation had been high-handed and even dictatorial; so that constitutional struggles were not at all infrequent towards the end of the seventeenth and during the first quarter of the eighteenth century.  The efforts of Sir Constantine Phipps towards a non-parliamentary government, and the reversal by the English House of Lords of the decision given by the Irish House of Lords in the famous Annesley case, had prepared the Irish people for a revolt against any further attempts to dictate to its properly elected representatives assembled in parliament.  Moreover, the wretched material condition of the people, as it largely had been brought about by a selfish, persecuting legislation that practically isolated Ireland commercially in prohibiting the exportation of its industrial products, was a danger and a menace to the governing country.  The two nations were facing each other threateningly.  When, therefore, Wood began to import his coin, suspicion was immediately aroused.

The masses took little notice of it at first; but the commissioners of revenue in Dublin took action in a letter they addressed to the Right Hon. Edward Hopkins, secretary to the Lord Lieutenant.  This letter, dated August 7th, 1722, began by expressing surprise at the patent granted to Mr. Wood, and asked the secretary “to lay before the Lord Lieutenant a memorial, presented by their agent to the Lords of the Treasury, concerning this patent, and also a report of some former Commissioners of the revenue on the like occasion, and to acquaint his Grace, that they concurred in all the objections in those papers, and were of opinion, that such a patent would be highly prejudicial to the trade, and welfare of this kingdom, and more particularly to his Majesty’s revenue, which they had formerly found to have suffered very much, by too great a quantity of such base coin." No reply was received to this letter.

Fears began to be generally felt, and the early murmurs of an agitation to be heard when, on September 19th, 1722, the Commissioners addressed a second letter, this time to the Lords Commissioners of His Majesty’s Treasury.  The letter assured their Lordships “that they had been applied to by many persons of rank and fortune, and by the merchants and traders in Ireland, to represent the ill effects of Mr. Wood’s patent, and that they could from former experience assure their Lordships, it would be particularly detrimental to his Majesty’s revenue.  They represented that this matter had made a great noise here, and that there did not appear the least want of such small species of coin for change, and hoped that the importance of the occasion would excuse their making this representation of a matter that had not been referred to them."

To this letter also no reply was vouchsafed.  In the meantime, Wood kept sending in his coins, landing them at most of the ports of the kingdom.

“Then everyone that was not interested in the success of this coinage,” writes the author of the pamphlet already quoted, “by having contracted for a great quantity of his halfpence at a large discount, or biassed by the hopes of immoderate gain to be made out of the ruins of their country, expressed their apprehensions of the pernicious consequences of this copper money; and resolved to make use of the right they had by law to refuse the same".

The Lord Lieutenant, the Duke of Grafton, had arrived in August, 1723, and parliament sat early in September.  Its first attention was paid to the Wood patent.  After the early excitement had subsided, they resolved to appeal to the King.  During the early stages of the discussion, however, the Commons addressed the Lord Lieutenant, asking that a copy of the patent and other papers relating to it, be laid before them.  This was on September 13th.  On the following day Mr. Hopkins informed the House that the Lord Lieutenant had no such copy, nor any papers.  The House then unanimously resolved to inquire into the matter on its own account, and issued orders for several persons to appear before it to give evidence, fixing the day for examination for September 16th.  On that day, however, Mr. Hopkins appeared before the members with a copy of the patent, and informed them that the Lord Lieutenant had received it since his last communication with them.  This incident served but to arouse further ridicule.  A broadside, published at the time with the title “A Creed of an Irish Commoner,” amusingly reveals the lameness of the excuse for this non-production of the exemplification.  Coxe says that the cause for the delay was due to the fact that the copy of the patent had been delivered to the Lord Lieutenant’s servant, instead of to his private secretary; but this excuse is probably no more happily founded than the one offered.

On Friday, September 20th, the House resolved itself into a committee “to take into consideration the state of the nation, particularly in relation to the importing and uttering of copper halfpence and farthings in this kingdom.”  After three days’ debate, and after examining competent witnesses under oath, it passed resolutions to the following effect

(1) That Wood’s patent is highly prejudicial to his Majesty’s revenue, and is destructive of trade and commerce, and most dangerous to the rights and properties of the subject.

(2) That for the purpose of obtaining the patent Wood had notoriously misrepresented the state of the nation.

(3) That great quantities of the coin had been imported of different impressions and of much less weight than the patent called for.

(4) That the loss to the nation by the uttering of this coin would amount to 150 per cent.

(5) That in coining the halfpence Wood was guilty of a notorious fraud.

(6) “That it is the opinion of this Committee, that it hath been always highly prejudicial to this kingdom to grant the power or privilege of coining money to private persons; and that it will, at all times, be of dangerous consequence to grant any such power to any body politic, or corporate, or any private person or persons whatsoever."

Addresses to his Majesty in conformity with these resolutions were voted on September 27th.

The House of Lords passed similar resolutions on September 26th, and voted addresses embodying them on September 28th.

These Addresses received a better attention than did the letters from the revenue commissioners.  The Houses were courteously informed that their communications would receive His Majesty’s careful consideration.  Walpole kept his promise, but not before he had fought hard to maintain the English prerogative, as he might have called it.  The “secret” history as narrated in Coxe’s lively manner, throws some light on the situation.  Coxe really finds his hero’s conduct not marked with “his usual caution.”  The Lord Lieutenant was permitted to go to Ireland without proper instructions; the information on which Walpole acted was not reliable; and he did not sufficiently appreciate the influence of Chancellor Midleton and his family.  “He bitterly accused Lord Midleton of treachery and low cunning, of having made, in his speeches, distinction between the King and his ministers, of caballing with Carteret, Cadogan, and Roxburgh, and of pursuing that line of conduct, because he was of opinion the opposite party would gain the ascendency in the cabinet.  He did not believe the disturbances to be so serious as they were represented, nor was he satisfied with the Duke of Grafton’s conduct, as being solely directed by Conolly, but declared that the part acted by Conolly, almost excused what the Brodricks had done.”  Carteret complained to the King and proved to him that Walpole’s policy was a dangerous one.  The King became irritated and Walpole “ashamed.”  He even became “uneasy,” and it is to be supposed, took a more “cautious” course; for he managed to conciliate the Brodricks and the powers in Dublin.  But the devil was not ill long.  The cabinet crisis resulted in the triumph of Townshend and Walpole, and the devil got well again.  Carteret must be removed and the patent promoted.  But Midleton and the Brodricks must be kept friendly.  So Carteret went to Ireland as Lord Lieutenant, Midleton remained Chancellor, and constituted a lord justice, and St. John Brodrick was nominated a member of the Privy Council.  Still farther on his “cautious” way, Ireland must be given some consideration; hence the Committee of the Privy Council, specially called to inquire into the grievances complained of by the Irish Houses of Parliament in their loyal addresses.

The Committee sat for several weeks, and the report it issued forms the subject of Swift’s animadversions in the Drapier’s third letter.  But the time spent by the Committee in London was being utilized in quite a different fashion by Swift in Ireland.  “Cautious” as was Walpole, he had not reckoned with the champion of his political opponents of Queen Anne’s days.  Swift had little humour for court intrigues and cabinet cabals.  He came out into the open to fight the good fight of the people to whom courts and cabinets should be servants and not self-seeking masters.  Whatever doubts the people of Ireland may have had about the legal validity of their resentment towards Wood and his coins, were quickly dissipated when they read “A Letter to the Shop Keepers, Tradesmen, Farmers, and Common People of Ireland, concerning the Brass Half-pence coined by Mr. Wood,” and signed, “M.B.  Drapier.”  The letter, as Lord Orrery remarked, acted like the sound of a trumpet.  At that sound “a spirit arose among the people, that in the eastern phrase, was like unto a trumpet in the day of the whirlwind.  Every person of every rank, party, and denomination was convinced, that the admission of Wood’s copper must prove fatal to the Commonwealth.  The papist, the fanatic, the Tory, the Whig, all listed themselves volunteers under the banners of M.B.  Drapier, and were all equally zealous to serve the Common cause.”

The present text of the first of the Drapier’s letters is based on that given by Sir W. Scott, carefully collated with two copies of the first edition which differed from each other in many particulars.  One belonged to the late Colonel F. Grant, and the other is in the British Museum.  It has also been read with the collection of the Drapier’s Letters issued by the Drapier Club in 1725, with the title, “Fraud Detected”; with the London edition of “The Hibernian Patriot” (1730), and with Faulkner’s text issued in his collected edition of Swift’s Works in 1735.

[T.S.]

Concerning the
Brass Half-pence
Coined by

Mr. Woods,

WITH
A Design to have them Pass in this
KINGDOM.

Wherein is shewn the Power of the said PATENT,
  the Value of the HALF-PENCE, and
  how far every Person may be oblig’d to take the
  same in Payments, and how to behave in Case
  such an Attempt shou’d be made by WOODS
  or any other Person.

[Very Proper to be kept in every FAMILY.]

        By M.B. Drapier.

DUBLIN:  Printed by J.  Harding
  in Molesworth’s-Court.
]

LETTER I.

BRETHREN, FRIENDS, COUNTRYMEN AND FELLOW-SUBJECTS,

What I intend now to say to you, is, next to your duty to God, and the care of your salvation, of the greatest concern to yourselves, and your children, your bread and clothing, and every common necessary of life entirely depend upon it.  Therefore I do most earnestly exhort you as men, as Christians, as parents, and as lovers of your country, to read this paper with the utmost attention, or get it read to you by others; which that you may do at the less expense, I have ordered the printer to sell it at the lowest rate.

It is a great fault among you, that when a person writes with no other intention than to do you good, you will not be at the pains to read his advices:  One copy of this paper may serve a dozen of you, which will be less than a farthing a-piece.  It is your folly that you have no common or general interest in your view, not even the wisest among you, neither do you know or enquire, or care who are your friends, or who are your enemies.

About three years ago, a little book was written, to advise all people to wear the manufactures of this our own dear country: It had no other design, said nothing against the King or Parliament, or any man, yet the POOR PRINTER was prosecuted two years, with the utmost violence, and even some WEAVERS themselves, for whose sake it was written, being upon the JURY, FOUND HIM GUILTY.  This would be enough to discourage any man from endeavouring to do you good, when you will either neglect him or fly in his face for his pains, and when he must expect only danger to himself and loss of money, perhaps to his ruin.

However I cannot but warn you once more of the manifest destruction before your eyes, if you do not behave yourselves as you ought.

I will therefore first tell you the plain story of the fact; and then I will lay before you how you ought to act in common prudence, and according to the laws of your country.

The fact is thus:  It having been many years since COPPER HALFPENCE OR FARTHINGS were last coined in this kingdom, they have been for some time very scarce, and many counterfeits passed about under the name of raps, several applications were made to England, that we might have liberty to coin new ones, as in former times we did; but they did not succeed.  At last one Mr. Wood, a mean ordinary man, a hardware dealer, procured a patentunder his Majesty’s broad seal to coin fourscore and ten thousand pounds in copper for this kingdom, which patent however did not oblige any one here to take them, unless they pleased.  Now you must know, that the halfpence and farthings in England pass for very little more than they are worth.  And if you should beat them to pieces, and sell them to the brazier you would not lose above a penny in a shilling.  But Mr. Wood made his halfpence of such base metal, and so much smaller than the English ones, that the brazier would not give you above a penny of good money for a shilling of his; so that this sum of fourscore and ten thousand pounds in good gold and silver, must be given for trash that will not be worth above eight or nine thousand pounds real value.  But this is not the worst, for Mr. Wood when he pleases may by stealth send over another and another fourscore and ten thousand pounds, and buy all our goods for eleven parts in twelve, under the value.  For example, if a hatter sells a dozen of hats for five shillings a-piece, which amounts to three pounds, and receives the payment in Mr. Wood’s coin, he really receives only the value of five shillings.

Perhaps you will wonder how such an ordinary fellow as this Mr. Wood could have so much interest as to get His Majesty’s broad seal for so great a sum of bad money, to be sent to this poor country, and that all the nobility and gentry here could not obtain the same favour, and let us make our own halfpence, as we used to do.  Now I will make that matter very plain.  We are at a great distance from the King’s court, and have nobody there to solicit for us, although a great number of lords and squires, whose estates are here, and are our countrymen, spending all their lives and fortunes there.  But this same Mr. Wood was able to attend constantly for his own interest; he is an Englishman and had great friends, and it seems knew very well where to give money, to those that would speak to others that could speak to the King and could tell a fair story.  And His Majesty, and perhaps the great lord or lords who advised him, might think it was for our country’s good; and so, as the lawyers express it, “the King was deceived in his grant,” which often happens in all reigns.  And I am sure if His Majesty knew that such a patent, if it should take effect according to the desire of Mr. Wood, would utterly ruin this kingdom, which hath given such great proofs of its loyalty, he would immediately recall it, and perhaps shew his displeasure to somebody or other.  But “a word to the wise is enough.”  Most of you must have heard, with what anger our honourable House of Commons received an account of this Wood’s patent. There were several fine speeches made upon it, and plain proofs that it was all A WICKED CHEAT from the bottom to the top, and several smart votes were printed, which that same Wood had the assurance to answer likewise in print, and in so confident a way, as if he were a better man than our whole Parliament put together.

This Wood, as soon as his patent was passed, or soon after, sends over a great many barrels of these halfpence, to Cork and other sea-port towns, and to get them off offered an hundred pounds in his coin for seventy or eighty in silver.  But the collectors of the King’s customs very honestly refused to take them, and so did almost everybody else.  And since the Parliament hath condemned them, and desired the King that they might be stopped, all the kingdom do abominate them.

But Wood is still working underhand to force his halfpence upon us, and if he can by help of his friends in England prevail so far as to get an order that the commissioners and collectors of the King’s money shall receive them, and that the army is to be paid with them, then he thinks his work shall be done.  And this is the difficulty you will be under in such a case.  For the common soldier when he goes to the market or alehouse will offer this money, and if it be refused, perhaps he will swagger and hector, and threaten to beat the butcher or alewife, or take the goods by force, and throw them the bad halfpence.  In this and the like cases, the shopkeeper or victualler, or any other tradesman has no more to do, than to demand ten times the price of his goods, if it is to be paid in Wood’s money; for example, twenty-pence of that money for a quart of ale, and so in all things else, and not part with his goods till he gets the money.

For suppose you go to an alehouse with that base money, and the landlord gives you a quart for four of these halfpence, what must the victualler do?  His brewer will not be paid in that coin, or if the brewer should be such a fool, the farmers will not take it from them for their bere, because they are bound by their leases to pay their rents in good and lawful money of England, which this is not, nor of Ireland neither, and the ’squire their landlord will never be so bewitched to take such trash for his land, so that it must certainly stop somewhere or other, and wherever it stops it is the same thing, and we are all undone.

The common weight of these halfpence is between four and five to an ounce, suppose five, then three shillings and fourpence will weigh a pound, and consequently twenty shillings will weigh six pound butter weight.  Now there are many hundred farmers who pay two hundred pound a year rent.  Therefore when one of these farmers comes with his half-year’s rent, which is one hundred pound, it will be at least six hundred pound weight, which is three horse load.

If a ’squire has a mind to come to town to buy clothes and wine and spices for himself and family, or perhaps to pass the winter here; he must bring with him five or six horses loaden with sacks as the farmers bring their corn; and when his lady comes in her coach to our shops, it must be followed by a car loaden with Mr. Wood’s money.  And I hope we shall have the grace to take it for no more than it is worth.

They say ’Squire Conolly has sixteen thousand pounds a year, now if he sends for his rent to town, as it is likely he does, he must have two hundred and forty horses to bring up his half-year’s rent, and two or three great cellars in his house for stowage.  But what the bankers will do I cannot tell.  For I am assured, that some great bankers keep by them forty thousand pounds in ready cash to answer all payments, which sum, in Mr. Wood’s money, would require twelve hundred horses to carry it.

For my own part, I am already resolved what to do; I have a pretty good shop of Irish stuffs and silks, and instead of taking Mr. Wood’s bad copper, I intend to truck with my neighbours the butchers, and bakers, and brewers, and the rest, goods for goods, and the little gold and silver I have, I will keep by me like my heart’s blood till better times, or till I am just ready to starve, and then I will buy Mr. Wood’s money as my father did the brass money in K. James’s time, who could buy ten pound of it with a guinea, and I hope to get as much for a pistole, and so purchase bread from those who will be such fools as to sell it me.

These halfpence, if they once pass, will soon be counterfeit, because it may be cheaply done, the stuff is so base.  The Dutch likewise will probably do the same thing, and send them over to us to pay for our goods. And Mr. Wood will never be at rest but coin on:  So that in some years we shall have at least five times fourscore and ten thousand pounds of this lumber.  Now the current money of this kingdom is not reckoned to be above four hundred thousand pounds in all, and while there is a silver sixpence left these blood-suckers will never be quiet.

When once the kingdom is reduced to such a condition, I will tell you what must be the end:  The gentlemen of estates will all turn off their tenants for want of payment, because as I told you before, the tenants are obliged by their leases to pay sterling which is lawful current money of England; then they will turn their own farmers, as too many of them do already, run all into sheep where they can, keeping only such other cattle as are necessary, then they will be their own merchants and send their wool and butter and hides and linen beyond sea for ready money and wine and spices and silks.  They will keep only a few miserable cottiers. The farmers must rob or beg, or leave their country.  The shopkeepers in this and every other town, must break and starve:  For it is the landed man that maintains the merchant, and shopkeeper, and handicraftsman.

But when the ’squire turns farmer and merchant himself, all the good money he gets from abroad, he will hoard up or send for England, and keep some poor tailor or weaver and the like in his own house, who will be glad to get bread at any rate.

I should never have done if I were to tell you all the miseries that we shall undergo if we be so foolish and wicked as to take this CURSED COIN.  It would be very hard if all Ireland should be put into one scale, and this sorry fellow Wood into the other, that Mr. Wood should weigh down this whole kingdom, by which England gets above a million of good money every year clear into their pockets, and that is more than the English do by all the world besides.

But your great comfort is, that as His Majesty’s patent does not oblige you to take this money, so the laws have not given the crown a power of forcing the subjects to take what money the King pleases:  For then by the same reason we might be bound to take pebble-stones or cockle-shells or stamped leather for current coin, if ever we should happen to live under an ill prince, who might likewise by the same power make a guinea pass for ten pounds, a shilling for twenty shillings, and so on, by which he would in a short time get all the silver and gold of the kingdom into his own hands, and leave us nothing but brass or leather or what he pleased.  Neither is anything reckoned more cruel or oppressive in the French government than their common practice of calling in all their money after they have sunk it very low, and then coining it anew at a much higher value, which however is not the thousandth part so wicked as this abominable project of Mr. Wood.  For the French give their subjects silver for silver and gold for gold, but this fellow will not so much as give us good brass or copper for our gold and silver, nor even a twelfth part of their worth.

Having said thus much, I will now go on to tell you the judgments of some great lawyers in this matter, whom I fee’d on purpose for your sakes, and got their opinions under their hands, that I might be sure I went upon good grounds.

A famous law-book, called “The Mirror of Justice," discoursing of the articles (or laws) ordained by our ancient kings declares the law to be as follows:  “It was ordained that no king of this realm should change, impair or amend the money or make any other money than of gold or silver without the assent of all the counties,” that is, as my Lord Coke says, without the assent of Parliament.

This book is very ancient, and of great authority for the time in which it was wrote, and with that character is often quoted by that great lawyer my Lord Coke. By the law of England, the several metals are divided into lawful or true metal and unlawful or false metal, the former comprehends silver or gold; the latter all baser metals:  That the former is only to pass in payments appears by an act of Parliament made the twentieth year of Edward the First, called the “Statute concerning the Passing of Pence,” which I give you here as I got it translated into English, for some of our laws at that time, were, as I am told writ in Latin:  “Whoever in buying or selling presumeth to refuse an halfpenny or farthing of lawful money, bearing the stamp which it ought to have, let him be seized on as a contemner of the King’s majesty, and cast into prison.”

By this statute, no person is to be reckoned a contemner of the King’s majesty, and for that crime to be committed to prison; but he who refuses to accept the King’s coin made of lawful metal, by which, as I observed before, silver and gold only are intended.

That this is the true construction of the act, appears not only from the plain meaning of the words, but from my Lord Coke’s observation upon it.  “By this act” (says he) “it appears, that no subject can be forced to take in buying or selling or other payments, any money made but of lawful metal; that is, of silver or gold."

The law of England gives the King all mines of gold and silver, but not the mines of other metals, the reason of which prerogative or power, as it is given by my Lord Coke is, because money can be made of gold and silver, but not of other metals.

Pursuant to this opinion halfpence and farthings were anciently made of silver, which is most evident from the act of Parliament of Henry the 4th. cha. by which it is enacted as follows:  “Item, for the great scarcity that is at present within the realm of England of halfpence and farthings of silver, it is ordained and established that the third part of all the money of silver plate which shall be brought to the bullion, shall be made in halfpence and farthings.”  This shews that by the word “halfpenny” and “farthing” of lawful money in that statute concerning the passing of pence, are meant a small coin in halfpence and farthings of silver.

This is further manifest from the statute of the ninth year of Edward the 3d. cha. which enacts, “That no sterling halfpenny or farthing be molten for to make vessel, nor any other thing by the goldsmiths, nor others, upon forfeiture of the money so molten” (or melted).

By another act in this King’s reign black money was not to be current in England, and by an act made in the eleventh year of his reign cha. galley halfpence were not to pass, what kind of coin these were I do not know, but I presume they were made of base metal, and that these acts were no new laws, but farther declarations of the old laws relating to the coin.

Thus the law stands in relation to coin, nor is there any example to the contrary, except one in Davis’s Reports, who tells us that in the time of Tyrone’s rebellion Queen Elizabeth ordered money of mixed metal to be coined in the Tower of London, and sent over hither for payment of the army, obliging all people to receive it and commanding that all silver money should be taken only as bullion, that is, for as much as it weighed.  Davis tells us several particulars in this matter too long here to trouble you with, and that the privy-council of this kingdom obliged a merchant in England to receive this mixed money for goods transmitted hither.

But this proceeding is rejected by all the best lawyers as contrary to law, the Privy-council here having no such power.  And besides it is to be considered, that the Queen was then under great difficulties by a rebellion in this kingdom assisted from Spain, and whatever is done in great exigences and dangerous times should never be an example to proceed by in seasons of peace and quietness.

I will now, my dear friends to save you the trouble, set before you in short, what the law obliges you to do, and what it does not oblige you to.

First, You are obliged to take all money in payments which is coined by the King and is of the English standard or weight, provided it be of gold or silver.

Secondly, You are not obliged to take any money which is not of gold or silver, no not the halfpence, or farthings of England, or of any other country, and it is only for convenience, or ease, that you are content to take them, because the custom of coining silver halfpence and farthings hath long been left off, I will suppose on account of their being subject to be lost.

Thirdly, Much less are you obliged to take those vile halfpence of that same Wood, by which you must lose almost eleven-pence in every shilling.

Therefore my friends, stand to it one and all, refuse this filthy trash.  It is no treason to rebel against Mr. Wood.  His Majesty in his patent obliges nobody to take these halfpence, our gracious prince hath no so ill advisers about him; or if he had, yet you see the laws have not left it in the King’s power, to force us to take any coin but what is lawful, of right standard gold and silver, therefore you have nothing to fear.

And let me in the next place apply myself particularly to you who are the poor sort of tradesmen, perhaps you may think you will not be so great losers as the rich, if these halfpence should pass, because you seldom see any silver, and your customers come to your shops or stalls with nothing but brass, which you likewise find hard to be got, but you may take my word, whenever this money gains footing among you, you will be utterly undone; if you carry these halfpence to a shop for tobacco or brandy, or any other thing you want, the shopkeeper will advance his goods accordingly, or else he must break, and leave the key under the door.  Do you think I will sell you a yard of tenpenny stuff for twenty of Mr. Wood’s halfpence?  No, not under two hundred at least, neither will I be at the trouble of counting, but weigh them in a lump; I will tell you one thing further, that if Mr. Wood’s project should take, it will ruin even our beggars; For when I give a beggar an halfpenny, it will quench his thirst, or go a good way to fill his belly, but the twelfth part of a halfpenny will do him no more service than if I should give him three pins out of my sleeve.

In short these halfpence are like “the accursed thing, which” as the Scripture tells us, “the children of Israel were forbidden to touch,” they will run about like the plague and destroy every one who lays his hands upon them.  I have heard scholars talk of a man who told a king that he had invented a way to torment people by putting them into a bull of brass with fire under it, but the prince put the projector first into his own brazen bull to make the experiment; this very much resembles the project of Mr. Wood, and the like of this may possibly be Mr. Wood’s fate, that the brass he contrived to torment this kingdom with, may prove his own torment, and his destruction at last.

N.B.  The author of this paper is informed by persons who have made it their business to be exact in their observations on the true value of these halfpence, that any person may expect to get a quart of twopenny ale for thirty-six of them.

I desire all persons may keep this paper carefully by them to refresh their memories whenever they shall have farther notice of Mr. Wood’s halfpence, or any other the like imposture.