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 ale-house with that base money, and the landlord gives you a quart for four of those 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,[3] because they are bound, by their leases, to pay their rent 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 four pence will weigh a pound, and consequently twenty shillings will weigh six pounds butter weight. Now there are many hundred farmers, who pay two hundred pounds a year rent; therefore, when one of these farmers comes with his half-year’s rent, which is one hundred pounds, it will be at least six hundred pounds’ weight, which is three horses’ 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 well 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 loaded 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[4] 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 fifty 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 until I am just ready to starve; and then I will buy Mr. Wood’s money, as my father did the brass money in King James’s time,[5] who could buy ten pounds 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 counterfeited, 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 108,000l. 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 bloodsuckers 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 payments, 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 cottagers; 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 to 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 subject 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 and 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 judgment 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.... 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; not only the halfpence or farthings of England, but of any other country. And it is merely for convenience or ease, that you are content to take them; because the custom of coining silver halfpence and farthings