wnshend succeeded. Schaub was recalled; Horace Walpole
was appointed ambassador in his place. The recall of Schaub involved
the fall of Carteret. Carteret, however, was not a man to be rudely
thrust out of office, and a soft fall was therefore prepared for him;
he was made Lord-lieutenant of Ireland. He knew that he was defeated.
Then, as at a later day and at an earlier, the Viceroyalty of Ireland
was the gilding which enabled a man to gulp down the bitter pill of
political failure. When Lord John Russell obtained the dismissal of
Lord Palmerston from his cabinet in 1851, he endeavored, somewhat
awkwardly, to soften the blow by offering to his dispossessed rival the
position of Lord-lieutenant of Ireland. Lord Palmerston understood the
meaning of the offer, and treated it--as was but natural--with open
contempt. Carteret acted otherwise. Probably he felt within himself
that he was not destined to a great political career. In any case, he
accepted the offer with perfect good-humor, declaring that, on the
whole, he thought he should be much more pleasantly situated as a
dictator in Dublin than as the servant of a dictator in London.

{240}

CHAPTER XV.

THE DRAPIER'S LETTERS.

[Sidenote: 1724--Wood's coinage]

Lord Carteret arrived at the seat of his Viceroyalty in the midst of a
political storm which threatened at one time to blow down a good many
shaky institutions. He found the whole country, and especially the
capital, convulsed by an agitation the like of which was not seen again
until the days of Grattan and the Volunteers. The hero of the
agitation was Swift; the spell-words which gave it life and direction
were found in "The Drapier's Letters."

The copper coinage of Ireland had been for a long time deficient.
Employers of labor had in many cases been obliged to pay their workmen
in tokens; sometimes even with pieces of card, stamped and signed, and
representing each a small amount. During Sunderland's time of power,
the Government set themselves to work to supply the lack of copper, and
invited tenders from the owners of mines for the supply. A Mr. William
Wood, a man who owned iron and copper mines, and iron and copper works,
sent in a tender which was accepted. A patent was given to Wood
permitting him to coin halfpence and farthings to the value of one
hundred and eight thousand pounds. Walpole had not approved of the
scheme himself, but for various reasons he did not venture to up