to refresh
their memories whenever they shall have further notice of Mr. Wood's
half-pence or any other the like imposture.

II.

A LETTER TO MR. HARDING THE PRINTER, UPON OCCASION OF A PARAGRAPH IN
HIS NEWS-PAPER OF AUGUST 1, 1724, RELATING TO MR. WOOD'S HALF-PENCE.

In your news-letter of the first instant there is a paragraph dated
from London, July 25th, relating to Wood's half-pence; whereby it is
plain, what I foretold in my letter to the shop-keepers, etc., that
this vile fellow would never be at rest, and that the danger of our
ruin approaches nearer, and therefore the kingdom requires new and
fresh warning; however I take that paragraph to be, in a great
measure, an imposition upon the public, at least I hope so, because I
am informed that Wood is generally his own news-writer. I cannot but
observe from that paragraph that this public enemy of ours, not
satisfied to ruin us with his trash, takes every occasion to treat
this kingdom with the utmost contempt. He represents several of our
merchants and traders upon examination before a committee of a
council, agreeing that there was the utmost necessity of copper-money
here, before his patent, so that several gentlemen have been forced to
tally with their workmen, and give them bits of cards sealed and
subscribed with their names. What then? If a physician prescribe to a
patient a dram of physic, shall a rascal apothecary cram him with a
pound, and mix it up with poison? And is not a landlord's hand and
seal to his own labourers a better security for five or ten shillings,
than Wood's brass seven times below the real value, can be to the
kingdom, for an hundred and four thousand pounds?

But who are these merchants and traders of Ireland that make this
report of the utmost necessity we are under of copper money? They are
only a few betrayers of their country, confederates with Wood, from
whom they are to purchase a great quantity of his coin, perhaps at
half value, and vend it among us to the ruin of the public and their
own private advantage. Are not these excellent witnesses, upon whose
integrity the fate of a kingdom must depend, who are evidences in
their own cause, and sharers in this work of iniquity?

If we could have deserved the liberty of coining for ourselves, as we
formerly did (and why we have not is everybody's wonder as well as
mine), ten thousand pounds might have been coined here in Dublin of
only one fifth below the intrinsic value, and t