p 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 a-new 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 this 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 call'd the _Mirrour 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 wi