without several severe remarks on the Houses of Lords and
Commons of Ireland.

[Footnote 2: The full text of this report is prefixed to this third
letter of the Drapier. The report was published in the "London Journal"
about the middle of August of 1724. Neither the "Gazette" nor any other
ministerial organ printed it, which evidently gave Swift his cue to
attack it in the merciless manner he did. Monck Mason thought it "not
improbable that the minister [Walpole] adopted this method of
communication, because it served his own purpose; he dared not to stake
his credit upon such a document, which, in its published form, contains
some gross mis-statements" ("History of St. Patrick's Cathedral," note,
on p. 336). [T.S.]]

The whole is indeed written with the turn and air of a pamphlet, as if
it were a dispute between William Wood on the one part, and the Lords
Justices, Privy-council and both Houses of Parliament on the other; the
design of it being to clear and vindicate the injured reputation of
William Wood, and to charge the other side with casting rash and
groundless aspersions upon him.

But if it be really what the title imports, Mr. Wood hath treated the
Committee with great rudeness, by publishing an act of theirs in so
unbecoming a manner, without their leave, and before it was communicated
to the government and Privy-council of Ireland, to whom the Committee
advised that it should be transmitted. But with all deference be it
spoken, I do not conceive that a Report of a Committee of the Council in
England is hitherto a law in either kingdom; and until any point is
determined to be a law, it remains disputable by every subject.

This (may it please your lordships and worships) may seem a strange way
of discoursing in an illiterate shopkeeper. I have endeavoured (although
without the help of books) to improve that small portion of reason which
God hath pleased to give me, and when reason plainly appears before me,
I cannot turn away my head from it. Thus for instance, if any lawyer
should tell me that such a point were law, from which many gross
palpable absurdities must follow, I would not, I could not believe him.
If Sir Edward Coke should positively assert (which he nowhere does, but
the direct contrary) that a limited prince, could by his prerogative
oblige his subjects to take half an ounce of lead, stamped with his
image, for twenty shillings in gold, I should swear he was deceived or a
deceiver, because