ut always
with this proviso, that the man be willing to come.'

"I am your, etc.

"MISOXULOS."]

I must beg leave to caution your lordships and worships in one
particular. Wood hath graciously promised to load us at present only
with forty thousand pounds of his coin, till the exigences of the
kingdom require the rest. I entreat you will never suffer Mr. Wood to be
a judge of your exigences. While there is one piece of silver or gold
remaining in the kingdom he will call it an exigency, he will double his
present _quantum_ by stealth as soon as he can, and will have the
remainder still to the good. He will pour his own raps[22]and
counterfeits upon us: France and Holland will do the same; nor will our
own coiners at home be behind them: To confirm which I have now in my
pocket a rap or counterfeit halfpenny in imitation of his, but so ill
performed, that in my conscience I believe it is not of his coining.

[Footnote 22: The word Rap is probably a contraction of "raparee," and
was the name given to the tokens that passed current in Ireland for
copper coins of small value. Generally it referred to debased coins;
hence it may be allied to "raparee," who might be considered as a
debased citizen. The raparees were so called from the rapary or
half-pike they carried. [T.S.]]

I must now desire your lordships and worships that you will give great
allowance for this long undigested paper, I find myself to have gone
into several repetitions, which were the effects of haste, while new
thoughts fell in to add something to what I had said before. I think I
may affirm that I have fully answered every paragraph in the Report,
which although it be not unartfully drawn, and is perfectly in the
spirit of a pleader who can find the most plausible topics in behalf of
his client, yet there was no great skill required to detect the many
mistakes contained in it, which however are by no means to be charged
upon the right honourable Committee, but upon the most false impudent
and fraudulent representations of Wood and his accomplices. I desire one
particular may dwell upon your minds, although I have mentioned it more
than once; That after all the weight laid upon precedents there is not
one produced in the whole Report, of a patent for coining copper in
England to pass in Ireland, and only two patents referred to (for indeed
there were no more) which were both passed in Ireland, by references to
the King's Council here, both less ad