Elementary arithmetic, with brief notices of its history... by Robert Potts.

42

IMONEY.

of silver to the increasing luxury in relation to silver-plate, the vast
exports of bullion to the East Indies, and the clandestine trade of
exporting gold and silver to Holland and other parts.
In 1723, a patent was granted to W. Wood, Esq., to coin halfpence;and farthings to supply the want of small money in Ireland, for the
use of such persons as would, without compulsion, voluntarily receive
it. The patent was for 14 years. The copper was limited to 360 tons;
100 tons to be issued in coins the first year, and 20 tons annually for
the remaining 13 years, under a comptroller appointed by the Crown.
A pound of copper was to be coined into two shillings and sixpence by
tale. The sum of ~800 a year was reserved for the king, and ~200
for the comptroller, to be paid by the patentee.
This measure was extremely unpopular in Ireland, and the prejudices
of the people were so strongly raised against it by Dean Swift and
others, that the patentee was compelled to resign his patent.1 On
18 August, the King in Council was pleased to direct that the coins
already made to the value of about ~17,000, and as much more as
would make up the sum to ~40,000, should be permitted to be current according to the terms of the patent. Mr. Wood was charged
with fraud and deceit in executing the powers granted to him as
patentee. A Committee of the Lords of the Privy Council was
the issue of the new coinage all foreign coins were refused, and only old English
coins were received in exchange for the new shillings and sixpences.
Mr. Fleetwood, in a sermon before the Lord. Mayor, on Gen. xxiii. 16,
pointed out the mischiefs arising from debasing the coins either in weight or
fineness, and the wickedness of the practice, as being a fraud upon every person
who received the coins so debased. lie pointed out the calamities which would
ensue, that a time would come when the money would be no longer current, but
at its just weight and fineness. Then every family would be a loser, but the
loss would fall most severely on the poor.
1 By misrepresentations and the delusive force of a sermon of Dean Swift,
-and his Drapier's letters, he brought to the test of experiment, an impudent and
unprincipled assertion of his own, that were he permitted to write whatever he
pleased, he would engage to write down any government in a few months.
Swift attacked the report with sophistries and minsstatements, which were
-well calculated to mislead minds already prejudiced against the measure; and
when a proclamation was issued offering ~300 reward for the discovery of the
author of the Drapier's fourth letter, and a bill of indictment was preparing
against the printer of it; Swift published " Seasonable advice to the grand jury,"
in which by similar modes of arguing he called upon them not to find the bill.
A copy of the pamphlet was distributed, on the evening before the trial, to every
person on the brand jury; and thus by the very means which Swift himself had
so strongly reprobated when used by the Committee of the Privy Council, namely,
by prejudging the case, he accomplished his purpose, and the bill was not found.
From this time, Swift was considered the Saviour of Ireland, and Wood was
ridiculed in ballads and executed in effigy, and at last obliged to resign his
patent, and (as Mr. Leake expresses it) for the satisfaction of the people of Ireland!
Lord Chesterfield has truly remarked that "every numerous assembly is a
mob, let the individuals who compose it be what they will. Mere reason and
good sense are never to be talked to a mob; their passions, their sentiments, their
senses, and their seeming interests are alone to be appealed to." On this principle
Swift wrote, and his writings were, in the instance before us, eminently successful.
But the triumph attending such success is shortlived, while the infamy of it is
Dean Swift appears to have forgotten, or wilfully ignored the fact, that it
is the prerogative of the Sovereign of a State or the supreme power, and not that of
the people, to coin money, and to give authority for making it current. And,
further, to impose such a value on foreign coins, as he may appoint, to make
them current in his kingdom. And it may be added, that this prerogative has
ever been by English sovereigns guarded with extreme jealousy.