The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift Part 2

346, note r). See also Appendix No. IX. [T.S.]]

But Wood is still working underhand to force his halfpence upon us, and if he can by help of his friends in England prevail so far as to get an order that the commissioners and collectors of the King's money shall receive them, and that the army is to be paid with them, then he thinks his work shall be done. And this is the difficulty you will be under in such a case. For the common soldier when he goes to the market or alehouse will offer this money, and if it be refused, perhaps he will swagger and hector, and threaten to beat the butcher or alewife, or take the goods by force, and throw them the bad halfpence. In this and the like cases, the shopkeeper or victualler, or any other tradesman has no more to do, than to demand ten times the price of his goods, if it is to be paid in Wood's money; for example, twenty-pence of that money for a quart of ale, and so in all things else, and not part with his goods till he gets the money.

For suppose you go to an alehouse with that base money, and the landlord gives you a quart for four of these halfpence, what must the victualler do? His brewer will not be paid in that coin, or if the brewer should be such a fool, the farmers will not take it from them for their bere,[19]

because they are bound by their leases to pay their rents in good and lawful money of England, which this is not, nor of Ireland neither, and the 'squire their landlord will never be so bewitched to take such trash for his land, so that it must certainly stop somewhere or other, and wherever it stops it is the same thing, and we are all undone.

[Footnote 19: Bere = barley. Cf. A.S. _baerlic_, Icelandic, _barr_, meaning barley, the grain used for making malt for the preparation of beer. [T.S.]]

The common weight of these halfpence is between four and five to an ounce, suppose five, then three s.h.i.+llings and fourpence will weigh a pound, and consequently twenty s.h.i.+llings will weigh six pound b.u.t.ter weight. Now there are many hundred farmers who pay two hundred pound a year rent. Therefore when one of these farmers comes with his half-year's rent, which is one hundred pound, it will be at least six hundred pound weight, which is three horse load.

If a 'squire has a mind to come to town to buy clothes and wine and spices for himself and family, or perhaps to pa.s.s the winter here; he must bring with him five or six horses loaden with sacks as the farmers bring their corn; and when his lady comes in her coach to our shops, it must be followed by a car loaden with Mr. Wood's money. And I hope we shall have the grace to take it for no more than it is worth.

They say 'Squire Conolly[20] has sixteen thousand pounds a year, now if he sends for his rent to town, as it is likely he does, he must have two hundred and forty horses to bring up his half-year's rent, and two or three great cellars in his house for stowage. But what the bankers will do I cannot tell. For I am a.s.sured, that some great bankers keep by them forty thousand pounds in ready cash to answer all payments, which sum, in Mr. Wood's money, would require twelve hundred horses to carry it.

[Footnote 20: William Conolly (d. 1729) was chosen Speaker of the Irish House of Commons on November 12th, 1715. He held this office until October 12th, 1729. Swift elsewhere says that Wharton sold Conolly the office of Chief Commissioner of the Irish Revenue for 3,000. Between the years 1706 and 1729 Conolly was ten times selected for the office of a Lord Justice of Ireland. The remark in the text as to Conolly's income is repeated by Boulter ("Letters," vol. i., p. 334), though the Primate writes of 17,000 a year. The reference to Conolly is of set purpose, because Conolly had advocated the patent as against Midleton's condemnation of it. [T.S.]]

For my own part, I am already resolved what to do; I have a pretty good shop of Irish stuffs and silks, and instead of taking Mr. Wood's bad copper, I intend to truck with my neighbours the butchers, and bakers, and brewers, and the rest, goods for goods, and the little gold and silver I have, I will keep by me like my heart's blood till better times, or till I am just ready to starve, and then I will buy Mr. Wood's money as my father did the bra.s.s money in K. James's time,[21] who could buy ten pound of it with a guinea, and I hope to get as much for a pistole, and so purchase bread from those who will be such fools as to sell it me.

[Footnote 21: James II., during his unsuccessful campaign in Ireland, debased the coinage in order to make his funds meet the demands of his soldiery. Archbishop King, in his work on the "State of the Protestants in Ireland," describes the evil effects which this proceeding had: "King James's council used not to stick at the formalities of law or reason, and therefore vast quant.i.ties of bra.s.s money were coined, and made current by a proclamation, dated 18th June, 1689, under severe penalties. The metal of which this money was made was the worst kind of bra.s.s; old guns, and the refuse of metals were melted down to make it; workmen rated it at threepence or a groat a pound, which being coined into sixpences, s.h.i.+llings, or half-crowns, one pound weight made about 5. And by another proclamation, dated 1690, the half-crowns were called in, and being stamped anew, were made to pa.s.s for crowns; so that then, three pence or four pence worth of metal made 10. There was coined in all, from the first setting up of the mint, to the rout at the Boyne, being about twelve months, 965,375. In this coin King James paid all his appointments, and all that received the king's pay being generally papists, they forced the protestants to part with the goods out of their shops for this money, and to receive their debts in it; so that the loss by the bra.s.s money did, in a manner, entirely fall on the protestants, being defrauded (for I can call it no better) of about, 60,000 per month by this stratagem, which must, in a few months, have utterly exhausted them. When the papists had gotten most of their saleable goods from their protestant neighbours, and yet great quant.i.ties of bra.s.s money remained in their hands, they began to consider how many of them, who had estates, had engaged them to protestants by judgments, statutes staple, and mortgages; and to take this likewise from them they procured a proclamation, dated 4 Feb. 1689, to make bra.s.s money current in all payments whatsoever." A proclamation of William III., dated July 10th, 1690, ordered that these crown pieces of James should pa.s.s as of equal value with one penny each. [T.S.]]

These halfpence, if they once pa.s.s, will soon be counterfeit, because it may be cheaply done, the stuff is so base. The Dutch likewise will probably do the same thing, and send them over to us to pay for our goods.[22] And Mr. Wood will never be at rest but coin on: So that in some years we shall have at least five times fourscore and ten thousand pounds of this lumber. Now the current money of this kingdom is not reckoned to be above four hundred thousand pounds in all, and while there is a silver sixpence left these blood-suckers will never be quiet.

[Footnote 22: The Dutch had previously counterfeited the debased coinage of Ireland and sent them over in payment for Irish manufactures. [T.

S.]]

When once the kingdom is reduced to such a condition, I will tell you what must be the end: The gentlemen of estates will all turn off their tenants for want of payment, because as I told you before, the tenants are obliged by their leases to pay sterling which is lawful current money of England; then they will turn their own farmers, as too many of them do already, run all into sheep where they can, keeping only such other cattle as are necessary, then they will be their own merchants and send their wool and b.u.t.ter and hides and linen beyond sea for ready money and wine and spices and silks. They will keep only a few miserable cottiers.[23] The farmers must rob or beg, or leave their country. The shopkeepers in this and every other town, must break and starve: For it is the landed man that maintains the merchant, and shopkeeper, and handicraftsman.

[Footnote 23: "Unlike the peasant proprietor," says Lecky, "and also unlike the mediaeval serf, the cottier had no permanent interest in the soil, and no security for his future position. Unlike the English farmer, he was no capitalist, who selects land as one of the many forms of profitable investment that are open to him. He was a man dest.i.tute of all knowledge and of all capital, who found the land the only thing that remained between himself and starvation. Rents in the lower grades of tenancies were regulated by compet.i.tion, but it was compet.i.tion between a half-starving population, who had no other resources except the soil, and were therefore prepared to promise anything rather than be deprived of it. The landlord did nothing for them. They built their own mud hovels, planted their hedges, dug their ditches. They were half naked, half starved, utterly dest.i.tute of all providence and of all education, liable at any time to be turned adrift from their holdings, ground to the dust by three great burdens--rack-rents, paid not to the landlord but to the middleman; t.i.thes, paid to the clergy--often the absentee clergy--of the church to which they did not belong; and dues, paid to their own priests" ("Hist, of Ireland," vol. i., pp. 214-215, ed. 1892).

[T.S.]]

But when the 'squire turns farmer and merchant himself, all the good money he gets from abroad, he will h.o.a.rd up or send for England, and keep 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 c.o.c.kle-sh.e.l.ls 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 pa.s.s for ten pounds, a s.h.i.+lling for twenty s.h.i.+llings, 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 bra.s.s 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 anew 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 bra.s.s or copper for our gold and silver, nor even a twelfth part of their worth.

Having said thus 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, called "The Mirror of Justice,"[24] 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 a.s.sent of all the counties," that is, as my Lord c.o.ke says,[25] without the a.s.sent of Parliament.

[Footnote 24: This was an important legal treatise often quoted by c.o.ke.

Its full t.i.tle is: "The Booke called, The Mirrour of Justices: Made by Andrew Home. With the book, called, The Diversity of Courts, And Their Jurisdictions ... London ... 1646." The French edition was printed in 1642 with the t.i.tle, "La somme appelle Mirroir des Justices: vel speculum Justiciariorum, Factum per Andream Home." c.o.ke quotes it from a ma.n.u.script, as he died before it was printed. [T.S.]]

[Footnote 25: 2 Inst. 576. [ORIG. ED.]]

This book is very ancient, and of great authority for the time in which it was wrote, and with that character is often quoted by that great lawyer my Lord c.o.ke.[26] By the law of England, the several metals are divided into lawful or true metal and unlawful or false metal, the former comprehends silver or gold; the latter all baser metals: That the former is only to pa.s.s in payments appears by an act of Parliament[27]

made the twentieth year of Edward the First, called the "Statute concerning the Pa.s.sing of Pence," which I give you here as I got it translated into English, for some of our laws at that time, were, as I am told writ in Latin: "Whoever in buying or selling presumeth to refuse an halfpenny or farthing of lawful money, bearing the stamp which it ought to have, let him be seized on as a contemner of the King's majesty, and cast into prison."

[Footnote 26: 2 Inst. 576-577. [ORIG. ED.]]

[Footnote 27: 2 Inst. 577. [ORIG. ED.]]

By this statute, no person is to be reckoned a contemner of the King's majesty, and for that crime to be committed to prison; but he who refuses to accept the King's coin made of lawful metal, by which, as I observed before, silver and gold only are intended.

That this is the true construction of the act, appears not only from the plain meaning of the words, but from my Lord c.o.ke's observation upon it.

"By this act" (says he) "it appears, that no subject can be forced to take in buying or selling or other payments, any money made but of lawful metal; that is, of silver or gold."[28]

[Footnote 28: 2 Inst. 577. [ORIG. ED.]]

The law of England gives the King all mines of gold and silver, but not the mines of other metals, the reason of which prerogative or power, as it is given by my Lord c.o.ke[29] is, because money can be made of gold and silver, but not of other metals.

[Footnote 29: 2 Inst. 577. [ORIG. ED.]]

Pursuant to this opinion halfpence and farthings were anciently made of silver, which is most evident from the act of Parliament of Henry the 4th. chap. 4.[30] by which it is enacted as follows: "Item, for the great scarcity that is at present within the realm of England of halfpence and farthings of silver, it is ordained and established that the third part of all the money of silver plate which shall be brought to the bullion, shall be made in halfpence and farthings." This shews that by the word "halfpenny" and "farthing" of lawful money in that statute concerning the pa.s.sing of pence, are meant a small coin in halfpence and farthings of silver.

[Footnote 30: Swift makes an incorrect reference here. The act was 4 Henry IV., cap. 10. [T.S.]]

This is further manifest from the statute of the ninth year of Edward the 3d. chap. 3. which enacts, "That no sterling halfpenny or farthing be molten for to make vessel, nor any other thing by the goldsmiths, nor others, upon forfeiture of the money so molten" (or melted).

By another act in this King's reign[31] black money was not to be current in England, and by an act made in the eleventh year of his reign chap. 5. galley halfpence were not to pa.s.s, what kind of coin these were I do not know, but I presume they were made of base metal, and that these acts were no new laws, but farther declarations of the old laws relating to the coin.

[Footnote 31: The act against black money was pa.s.sed in Henry IV.'s reign not Edward III.'s. The "galley halfpence" were dealt with by 9 Hen. IV., cap. 4. [T.S.]]

Thus the law stands in relation to coin, nor is there any example to the contrary, except one in Davis's Reports,[32] who tells us that in the time of Tyrone's rebellion Queen Elizabeth ordered money of mixed metal to be coined in the Tower of London, and sent over hither for payment of the army, obliging all people to receive it and commanding that all silver money should be taken only as bullion, that is, for as much as it weighed. Davis tells us several particulars in this matter too long here to trouble you with, and that the privy-council of this kingdom obliged a merchant in England to receive this mixed money for goods transmitted hither.[33]

[Footnote 32: This refers to Sir John Davies's "Abridgement of Sir Edward c.o.ke's Reports," first published in 1651. Davies was Attorney-General for Ireland and a poet. His works have been collected and edited by Dr. A.B. Grosart in the Fuller Worthies Library. [T.S.]]

[Footnote 33: Charles I., during the Civil War, paid his forces with debased coin struck by him. [T.S.]]

But this proceeding is rejected by all the best lawyers as contrary to law, the Privy-council here having no such power. And besides it is to be considered, that the Queen was then under great difficulties by a rebellion in this kingdom a.s.sisted from Spain, and whatever is done in great exigences and dangerous times should never be an example to proceed by in seasons of peace and quietness.

I will now, my dear friends to save you the trouble, set before you in short, what the law obliges you to do, and what it does not oblige you to.

First, You are obliged to take all money in payments which is coined by the King and is of the English standard or weight, provided it be of gold or silver.

Secondly, You are not obliged to take any money which is not of gold or silver, no not the halfpence, or farthings of England, or of any other country, and it is only for convenience, or ease, that you are content to take them, because the custom of coining silver halfpence and farthings hath long been left off, I will suppose on account of their being subject to be lost.

Thirdly, Much less are you obliged to take those vile halfpence of that same Wood, by which you must lose almost eleven-pence in every s.h.i.+lling.

Therefore my friends, stand to it one and all, refuse this filthy trash.

It is no treason to rebel against Mr. Wood. His Majesty in his patent obliges n.o.body to take these halfpence,[34] our gracious prince hath no so ill advisers about him; or if he had, yet you see the laws have not left it in the King's power, to force us to take any coin but what is lawful, of right standard gold and silver, therefore you have nothing to fear.

[Footnote 34: The words of the patent are "to pa.s.s and to be received as current money; by such as shall or will, voluntarily and wittingly, and not otherwise, receive the same" (the halfpence and farthings). [T.S.]]

And let me in the next place apply myself particularly to you who are the poor sort of tradesmen, perhaps you may think you will not be so great losers as the rich, if these halfpence should pa.s.s, because you seldom see any silver, and your customers come to your shops or stalls with nothing but bra.s.s, which you likewise find hard to be got, but you may take my word, whenever this money gains footing among you, you will be utterly undone; if you carry these halfpence to a shop for tobacco or brandy, or any other thing you want, the shopkeeper will advance his goods accordingly, or else he must break, and leave the key under the door. Do you think I will sell you a yard of tenpenny stuff for twenty of Mr. Wood's halfpence? No, not under two hundred at least, neither will I be at the trouble of counting, but weigh them in a lump; I will tell you one thing further, that if Mr. Wood's project should take, it will ruin even our beggars; For when I give a beggar an halfpenny, it will quench his thirst, or go a good way to fill his belly, but the twelfth part of a halfpenny will do him no more service than if I should give him three pins out of my sleeve.

In short these halfpence are like "the accursed thing, which" as the Scripture tells us, "the children of Israel were forbidden to touch,"

they will run about like the plague and destroy every one who lays his hands upon them. I have heard scholars talk of a man who told a king that he had invented a way to torment people by putting them into a bull of bra.s.s with fire under it, but the prince put the projector first into his own brazen bull to make the experiment;[35] this very much resembles the project of Mr. Wood, and the like of this may possibly be Mr. Wood's fate, that the bra.s.s he contrived to torment this kingdom with, may prove his own torment, and his destruction at last.