I have been told, that petitions and addresses, to either King or Parliament, are the right of every subject, provided they consist with that respect which is due to princes and great assemblies. Neither do I remember, that the modest proposals or opinions of private men have been ill-received, when they have not been delivered in the style of advice; which is a presumption far from my thoughts. However, if proposals should be looked upon as too assuming, yet I hope every man may be suffered to declare his own and the nation’s wishes. For instance; I may be allowed to wish, that some farther laws were enacted for the advancement of trade; for the improvement of agriculture, now strangely neglected, against the maxims of all wise nations; for supplying the manifest defects in the acts concerning the plantation of trees; for setting the poor to work; and many others.
Upon this principle I may venture to affirm, it is the hearty wish of the whole nation, very few excepted, that the Parliament, in this session, would begin by strictly examining into the detestable fraud of one William Wood, now or late of London, hardwareman; who illegally and clandestinely, as appears by your own votes and addresses, procured a patent in England for coining halfpence in that kingdom to be current here. This, I say, is the wish of the whole nation, very few excepted; and upon account of those few, is more strongly and justly the wish of the rest; those few consisting either of Wood’s confederates, some obscure tradesmen, or certain bold UNDERTAKERS,[23] of weak judgment and strong ambition, who think to find their accounts in the ruin of the nation, by securing or advancing themselves. And because such men proceed upon a system of politics, to which I would fain hope you will be always utter strangers, I shall humbly lay it before you.
Be pleased to suppose me in a station of fifteen hundred pounds a year, salary and perquisites: and likewise possessed of 800l. a-year, real estate. Then suppose a destructive project to be set on foot; such for instance, as this of Wood; which, if it succeed in all the consequences naturally to be expected from it, must sink the rents and wealth of the kingdom one half, although I am confident it would have done so five-sixths; suppose, I conceive that the countenancing, or privately supporting, this project, will please those by whom I expect to be preserved or higher exalted; nothing then remains, but to compute and balance my gain and my loss, and sum up the whole. I suppose that I shall keep my employment ten years, not to mention the fair chance of a better.
This, at 1500l. a year, amounts in ten years to 15,000l. My estate, by the success of the said project, sinks 400l. a-year; which, at twenty years’ purchase, is but 8000l.; so that I am a clear gainer of 7000l. upon the balance. And during all that period I am possessed of power and credit, can gratify my favourites, and take vengeance on mine enemies. And if the project miscarry, my private merit is still entire. This arithmetic, as horrible as it appears, I knowingly affirm to have been practised and applied, in conjunctures whereon depended the ruin or safety of a nation; although probably the charity and virtue of a senate will hardly be induced to believe, that there can be such monsters among mankind. And yet the wise Lord Bacon mentions a sort of people (I doubt the race is not yet extinct) who would “set a house on fire for the convenience of roasting their own eggs at the flame.”
But whoever is old enough to remember, and has turned his thoughts to observe, the course of public affairs in this kingdom from the time of the Revolution, must acknowledge, that the highest points of interest and liberty have often been sacrificed to the avarice and ambition of particular persons, upon the very principles and arithmetic that I have supposed. The only wonder is, how these artists were able to prevail upon numbers, and influence even public assemblies, to become instruments for effecting their execrable designs.
It is, I think, in all conscience, latitude enough for vice, if a man in station be allowed to act injustice upon the usual principles of getting a bribe, wreaking his malice, serving his party, or consulting his preferment, while his wickedness terminates in the ruin only of particular persons; but to deliver up our whole country and every living soul who inhabits it, to certain destruction, has not, as I remember, been permitted by the most favourable casuists on the side of corruption.
It were far better, that all who have had the misfortune to be born in this kingdom, should be rendered incapable of holding any employment whatsoever above the degree of a constable (according to the scheme and intention of a great minister,[24] gone to his own place), than to live under the daily apprehension of a few false brethren among ourselves; because, in the former case, we should be wholly free from the danger of being betrayed, since none could then have impudence enough to pretend any public good. It is true, that in this desperate affair of the new halfpence, I have not heard of any man above my own degree of a shopkeeper, to have been hitherto so bold, as, in direct terms, to vindicate the fatal project; although I have been told of some very mollifying expressions which were used, and very gentle expedients proposed and handed about, when it first came under debate; but since the eyes of the people have been so far opened, that the most ignorant can plainly see their own ruin in the success of Wood’s attempt, these grand compounders have been more cautious.... In the small compass of my reading (which, however, has been more extensive than is usual to men of my inferior calling,) I have observed, that grievances have always preceded supplies. And if ever grievances had a title to such pre-eminence, it must be this of Wood; because it is not only the greatest grievance that any country could suffer, but a grievance of such a kind, that, if it should take effect, would make it impossible for us to give any supplies at all, except in adulterate copper; unless a tax were laid, for paying the civil and military lists and the large pensions, with real commodities instead of money. Which, however, might be liable to some few objections, as well as difficulties; for, although the common soldiers might be content with beef, and mutton, and wool, and malt, and leather, yet I am in some doubt as to the generals, the colonels, the numerous pensioners, the civil officers and others, who all live in England upon Irish pay, as well as those few who reside among us only because they cannot help it. There is one particular, which, although I have mentioned more than once in some of my former papers, yet I cannot forbear to repeat, and a little enlarge upon it; because I do not remember to have read or heard of the like in the history of any age or country, neither do I ever reflect upon it without the utmost astonishment.
After the unanimous addresses to his sacred Majesty, against the patent of Wood, from both Houses of Parliament, which are the three estates of the kingdom, and likewise an address from the Privy-council, to whom, under the chief governors, the whole administration is entrusted, the matter is referred to a committee of council in London. Wood and his adherents are heard on one side; and a few volunteers, without any trust or direction from hence, on the other. The question, as I remember, chiefly turned upon the want of halfpence in Ireland. Witnesses are called on the behalf of Wood, of what credit I have formerly shown. Upon the issue, the patent is found good and legal; all his Majesty’s officers here, not excepting the military, commanded to be aiding and assisting to make it effectual; the addresses of both Houses of Parliament, of the Privy-council, and of the city of Dublin, the declarations of most counties and corporations throughout the kingdom, are altogether laid aside, as of no weight, consequence, or consideration whatsoever; and the whole kingdom of Ireland non-suited in default of appearance, as if it were a private case between John Doe, plaintiff, and William Roe, defendant.
With great respect to those honourable persons, the committee of council in London, I have not understood them to be our governors, councillors, or judges. Neither did our case turn at all upon the questions whether Ireland wanted halfpence or no. For there is no doubt, but we do want both halfpence, gold, and silver; and we have numberless other wants, and some that we are not so much as allowed to name, although they are peculiar to this nation; to which no other is subject, whom God has blessed with religion and laws, or any degree of soil and sunshine; but for what demerits on our side, I am altogether in the dark. But I do not remember that our want of halfpence was either affirmed or denied in any of our addresses or declarations against those of Wood. We alleged the fraudulent obtaining and executing of his patent; the baseness of his metal; and the prodigious sum to be coined, which might be increased by stealth, from foreign importation and his own counterfeits, as well as those at home; whereby we must infallibly lose all our little gold and silver, and all our poor remainder of a very limited and discouraged trade. We urged, that the patent was passed without the least reference hither; and without mention of any security given by Wood, to receive his own halfpence upon demand; both which are contrary to all contrary proceedings in the like cases.
These, and many other arguments, we offered, but still the patent went on; and at this day our ruin would have been half completed, if God in His mercy had not raised a universal detestation of these halfpence in the whole kingdom, with a firm resolution never to receive them; since we are not under obligations to do so by any law, either human or divine.