Having already written two letters to people of my own level, and condition; and having now very pressing occasion for writing a third; I thought I could not more properly address it than to your lordships and worships.
The occasion is this. A printed paper was sent to me on the 18th instant, entitled, "A Report of the Committee of the Lords of His Majesty's Most Honourable Privy-Council in England, relating to Mr. Wood's Halfpence and Farthings."[2] There is no mention made where the paper was printed, but I suppose it to have been in Dublin; and I have been told that the copy did not come over in the Gazette, but in the London Journal, or some other print of no authority or consequence; and for anything that legally appears to the contrary, it may be a contrivance to fright us, or a project of some printer, who hath a mind to make a penny by publishing something upon a subject, which now employs all our thoughts in this kingdom. Mr. Wood in publishing this paper would insinuate to the world, as if the Committee had a greater concern for his credit and private emolument, than for the honour of the Privy-council and both Houses of Parliament here, and for the quiet and welfare of this whole kingdom; For it seems intended as a vindication of Mr. Wood, not 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 a power like that, would leave the whole lives and fortunes of the people entirely at the mercy of the monarch: Yet this, in effect, is what Wood hath advanced in some of his papers, and what suspicious people may possibly apprehend from some passages in that which is called the "Report."
That paper mentions "such persons to have been examined, who were desirous and willing to be heard upon that subject." I am told, they were four in all, Coleby, Brown, Mr. Finley the banker, and one more whose name I know not. The first of these was tried for robbing the Treasury in Ireland, and although he was acquitted for want of legal proof, yet every person in the Court believed him to be guilty. The second was tried for a rape, and stands recorded in the votes of the House of Commons, for endeavouring by perjury and subornation, to take away the life of John Bingham, Esq.[3]
[Footnote 3: Referring to these persons who were examined by the Committee, Monck Mason quotes from two letters from Archbishop King to Edward Southwell, Esq. King was one of the council, and Southwell secretary of state at the time. The first of these letters remarks: "Could a greater contempt be put upon a nation, than to see such a little fellow as Wood favoured and supported against them, and such profligates as Brown and Coleby believed before a whole parliament, government, and private council." From the second letter, written on August 15th, 1724, Monck Mason gives the following extracts:
"—When I returned to Dublin I met with resolutions concerning our halfpence, founded chiefly on the testimony of two infamous persons, John Brown and Coleby: as to the first of these, you will find his character in the votes of the house of commons, last parliament. Tuesday, the 5th of November.
"'Resolved, that it appears to this Committee, that a wicked conspiracy was maliciously contrived and carried on against John Bingham, to take away his life and fortune.