[Footnote 15: Admiral Sir George Rooke (1650-1709), who, with Rear-Admiral Byng, captured Gibraltar in 1704. [T.S.]
If Sir John Holt's opinion were a standard maxim for all times and circumstances, any writer, with a very small measure of discretion, might easily be safe; but, I doubt, in practice it hath been frequently controlled, at least before his time; for I take it to be an old rule in law.
I have read, or heard, a passage of Signor Leti, an Italian; who being in London, busying himself with writing the History of England, told King Charles the Second, that he endeavoured as much as he could to avoid giving offence, but found it a thing impossible; although he should have been as wise as Solomon: The King answered, that if this were the case, he had better employ his time in writing proverbs as Solomon did: But Leti lay under no public necessity of writing; neither would England have been one halfpenny the better, or the worse, whether he writ or no.
This I mention, because I know it will readily be objected, "What have private men to do with the public? What call had a Drapier to turn politician, to meddle in matters of state? Would not his time have been better employed in looking to his shop; or his pen in writing proverbs, elegies, ballads, garlands, and wonders? He would then have been out of all danger of proclamations, and prosecutions. Have we not able magistrates and counsellors hourly watching over the public weal?" All this may be true: And yet, when the addresses from both Houses of Parliament, against Mr. Wood's halfpence, failed of success; if some pen had not been employed, to inform the people how far they might legally proceed, in refusing that coin, to detect the fraud, the artifice, and insolence of the coiner; and to lay open the most ruinous consequences to the whole kingdom; which would inevitably follow from the currency of the said coin; I might appeal to many hundred thousand people, whether any one of them would ever have had the courage or sagacity to refuse it.
If this copper should begin to make its way among the common, ignorant people, we are inevitably undone; it is they who give us the greatest apprehension, being easily frighted, and greedy to swallow misinformations: For, if every man were wise enough to understand his own interest, which is every man's principal study, there would be no need of pamphlets upon this occasion. But, as things stand, I have thought it absolutely necessary, from my duty to God, my King, and my country, to inform the people, that the proclamation lately issued against the Drapier, doth not in the least affect the case of Mr. Wood and his coin; but only refers to certain paragraphs in the Drapier's last pamphlet, (not immediately relating to his subject, nor at all to the merits of the cause,) which the government was pleased to dislike; so that any man has the same liberty to reject, to write, and to declare against this coin, which he had before: Neither is any man obliged to believe, that those honourable persons (whereof you are the first) who signed that memorable proclamation against the Drapier, have at all changed their opinions, with regard to Mr. Wood or his coin.
Therefore concluding myself to be thus far upon a safe and sure foot; I shall continue, upon any proper occasion, as God enables me, to revive and preserve that spirit raised in the nation, (whether the real author were a real Drapier or no is little to the purpose) against this horrid design of Mr. Wood; at the same time carefully watching every stroke of my pen, and venturing only to incur the public censure of the world as a writer; not of my Lord Chief Justice Whitshed, as a criminal. Whenever an order shall come out by authority, forbidding all men upon the highest penalties, to offer anything in writing or discourse against Mr. Wood's halfpence; I shall certainly submit. However, if that should happen, I am determined to be somewhat more than the last man in the kingdom to receive them; because I will never receive them at all: For, although I know how to be silent; I have not yet learned to pay active obedience against my conscience, and the public safety.
I desire to put a case, which I think the Drapier, in some of his books, hath put before me; although not so fully as it requires.
You know the copper halfpence in England are coined by the public; and every piece worth pretty tolerably near the value of the copper. Now suppose, that, instead of the public coinage, a patent had been granted to some private, obscure person, for coining a proportionable quantity of copper in that kingdom, to what Mr. Wood is preparing in this; and all of it at least five times below the intrinsic value: The current money of England is reckoned to be twenty millions; and ours under five hundred thousand pounds: By this computation, as Mr. Wood hath power to give us 108,000 pound; so the patentee in England, by the same proportion, might circulate four millions three hundred and twenty thousand pounds; besides as much more by stealth and counterfeits: I desire to know from you, whether the Parliament might not have addressed upon such an occasion; what success they probably would have had; and how many Drapiers would have risen to pester the world with pamphlets: Yet that kingdom would not be so great a sufferer as ours in the like case; because their cash would not be conveyed into foreign countries, but lie hid in the chests of cautious, thrifty men, until better times. Then I desire, for the satisfaction of the public, that you will please to inform me why this country is treated in so very different a manner, in a point of such high importance; whether it be on account of Poining's act; of subordination; dependence; or any other term of art; which I shall not contest, but am too dull to understand.
I am very sensible, that the good or ill success of Mr. Wood, will affect you less than any person of consequence in the kingdom; because I hear you are so prudent as to make all your purchases in England; and truly so would I, if I had money, although I were to pay a hundred years' purchase; because I should be glad to possess a freehold that could not be taken from me by any law to which I did not give my own consent; and where I should never be in danger of receiving my rents in mixed copper, at the loss of sixteen shillings in the pound. You can live in ease and plenty at Pepper-harrow, in Surrey; and therefore I thought it extremely generous and public-spirited in you to be of the kingdom's side in this dispute, by shewing, without reserve, your disapprobation of Mr. Wood's design; at least if you have been so frank to others as you were to me; which indeed I could not but wonder at, considering how much we differ in other points; and therefore I could get but few believers, when I attempted to justify you in this article from your own words.
I would humbly offer another thought, which I do not remember to have fallen under the Drapier's observation. If these halfpence should once gain admittance; it is agreed, that in no long space of time, what by the clandestine practices of the coiner, what by his own counterfeits, and those of others, either from abroad or at home; his limited quantity would be trebled upon us, until there would not be a grain of gold or silver visible in the nation. This, in my opinion would lay a heavy charge upon the crown, by creating a necessity of transmitting money from England to pay the salaries at least of the principal civil officers: For I do not conceive how a judge (for instance) could support his dignity with a thousand pounds a year in Wood's coin; which would not intrinsically be worth near two hundred. To argue that these halfpence, if no other coin were current, would answer the general ends of commerce among ourselves, is a great mistake; and the Drapier hath made that matter too clear to admit an answer; by shewing us what every owner of land must be forced to do with the products of it in such a distress. You may read his remarks at large in his second and third letter; to which I refer you.