Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 4.djvu/413

A.D. 1723.] where, they had been still more wickedly violated by the patentee, whom he degraded from an iron-founder into a hardware-man and tinker; his copper was brass, himself was a wood-louse. No terms were too violent or too scurrilous for his use. "If," said he, "Mr. Wood's project should take place, it would ruin even our beggars. 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 the lump."

When the government published the result of the examination at the Mint, he boldly treated it as a farce. When it declared that no one should be compelled to take this money unless he liked, that the government's object was not compulsion but accommodation, he more than insinuated that this was all pretence, that government and its officers would find means of compelling its acceptance in payment. Government, to remove the clamour, reduced the amount to be issued from a hundred and eight thousand pounds to forty thousand pounds, and proposed that no more than fivepence-halfpenny should bs a legal tender at one payment. No matter; the unscrupulous dean raised an alarm lest the king should agree to take his Irish taxes in this copper so as to bring it into circulation. Now the taxes amounted to four hundred thousand pounds, and only forty thousand pounds worth of copper was to be minted; so that the folly of such a suggestion as forty thousand pounds paying ten times that amount was too palpable to escape any but the most frantic factionists. It escaped the Irish, and they raved against this design as if it had been the most possible thing in the world.

Swift was very soon known to be the author of "The Drapier's Letters," and was hailed as the public deliverer. In the letters he had called on the public to issue a declaration binding themselves not to take Wood's money; and many persons of station and property did so, and called on their tenants also to refuse it. The now lord lieutenant, Carteret, landed amid this tempest. The fury and tumult were indescribable. All parties, catholics and protestants, whigs, tories, Orangemen, and rapparees, were equally frantic. The merchants to whom the coin had been assigned would not receive it, and publicly announced that they had nothing to do with it. The shopkeepers refused it; the very hawkers and link-boys rejected it, declaring that such wretched stuff would neither procure them news, ale, tobacco, nor brandy. Wood's effigy was dragged through the streets of Dublin, and then burned.

Carteret offered a reward of three hundred pounds for the discovery of the author of "The Drapier's Letters;" but Swift impudently presented himself at Carteret's levée, though the viceroy could have no manner of doubt that he was the author, and demanded of Carteret the meaning of the poor printer of these letters, Harding, being arrested in default of the discovery of the author, he declared that the poor man had only printed a few papers designed for the good of his country. As Carteret had no legal proof of Swift's authorship, he could not charge him with it. He therefore eluded the query by a quotation from Virgil, and Swift returned in triumph, having thus bearded the king's representative in his audacity, as well as thrown the nation into a riot, causing it to refuse one of the most real advantages, and hailing the originator of the mischief as the most noble-minded of patriots.

The upshot was, that the government was compelled to withdraw the copper coinage, leaving the deluded country at its wit's end for a common circulating medium. Wood was to a trifling degree indemnified, by a pension of three thousand pounds for twelve years, for his enormous loss, and Swift, to whom the whole affair had only been a scheme for winning popularity at the expense of the poor patentee and the government, was raised to the summit of unbounded favour. To the day of his death he continued to be regarded as the saviour of Ireland, though he on his part continued to treat the country and the people with unabated contempt and insult. His portrait was engraved, placed on signs, woven on handkerchiefs, and struck on medals. Wherever he appeared he was followed by crowds of hurrahing admirers, whom he must have only laughed at for their folly. His health was quaffed at every banquet, and even his worst sneers at Ireland were taken in good part. The delusion, it is said, has not even yet died out of that country, but its various parties agreeing in nothing else, continue to unite in admiration of the halfpenny patriotism of Swift.

The tumult in Ireland was succeeded by one in Scotland. The people of that country, though they were, by the provisions of the act of union, to bear their proportion of the malt tax, had always rejected compliance, and in 1713 had issued a violent resolution against it. They had never yet complied with the law, and Walpole, seeing the sturdy nature of the opposition, was willing to give up the point quietly. But during the parliamentary session of this year, Mr. Broderick proposed that a duty of sixpence on every barrel of ale should be paid in lieu of it. WalpoIe was reluctant to go into the question, but the house was bent on it, and he therefore complied so far as to consent to a duty of threepence per barrel, or half the amount. Walpole is said to have been in the habit of allowing the Scotch members six guineas weekly during the sitting of parliament for the payment of their expenses; but when they now waited upon him for their douceur, he told them they must use their influence with their constituents for the payment of this beer duty, or they must in future "tie up their stockings with their own garters."

But the Scots were not thus to be coerced. There was a general commotion against the demand throughout the country, and this at Glasgow broke out into open riot. The mob cried "Down with Walpole!" and "Up with Seaforth!" They sacked the house of Mr. Campbell, of Shawfield, member for the city, who had voted for the obnoxious tax. General Wade, the commander of the forces in Scotland, sent captain Bushell, with two companies of foot, to quell the disturbance, but the soldiers were pelted with stones and hooted by the rabble, and Bushell ordered his men to fire on them. Nine were killed, and many more wounded; but the mob, only the more enraged, fell upon the soldiers, drove them out of the town, and compelled them to take refuge in Dumbarton castle. Wade then sent superior forces, seized some of the rioters, apprehended the magistrates, and sent them prisoners to Edinburgh. On being brought before the lords justiciary, however, on a charge of