Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 1.djvu/261

Rh in so plain and clear a light, as spread a general alarm through all ranks and orders of men throughout the nation.

But as the parliament, the privy council, grand juries, and so many bodies corporate of the kingdom, addressed, remonstrated, and petitioned against it, their fears were at an end, as supposing it impossible that these should not prevail. Yet what was their astonishment to find that all these, and the cry of the whole nation, were treated with the utmost contempt, and a sham inquiry set on foot by a committee of the privy council in England, which ended in sending over orders to all officers under the crown in Ireland, to be aiding and assisting to the utmost of their power in supporting Wood's patent, and giving circulation to his accursed coin. As all persons in office at that time were in the most slavish dependance on the British ministry, there were no hopes but that they would pay implicit obedience to the commands of their masters, especially as they could do it under colour of loyalty, as opposing the patent was called, in the language of those days, flying in the king's face. And if this coin was once received into the publick offices, and issued out to pay the king's troops, the affair was over. To prevent this there was but one way, which was to raise such a spirit in the whole body of the people, as to determine them never to receive one piece of this coin in payment. This he so effectually performed in a series of letters, under the same signature of M. B. drapier, which were universally read over the whole kingdom, that there was scarce an individual to be found, even down to the lowest peasant, except a few placemen, who did not form this resolution. Rh