Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 10.djvu/297

Rh deposited as they shall agree, should begin to charge it with seven per cent for their own use: that they should, as soon as possible, provide a mint and good workmen, and buy copper sufficient for coining two thousand pounds, subtracting a fifth part of the interest of ten thousand pounds for the charges of the tools, and fitting up a place for a mint; the other four parts of the same interest to be subtracted equally out of the four remaining coinages of 2000l. each, with a just allowance for other necessary incidents. Let the charge of coinage be fairly reckoned; and the kingdom informed of it, as well as of the price of copper. Let the coin be as well and deeply stamped as it ought. Let the metal be as pure as can consist to have it rightly coined (wherein I am wholly ignorant) and the bulk as large as that of king Charles II. And let this club of ten gentlemen give their joint security to receive all the coins they issue out for seven or ten years, and return gold and silver without any defalcation.

Let the same club, or company, when they have issued out the first two thousand pounds, go on the second year, if they find a demand, and that their scheme has answered to their own intention as well as to the satisfaction of the publick. And, if they find seven per cent not sufficient, let them subtract eight, beyond which I would not have them go. And when they have in two years, coined ten thousand pounds, let them give publick notice that they will proceed no farther, but shut up their mint, and dismiss their workmen; unless the real, universal, unsolicited declaration of the nobility and gentry of the kingdom shall signify a desire that they should go on for a certain sum farther. . X.