Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 9.djvu/45

Rh at the head of twenty thousand men, not by a plague or a famine, not by a tyrannical prince (for we never had one more gracious) or a corrupt administration, but by one single, diminutive, insignificant mechanick.

But to go on: to remove our direful apprehensions that he will drain us of our gold and silver by his coinage, this little arbitrary mock-monarch most graciously offers to take our manufactures in exchange. Are our Irish understandings indeed so low in his opinion? Is not this the very misery we complain of; that his cursed project will put us under the necessity of selling our goods for what is equal to nothing? How would such a proposal sound from France or Spain, or any other country with which we traffick, if they should offer to deal with us only upon this condition, that we should take their money at ten times higher than the intrinsick value? Does Mr. Wood think, for instance, that we will sell him a stone of wool for a parcel of his counters not worth sixpence, when we can send it to England, and receive as many shillings in gold and silver? Surely there was never heard such a compound of impudence, villany, and folly.

His proposals conclude with perfect high treason. He promises, that no person shall be obliged to receive more than five pence halfpenny of his coin in one payment. By which it is plain, that he pretends to oblige every subject in this kingdom to take so much in every payment, if it be offered; whereas his patent obliges no man, nor can the prerogative, by law, claim such a power, as I have often observed; so that here Mr Wood takes upon him Rh