Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 9.djvu/46

36 the entire legislature, and an absolute dominion over the properties of the whole nation.

Good God! who are this wretch's advisers? who are his supporters, abettors, encouragers, or sharers? Mr. Wood will oblige me to take five pence halfpenny of his brass in every payment. And I will shoot Mr. Wood and his deputies through the head, like highwaymen or housebreakers, if they dare to force one farthing of their coin on me in the payment of a hundred pounds. It is no loss of honour to submit to the lion, but who, with the figure of a man, can think with patience of being devoured alive by a rat? He has laid a tax upon the people of Ireland of seventeen shillings at least in the pound: a tax, I say, not only upon lands, but interest-money, goods, manufactures, the hire of handicraftsmen, labourers, and servants. Shopkeepers, look to yourselves! Wood will oblige and force you to take five pence halfpenny of his trash in every payment: and many of you receive twenty, thirty, forty payments in one day, or else you can hardly find bread: and pray consider how much that will amount to in a year; twenty times five pence halfpenny is nine shillings and two pence, which is above a hundred and sixty pounds a year, wherein you will be losers of at least one hundred and forty pounds by taking your payments in his money. If any of you be content to deal with Mr. Wood on such conditions, you may; but for my own particular, let his money perish with him. If the famous Mr. Hampden rather chose to go to prison, than pay a few shillings to king Charles I, without authority of parliament; I will rather choose to be hanged, than