Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 9.djvu/94

84 For, let us take the whole matter nakedly, as it lies before us, without the refinements of some people, with which we have nothing to do. Here is a patent granted under the great seal of England, upon false suggestions, to one William Wood, for coming copper halfpence for Ireland: the parliament here, upon apprehensions of the worst consequences from the said patent, address the king to have it recalled: this is refused, and a committee of the privy council report to his majesty, that Wood has performed the conditions of his patent. He then is left to do the best he can with his halfpence, no man being obliged to receive them; the people here, being likewise left to themselves, unite as one man, resolving they will have nothing to do with his ware. By this plain account of the fact, it is manifest, that the king and his ministry are wholly out of the case, and the matter is left to be disputed between him and us. Will any man therefore attempt to persuade me, that a lord lieutenant is to be dispatched over in great haste before the ordinary time, and a parliament summoned by anticipating a prorogation, merely to put a hundred thousand pounds into the pocket of a sharper, by the ruin of a most loyal kingdom?

But supposing all this to be true: by what arguments could a lord lieutenant prevail on the same parliament, which addressed with so much zeal and earnestness against this evil, to pass it into a law? I am sure their opinion of Wood and his project are not mended since their last prorogation: and, supposing those methods should be used, which detractors tell us have been sometimes put in practice for gaining votes, it is well known, that in this kingdom