copper, I intend to truck with my neighbours the butchers, and bakers,
and brewers, and the rest, goods for goods, and the little gold and
silver I have, I will keep by me like my heart's blood till better
times, or till I am just ready to starve, and then I will buy Mr. Wood's
money as my father did the brass money in K. James's time,[21] who could
buy ten pound of it with a guinea, and I hope to get as much for a
pistole, and so purchase bread from those who will be such fools as to
sell it me.

[Footnote 21: James II., during his unsuccessful campaign in Ireland,
debased the coinage in order to make his funds meet the demands of his
soldiery. Archbishop King, in his work on the "State of the Protestants
in Ireland," describes the evil effects which this proceeding had: "King
James's council used not to stick at the formalities of law or reason,
and therefore vast quantities of brass money were coined, and made
current by a proclamation, dated 18th June, 1689, under severe
penalties. The metal of which this money was made was the worst kind of
brass; old guns, and the refuse of metals were melted down to make it;
workmen rated it at threepence or a groat a pound, which being coined
into sixpences, shillings, or half-crowns, one pound weight made about
£5. And by another proclamation, dated 1690, the half-crowns were called
in, and being stamped anew, were made to pass for crowns; so that then,
three pence or four pence worth of metal made £10. There was coined in
all, from the first setting up of the mint, to the rout at the Boyne,
being about twelve months, £965,375. In this coin King James paid all
his appointments, and all that received the king's pay being generally
papists, they forced the protestants to part with the goods out of their
shops for this money, and to receive their debts in it; so that the loss
by the brass money did, in a manner, entirely fall on the protestants,
being defrauded (for I can call it no better) of about, £60,000 per