The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D. — Volume 06 - The Drapier's Letters by Jonathan Swift
page 47 of 305 (15%)
page 47 of 305 (15%)
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that paragraph that this public enemy of ours, not satisfied to ruin us
with his trash, takes every occasion to treat this kingdom with the utmost contempt. He represents "several of our merchants and traders upon examination before a committee of council, agreeing that there was the utmost necessity of copper money here, before his patent, so that several gentlemen have been forced to tally with their workmen and give them bits of cards sealed and subscribed with their names." What then? If a physician prescribes to a patient a dram of physic, shall a rascal apothecary cram him with a pound, and mix it up with poison? And is not a landlord's hand and seal to his own labourers a better security for five or ten shillings, than Wood's brass seven times below the real value, can be to the kingdom, for an hundred and four thousand pounds?[3] [Footnote 3: Thus in original edition. £108,000 is the amount generally given. See note on p. 15. [T.S.]] But who are these merchants and traders of Ireland that make this report of "the utmost necessity we are under of copper money"? They are only a few betrayers of their country, confederates with Wood, from whom they are to purchase a great quantity of his coin, perhaps at half value, and vend it among us to the ruin of the public, and their own private advantage. Are not these excellent witnesses, upon whose integrity the fate of a kingdom must depend, who are evidences in their own cause, and sharers in this work of iniquity? If we could have deserved the liberty of coining for ourselves, as we formerly did, and why we have not _is everybody's wonder as well as mine_,[4] ten thousand pounds might have been coined here in Dublin of only one-fifth below the intrinsic value, and this sum, with the stock |
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