1694 forced to leave off coining, before the end of that year, by the
great crowds of people continually offering to return his coinage upon
him. In 1698 he coined again, and was forced to give over for the same
reason. This entirely alters the case; for there is no such condition in
Wood's patent, which condition was worth a hundred times all other
limitations whatsoever.[5]

[Footnote 5: It will serve to elucidate this paragraph if an account be
given of the various coinage patents issued for Ireland. Monck Mason
gives an account in a long note to his biography of Swift; but as he has
obtained it from the very ably written tract, "A Defence of the Conduct
of the People of Ireland," etc., I have gone to that pamphlet for the
present _résumé_. I quote from pp. 21-24 of the Dublin edition, issued
in 1724 and printed by George Ewing:

"K. Charles 2d. 1660 granted a patent for coining only farthings for the
kingdom of Ireland to Coll. Armstrong: But I do not find he ever made
any use of it.[A] For all our copper and brass money to the year 1680
was issued by private persons, who obtained particular licences, _on
giving security to change their half-pence and farthings for gold and
silver_; but some of their securities failing, others pretending the
half-pence which were tendered to be changed were counterfeits, the
public always suffered. Col. Armstrong's son, finding great profit was
made by coining half-pence in Ireland, by virtue of particular licences
recallable at pleasure, solicited and obtained a patent in the name of
George Legg afterwards Lord Dartmouth, for coining half-pence for
Ireland from 1680, for 21 years, _he giving security to exchange them
for gold or silver on demand_.[B] In pursuance of this he coined
considerable quantities of half-pence for four years; but in 1685 [John]
Knox, with the consent of Armstrong, got the remaining part of this term