If this copper should begin to make its way among the common, ignorant people, we are inevitably undone; it is they who give us the greatest apprehension, being easily frighted, and greedy to swallow misinformations:  For, if every man were wise enough to understand his own interest, which is every man’s principal study, there would be no need of pamphlets upon this occasion.  But, as things stand, I have thought it absolutely necessary, from my duty to God, my King, and my country, to inform the people, that the proclamation lately issued against the Drapier, doth not in the least affect the case of Mr. Wood and his coin; but only refers to certain paragraphs in the Drapier’s last pamphlet, (not immediately relating to his subject, nor at all to the merits of the cause,) which the government was pleased to dislike; so that any man has the same liberty to reject, to write, and to declare against this coin, which he had before:  Neither is any man obliged to believe, that those honourable persons (whereof you are the first) who signed that memorable proclamation against the Drapier, have at all changed their opinions, with regard to Mr. Wood or his coin.

Therefore concluding myself to be thus far upon a safe and sure foot; I shall continue, upon any proper occasion, as God enables me, to revive and preserve that spirit raised in the nation, (whether the real author were a real Drapier or no is little to the purpose) against this horrid design of Mr. Wood; at the same time carefully watching every stroke of my pen, and venturing only to incur the public censure of the world as a writer; not of my Lord Chief Justice Whitshed, as a criminal.  Whenever an order shall come out by authority, forbidding all men upon the highest penalties, to offer anything in writing or discourse against Mr. Wood’s halfpence; I shall certainly submit.  However, if that should happen, I am determined to be somewhat more than the last man in the kingdom to receive them; because I will never receive them at all:  For, although I know how to be silent; I have not yet learned to pay active obedience against my conscience, and the public safety.

I desire to put a case, which I think the Drapier, in some of his books, hath put before me; although not so fully as it requires.

You know the copper halfpence in England are coined by the public; and every piece worth pretty tolerably near the value of the copper.  Now suppose, that, instead of the public coinage, a patent had been granted to some private, obscure person, for coining a proportionable quantity of copper in that kingdom, to what Mr. Wood is preparing in this; and all of it at least five times below the intrinsic value:  The current money of England is reckoned to be twenty millions; and ours under five hundred thousand pounds:  By this computation, as Mr. Wood hath power to give us 108,000 pound; so the patentee in England, by the same proportion, might circulate four millions three