But when the ’squire turns farmer and merchant himself, all the good money he gets from abroad, he will hoard up or send for England, and keep some poor tailor or weaver and the like in his own house, who will be glad to get bread at any rate.

I should never have done if I were to tell you all the miseries that we shall undergo if we be so foolish and wicked as to take this CURSED COIN.  It would be very hard if all Ireland should be put into one scale, and this sorry fellow Wood into the other, that Mr. Wood should weigh down this whole kingdom, by which England gets above a million of good money every year clear into their pockets, and that is more than the English do by all the world besides.

But your great comfort is, that as His Majesty’s patent does not oblige you to take this money, so the laws have not given the crown a power of forcing the subjects to take what money the King pleases:  For then by the same reason we might be bound to take pebble-stones or cockle-shells or stamped leather for current coin, if ever we should happen to live under an ill prince, who might likewise by the same power make a guinea pass for ten pounds, a shilling for twenty shillings, and so on, by which he would in a short time get all the silver and gold of the kingdom into his own hands, and leave us nothing but brass or leather or what he pleased.  Neither is anything reckoned more cruel or oppressive in the French government than their common practice of calling in all their money after they have sunk it very low, and then coining it anew at a much higher value, which however is not the thousandth part so wicked as this abominable project of Mr. Wood.  For the French give their subjects silver for silver and gold for gold, but this fellow will not so much as give us good brass or copper for our gold and silver, nor even a twelfth part of their worth.

Having said thus much, I will now go on to tell you the judgments of some great lawyers in this matter, whom I fee’d on purpose for your sakes, and got their opinions under their hands, that I might be sure I went upon good grounds.

A famous law-book, called “The Mirror of Justice,"[24] discoursing of the articles (or laws) ordained by our ancient kings declares the law to be as follows:  “It was ordained that no king of this realm should change, impair or amend the money or make any other money than of gold or silver without the assent of all the counties,” that is, as my Lord Coke says,[25] without the assent of Parliament.

[Footnote 24:  This was an important legal treatise often quoted by Coke.  Its full title is:  “The Booke called, The Mirrour of Justices:  Made by Andrew Home.  With the book, called, The Diversity of Courts, And Their Jurisdictions ...  London ... 1646.”  The French edition was printed in 1642 with the title, “La somme appelle Mirroir des Justices:  vel speculum Justiciariorum, Factum per Andream Home.”  Coke quotes it from a manuscript, as he died before it was printed. [T.S.]]