(2) That the quantity of this coin will be no inconvenience to it.

(3) That it is better than ever the Kingdom had, and as good as (in all probability) they ever will or can have, and that the Patentee’s profit is not extravagant, as commonly reported.

(4) That the Kingdom will lose nothing by this coin.

(5) That the public in Ireland will gain considerably by it, if they please.

(6) That the Kingdom will have L100,000 additional cash.

As he states his arguments, they are quite reasonable.  On proposition three, if his figures are correct, he is especially convincing.  He details the cost of manufacture thus: 

         &nb
sp;                                           s. d.
Copper prepared for the coinage at his Majesty’s
  Mint at the Tower of London, costs per pound
  weight 1 6

Coinage of one pound weight 3-1/2

Waste and charge of re-melting 1

Yearly payment to the Exchequer and Comptroller 1

Allowed to the purchaser for exchange, &c. 5

Total charge 2 4-1/2

“So that the patentee,” he concludes, “makes a profit of only 1-1/2_d._ in the half crown or about 5%.”

The tract, however, is more interesting for the reprint it gives of the twenty-eight articles stated by the people in objection to the patent and the coin.  I give these articles in full: 

IRELAND’S CASE HUMBLY PRESENTED TO THE HONOURABLE THE KNIGHTS, CITIZENS, AND BURGESSES IN PARLIAMENT ASSEMBLED

MOST HUMBLY SHEWETH,

Whereas your Honours finding the late Grant or Letters Patents obtained by Mr. William Wood, for making Three Hundred and Sixty Tun weight of copper half-pence for the Kingdom of Ireland, were to be manufactured in London &c. which money is now coining in Bristol, and that the said money was to weigh two shillings and sixpence in each pound weight, and that change was to be uttered or passed for all such as were pleased to take the same in this Kingdom.

That it’s humbly conceived Your Honours on considering the following Remarks, will find the permitting such change to pass, exceeding Injurious and Destructive to the Nation.

First.  That the same will be a means to drain this Kingdom of all its Gold and Silver, and ten, fifteen, or twenty per cent abated, will most effectually do the same.

2d.  That the making such money in England will give great room for counterfeiting that coin, as well in this Kingdom, as where it is made.

3d.  That the Copper Mines of this Island which might be manufactured in the nation, is by management shipped off to England by some persons at, or about forty shillings per tun, by others at four pounds and six pounds per ton, which copper when smelted and refined is sold and sent back to this kingdom at two shillings and six pence per pound weight as aforesaid, which is two hundred and eighty pound sterl. per ton.