[Footnote 7:  A hint at the Duchess of Kendal’s influence in the procuring of the patent. [T.S.]]

Among other clauses mentioned in this patent, to shew how advantageous it is to Ireland, there is one which seems to be of a singular nature, that the patentee shall be obliged, during his term, “to pay eight hundred pounds a year to the crown, and two hundred pounds a year to the comptroller."[8] I have heard indeed that the King’s council do always consider, in the passing of a patent, whether it will be of advantage to the crown, but I have likewise heard that it is at the same time considered whether the passing of it may be injurious to any other persons or bodies politic.  However, although the attorney and solicitor be servants to the King, and therefore bound to consult His Majesty’s interest, yet I am under some doubt whether eight hundred pounds a year to the crown would be equivalent to the ruin of a kingdom.  It would be far better for us to have paid eight thousand pounds a year into His Majesty’s coffers, in the midst of all our taxes (which, in proportion, are greater in this kingdom than ever they were in England, even during the war) than purchase such an addition to the revenue at the price of our utter undoing.

[Footnote 8:  By the terms of the patent, Wood covenanted to pay to the King’s clerk, or comptroller of the coinage, L200 yearly, and L100 per annum into his Majesty’s exchequer, and not as Walpole’s report has it, L800 and L200. [T.S.]]

But here it is plain that fourteen thousand pounds are to be paid by Wood, only as a small circumstantial charge for the purchase of his patent, what were his other visible costs I know not, and what were his latent, is variously conjectured.  But he must be surely a man of some wonderful merit.  Hath he saved any other kingdom at his own expense, to give him a title of reimbursing himself by the destruction of ours?  Hath he discovered the longitude or the universal medicine?  No.  But he hath found out the philosopher’s stone after a new manner, by debasing of copper, and resolving to force it upon us for gold.

When the two Houses represented to His Majesty, that this patent to Wood was obtained in a clandestine manner, surely the Committee could not think the Parliament would insinuate that it had not passed in the common forms, and run through every office where fees and perquisites were due.  They knew very well that persons in places were no enemies to grants, and that the officers of the crown could not be kept in the dark.  But the late Lord Lieutenant of Ireland[9] affirmed it was a secret to him (and who will doubt of his veracity, especially when he swore to a person of quality; from whom I had it, that Ireland should never be troubled with these halfpence).  It was a secret to the people of Ireland, who were to be the only sufferers, and those who best knew the state of the kingdom and were most able to advise in such an affair, were wholly strangers to it.