The Report farther asserts, that “the precedents are many, wherein cases of great importance to Ireland, and that immediately affected the interests of that kingdom, warrants, orders, and directions by the authority of the King and his predecessors, have been issued under the royal sign manual, without any previous reference or advice of His Majesty’s officers of Ireland, which have always had their due force, and have been punctually complied with, and obeyed.”  It may be so, and I am heartily sorry for it, because it may prove an eternal source of discontent.  However among all these precedents there is not one of a patent for coining money for Ireland.

There is nothing hath perplexed me more than this doctrine of precedents.  If a job is to be done, and upon searching records you find it hath been done before, there will not want a lawyer to justify the legality of it, by producing his precedents, without ever considering the motives and circumstances that first introduced them, the necessity or turbulence or iniquity of times, the corruptions of ministers, or the arbitrary disposition of the prince then reigning.  And I have been told by persons eminent in the law, that the worst actions which human nature is capable of, may be justified by the same doctrine.  How the first precedents began of determining cases of the highest importance to Ireland, and immediately affecting its interest, without any previous reference or advice to the King’s officers here, may soon be accounted for.  Before this kingdom was entirely reduced by the submission of Tyrone in the last year of Queen Elizabeth’s reign, there was a period of four hundred years, which was a various scene of war and peace between the English pale and the Irish natives, and the government of that part of this island which lay in the English hands, was, in many things under the immediate administration of the King.  Silver and copper were often coined here among us, and once at least upon great necessity, a mixed or base metal was sent from England.  The reign of King James Ist. was employed in settling the kingdom after Tyrone’s rebellion, and this nation flourished extremely till the time of the massacre 1641.  In that difficult juncture of affairs, the nobility and gentry coined their own plate here in Dublin.

By all that I can discover, the copper coin of Ireland for three hundred years past consisted of small pence and halfpence, which particular men had licence to coin, and were current only within certain towns and districts, according to the personal credit of the owner who uttered them, and was bound to receive them again, whereof I have seen many sorts; neither have I heard of any patent granted for coining copper for Ireland till the reign of King Charles II. which was in the year 1680. to George Legge Lord Dartmouth, and renewed by King James II. in the first year of his reign to John Knox.  Both patents were passed in Ireland, and in both the patentees were obliged to receive their coin again to any that would offer then twenty shillings of it, for which they were obliged to pay gold or silver.