And, while I shall be thus employed, I will never give myself leave to suppose, that what I say can either offend my Lord Lieutenant; whose person and great qualities I have always highly respected; (as I am sure his excellency will be my witness) or the ministers in England, with whom I have nothing to do, or they with me; much less the Privy-council here, who, as I am informed, did send an address to His Majesty against Mr. Wood’s coin; which, if it be a mistake, I desire I may not be accused for a spreader of false news:  But, I confess, I am so great a stranger to affairs, that for anything I know, the whole body of the council may since have been changed:  And, although I observed some of the very same names in a late declaration against that coin, which I saw subscribed to the proclamation against the Drapier; yet possibly they may be different persons; for they are utterly unknown to me, and are like to continue so.

In this controversy, where the reasoners on each side are divided by St. George’s Channel, His Majesty’s prerogative, perhaps, would not have been mentioned; if Mr. Wood, and his advocates, had not made it necessary, by giving out, that the currency of his coin should be enforced by a proclamation.  The traders and common people of the kingdom, were heartily willing to refuse this coin; but the fear of a proclamation brought along with it most dreadful apprehensions.  It was therefore, absolutely necessary for the Drapier, to remove this difficulty; and accordingly, in one of his former pamphlets, he hath produced invincible arguments, (wherever he picked them up) that the King’s prerogative was not at all concerned in the matter; since the law had sufficiently provided against any coin to be imposed upon the subject, except gold and silver; and that copper is not money, but as it hath been properly called nummorum famulus.

The three former letters from the Drapier, having not received any public censure, I look upon them to be without exception; and that the good people of the kingdom ought to read them often, in order to keep up that spirit raised against this destructive coin of Mr. Wood:  As for this last letter, against which a proclamation is issued; I shall only say, that I could wish it were stripped of all that can be any way exceptionable; which I would not think it below me to undertake, if my abilities were equal; but being naturally somewhat slow of comprehension; no lawyer, and apt to believe the best of those who profess good designs, without any visible motive either of profit or honour; I might pore for ever, without distinguishing the cockle from the corn.

That which, I am told, gives greatest offence in this last letter, is where the Drapier affirms; “that if a rebellion should prove so successful, as to fix the Pretender on the throne of England, he would venture so far to transgress the Irish statute, (which unites Ireland to England under one King) as to lose every drop of his blood, to hinder him from being King of Ireland.”