For suppose you go to an ale-house with that base money, and the landlord gives you a quart for four of these half-pence, what must the victualler do?  His brewer will not be paid in that coin, or if the brewer should be such a fool, the farmers will not take it from them for their bere, because they are bound by their leases to pay their rents in good and lawful money of England, which this is not, nor of Ireland neither, and the Squire their landlord will never be so bewitched to take such trash for his land; so that it must certainly stop somewhere or other, and where-ever it stops it is the same thing, and we are all undone.

The common weight of these half-pence is between four and five to an ounce; suppose five, then three shillings and fourpence will weigh a pound, and consequently twenty shillings will weigh six pounds butter weight.  Now there are many hundred farmers who pay two hundred pound a year rent.  Therefore when one of these farmers comes with his half year’s rent, which is one hundred pound, it will be at least six hundred pound weight, which is three horses load.

If a squire has a mind to come to town to buy clothes and wine and spices for himself and family, or perhaps to pass the winter here, he must bring with him five or six horses loaden with sacks as the farmers bring their corn; and when his lady comes in her coach to our shops, it must be followed by a car loaded with Mr. Wood’s money.  And I hope we shall have the grace to take it for no more than it is worth.

They say Squire Conolly has sixteen thousand pounds a year; now if he sends for his rent to town, as it is likely he does, he must have two hundred and fifty horses to bring up his half-year’s rent, and two or three great cellars in his house for stowage.  But what the bankers will do I cannot tell.  For I am assured that some great bankers keep by them forty thousand pounds in ready cash, to answer all payments, which sum, in Mr. Wood’s money, would require twelve hundred horses to carry it.

For my own part, I am already resolved what to do; I have a pretty good shop of Irish stuffs and silks, and instead of taking Mr. Wood’s bad copper, I intend to truck with my neighbours the butchers, and bakers, and brewers, and the rest, goods for goods, and the little gold and silver I have I will keep by me like my heart’s blood till better times, or till I am just ready to starve, and then I will buy Mr. Wood’s money, as my father did the brass money in K. James’s time, who could buy ten pound of it with a guinea, and I hope to get as much for a pistole, and so purchase bread from those who will be such fools as to sell it me.

These half-pence, if they once pass, will soon be counterfeit, because it may be cheaply done, the stuff is so base.  The Dutch likewise will probably do the same thing, and send them over to us to pay for our goods; and Mr. Wood will never be at rest but coin on:  so that in some years we shall have at least five times fourscore and ten thousand pounds of this lumber.  Now the current money of this kingdom is not reckoned to be above four hundred thousand pounds in all; and while there is a silver sixpence left, these blood-suckers will never be quiet.