not interposed: So they can make war and peace without the consent of
Parliament; and this is a very great prerogative. But if the Parliament
doth not approve of the war, the King must bear the charge of it out of
his own purse, and this is as great a check on the crown. So the King
hath a prerogative to coin money without consent of Parliament. But he
cannot compel the subject to take that money except it be sterling, gold
or silver; because herein he is limited by law. Some princes have indeed
extended their prerogative further than the law allowed them; wherein
however, the lawyers of succeeding ages, as fond as they are of
precedents, have never dared to justify them. But to say the truth, it
is only of late times that prerogative hath been fixed and ascertained.
For whoever reads the histories of England, will find that some former
Kings, and these none of the worst, have upon several occasions ventured
to control the laws with very little ceremony or scruple, even later
than the days of Queen Elizabeth. In her reign that pernicious counsel
of sending base money hither, very narrowly failed of losing the
kingdom, being complained of by the lord-deputy, the council, and the
whole body of the English here:[5] So that soon after her death it was
recalled by her successor, and lawful money paid in exchange.
[Footnote 5: See Moryson's "Itinerary" (Pt. ii., pp. 90, 196 and 262),
where an account is given which fully bears out Swift.[T.S.]]
Having thus given you some notion of what is meant by the King's
"prerogative," as far as a tradesman can be thought capable of
explaining it, I will only add the opinion of the great Lord Bacon: That
"as God governs the world by the settled laws of nature, which he hath
made, and never transcends those laws but upon high important occasions;
so among earthly princes, those are the wisest and the best, who govern
by the known laws of the country, and seldomest make use of their
prerogative."[6]
[Footnote 6: The words in inverted commas appear to be a reminiscence
rather than a quotation. I have not traced the sentence, as it stands,
in Bacon; but the regular government of the world by the laws of nature,
as contrasted with the exceptional disturbance of these laws, is
enunciated in Bacon's "Confession of Faith," while the dangers of a
strained prerogative are urged in the "Essay on Empire." Bacon certainly
gives no support to Swift's limits of the prerogative as regards
coinage. [CRAIK.]]
Now, here you may see that the vile accusation of Wood and his
accomplices, charging us with "disputing the King's prerogative" by
refusing his brass, can have no place, because compelling the subject to
take any coin which is not sterling is no part of the King's
prerogative, and I am very confident if it were so, we should be the
last of his people to dispute it, as well from that inviolable loyalty
we have always paid to His Majesty, as from the treatment we might in
such a case justly expect from some who seem to think, we have neither
common sense nor common senses. But God be thanked, the best of them are
only our fellow-subjects, and not our masters. One great merit I am sure
we have, which those of English birth can have no pretence to, that our
ancestors reduced this kingdom to the obedience of England, for which we
have been rewarded with a worse climate, the privilege of being governed
by laws to which we do not consent, a ruined trade, a House of Peers
without jurisdiction, almost an incapacity for all employments; and the
dread of Wood's halfpence.
But we are so far from disputing the King's prerogative in coining, that
we own he has power to give a patent to any man for setting his royal
image and superscription upon whatever materials he pleases, and liberty
to the patentee to offer them in any country from England to Japan, only
attended with one small limitation, That nobody alive is obliged to take
them.
Upon these considerations I was ever against all recourse to England for
a remedy against the present impending evil, especially when I observed
that the addresses of both Houses, after long expectance, produced
nothing but a REPORT altogether in favour of Wood, upon which I made
some observations in a former letter, and might at least have made as
many more. For it is a paper of as singular a nature as I ever beheld.
But I mistake; for before this Report was made, His Majesty's most
gracious answer to the House of Lords was sent over and printed, wherein
there are these words, "granting the patent for coining halfpence and
farthings AGREEABLE TO THE PRACTICE OF HIS ROYAL PREDECESSORS, &c." That
King Charles 2d. and King James 2d. (AND THEY ONLY) did grant patents
for this purpose is indisputable, and I have shewn it at large. Their
patents were passed under the great seal of Ireland by references to
Ireland, the copper to be coined in Ireland, the patentee was bound on
demand to receive his coin back in Ireland, and pay silver and gold in
return. Wood's patent was made under the great seal of England, the
brass coined in England, not the least reference made to Ireland, the
sum immense, and the patentee under no obligation to receive it again
and give good money for it: This I only mention, because in my private
thoughts I have sometimes made a query, whether the penner of those
words in His Majesty's most gracious answer, "agreeable to the practice
of his royal predecessors," had maturely considered the several
circumstances, which, in my poor opinion seem to make a difference.
Let me now say something concerning the other great cause of some
people's fear, as Wood has taught the London newswriter to express it.
That "his Excellency the Lord Lieutenant is coming over to settle Wood's
halfpence."
We know very well that the Lords Lieutenants for several years past have
not thought this kingdom worthy the honour of their residence, longer
than was absolutely necessary for the King's business, which
consequently wanted no speed in the dispatch; and therefore it naturally
fell into most men's thoughts, that a new governor coming at an unusual
time must portend some unusual business to be done, especially if the
common report be true, that the Parliament prorogued to I know not when,
is by a new summons (revoking that prorogation) to assemble soon after
his arrival: For which extraordinary proceeding the lawyers on t'other
side the water have by great good fortune found two precedents.
All this being granted, it can never enter into my head that so little a
creature as Wood could find credit enough with the King and his
ministers to have the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland sent hither in a hurry
upon his errand.
For let us take the whole matter nakedly as it lies before us, without
the refinements of some people, with which we have nothing to do. Here
is a patent granted under the great seal of England, upon false
suggestions, to one William Wood for coining copper halfpence for
Ireland: The Parliament here, upon apprehensions of the worst
consequences from the said patent, address the King to have it recalled;
this is refused, and a committee of the Privy-council report to His
Majesty, that Wood has performed the conditions of his patent. He then
is left to do the best he can with his halfpence; no man being obliged
to receive them; the people here, being likewise left to themselves,
unite as one man, resolving they will have nothing to do with his ware.
By this plain account of the fact it is manifest, that the King and his
ministry are wholly out of the case, and the matter is left to be
disputed between him and us. Will any man therefore attempt to persuade
me, that a Lord Lieutenant is to be dispatched over in great haste
before the ordinary time, and a Parliament summoned by anticipating a
prorogation, merely to put an hundred thousand pounds into the pocket of
a sharper, by the ruin of a most loyal kingdom.
But supposing all this to be true. By what arguments could a Lord
Lieutenant prevail on the same Parliament which addressed with so much
zeal and earnestness against this evil, to pass it into a law? I am sure
their opinion of Wood and his project is not mended since the last
prorogation; and supposing those methods should be used which detractors
tell us have been sometimes put in practice for gaining votes. It is
well known that in this kingdom there are few employments to be given,
and if there were more, it is as well known to whose share they must
fall.
But because great numbers of you are altogether ignorant in the affairs
of your country, I will tell you some reasons why there are so few
employments to be disposed of in this kingdom. All considerable offices
for life here are possessed by those to whom the reversions were
granted, and these have been generally followers of the chief governors,
or persons who had interest in the Court of England. So the Lord
Berkeley of Stratton[7] holds that great office of master of the rolls,
the Lord Palmerstown[8] is first remembrancer worth near 2000_l. per
ann._ One Dodington[9] secretary to the Earl of Pembroke,[10] begged the
reversion of clerk of the pells worth 2500_l._ a year, which he now
enjoys by the death of the Lord Newtown. Mr. Southwell is secretary of
state,[11] and the Earl of Burlington[12] lord high treasurer of Ireland
by inheritance. These are only a few among many others which I have been
told of, but cannot remember. Nay the reversion of several employments
during pleasure are granted the same way. This among many others is a
circumstance whereby the kingdom of Ireland is distinguished from all
other nations upon earth, and makes it so difficult an affair to get
into a civil employ, that Mr. Addison was forced to purchase an old
obscure place, called keeper of the records of Bermingham's Tower of ten
pounds a year, and to get a salary of 400_l._ annexed to it,[13] though
all the records there are not worth half-a-crown, either for curiosity
or use. And we lately saw a favourite secretary descend to be master of
the revels, which by his credit and extortion he hath made pretty
considerable.[14] I say nothing of the under-treasurership worth about
8000_l_. a year, nor the commissioners of the revenue, four of whom
generally live in England; For I think none of these are granted in
reversion. But the test is, that I have known upon occasion some of
these absent officers as keen against the interest of Ireland as if they
had never been indebted to her for a single groat.
[Footnote 7: Berkeley was one of the Junta in Harley's administration of
1710-1714. He had married Sir John Temple's daughter. His connection
with a person so disliked by Swift may account for his inclusion here.
[T.S.]]
[Footnote 8: This was Henry Temple, first Viscount Palmerston, with whom
Swift later had an unpleasant correspondence. Palmerston could not have
been more than seven years old when he was appointed (September 21st,
1680), with Luke King, chief remembrancer of the Court of Exchequer in
Ireland, for their joint lives. King died in 1716, but the grant was
renewed to Palmerston and his son Henry for life. He was raised to the
peerage as Baron Temple of Mount Temple, and Viscount Palmerston of
Palmerston, in March, 1722-1723. Sir Charles Hanbury Williams called him
"Little Broadbottom Palmerston." He died in 1757. [T.S.] ]
[Footnote 9: George Bubb (1691-1762) was Chief Secretary during
Wharton's Lord lieutenancy in 1709. He took the name of Doddington on
the death of his uncle in 1720. [T.S.]]
[Footnote 10: Thomas Herbert, eighth Earl of Pembroke (1656-1733), had
preceded the Earl of Wharton as Lord lieutenant of Ireland. He bears a
high character in history and on four successive coronations, namely,
those of William and Mary, Anne, George I. and George II., he acted as
sword carrier. Although a Tory, even Macaulay acknowledges Pembroke's
high breeding and liberality. [T.S.]]
[Footnote 11: This is the Edward Southwell to whom Archbishop King wrote
the letters quoted from Monck Mason in previous notes. He was the son of
Sir Robert Southwell, the diplomatist and friend of Sir William Temple,
to whom Swift bore a letter of introduction from the latter, soliciting
the office of amanuensis. In June, 1720, Edward Southwell had his salary
as secretary increased by £300; and in July of the same year the office
was granted to him and his son for life. The Southwell family first came
to Ireland in the reign of James I., at the time of the plantation of
Munster. [T.S.]]
[Footnote 12: Richard Boyle, third Earl of Burlington (or Bridlington of
Yorks), and fourth Earl of Cork (1695-1753), was appointed Lord
High-Treasurer of Ireland in August, 1715. His great-grandfather, the
first Earl of Cork, had held the same office in 1631. The
Lord-lieutenancy of the West Riding of Yorkshire, and the office of
Custos Rotulorum of the North and West Ridings, seem also to have been
inheritances of this family. The third Earl had a taste for
architecture, and spent enormous sums of money in the reconstruction of
Burlington House, a building that was freely satirized by Hogarth and
Lord Hervey. His taste, however, seems to have run to the ornamental
rather than the useful, and its gratification involved him in such
serious financial difficulties, that he was compelled to sell some of
his Irish estates. Swift notes that "My Lord Burlington is now selling
in one article £9,000 a year in Ireland for £200,000 which must pay his
debts" (Scott's edit. 1814, vol. xix., p. 129). [T.S.]]
[Footnote 13: This post was found for Addison on his appointment in 1709
as secretary to the Earl of Wharton, Lord-lieutenant of Ireland.
Tickell, in his preface to his edition of Addison's works, says the post
was granted to Addison as a mark of Queen Anne's special favour.
Bermingham's Tower was that part of Dublin Castle in which the records
were kept. [T.S.]]
[Footnote 14: Mr. Hopkins, secretary to the Duke of Grafton. The
exactions made by this gentleman upon the players, in his capacity of
Master of the Revels, are the subject of two satirical poems. [S.]
This may have been John Hopkins, the second son of the Bishop of
Londonderry, who was the author of "Amasia," dedicated to the Duchess of
Grafton. [T.S.]]
I confess, I have been sometimes tempted to wish that this project of
Wood might succeed, because I reflected with some pleasure what a jolly
crew it would bring over among us of lords and squires, and pensioners
of both sexes, and officers civil and military, where we should live
together as merry and sociable as beggars, only with this one abatement,
that we should neither have meat to feed, nor manufactures to clothe us,
unless we could be content to prance about in coats of mail, or eat
brass as ostriches do iron.
I return from this digression to that which gave me the occasion of
making it: And I believe you are now convinced, that if the Parliament
of Ireland were as temptable as any other assembly within a mile of
Christendom (which God forbid) yet the managers must of necessity fail
for want of tools to work with. But I will yet go one step further, by
supposing that a hundred new employments were erected on purpose to
gratify compilers; yet still an insuperable difficulty would remain; for
it happens, I know not how, that money is neither Whig nor Tory, neither
of town nor country party, and it is not improbable, that a gentleman
would rather choose to live upon his own estate which brings him gold
and silver, than with the addition of an employment, when his rents and
salary must both be paid in Wood's brass, at above eighty _per cent._
discount.
For these and many other reasons, I am confident you need not be under
the least apprehensions from the sudden expectation of the Lord
Lieutenant,[15] while we continue in our present hearty disposition; to
alter which there is no suitable temptation can possibly be offered:
And if, as I have often asserted from the best authority, the law hath
not left a power in the crown to force any money except sterling upon
the subject, much less can the crown devolve such a power upon another.
[Footnote 15: Lord Carteret, afterwards Earl Granville. See note to "A
Vindication of Lord Carteret," in vol. vii. of present edition of
Swift's works. [T.S.]]
This I speak with the utmost respect to the person and dignity of his
Excellency the Lord Carteret, whose character hath been given me by a
gentleman that hath known him from his first appearance in the world:
That gentleman describes him as a young nobleman of great
accomplishments, excellent learning, regular in his life, and of much
spirit and vivacity. He hath since, as I have heard, been employed
abroad, was principal secretary of state, and is now about the 37th year
of his age appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. From such a governor
this kingdom may reasonably hope for as much prosperity as, under so
many discouragements, it can be capable of receiving.[16]
[Footnote 16: Carteret was an old friend of Swift. On the Earl's
appointment to the Lord-lieutenancy, in April, 1724, Swift wrote him a
letter on the matter of Wood's halfpence, in which he took the liberty
of "an old humble servant, and one who always loved and esteemed" him,
to make known to him the apprehensions the people were under concerning
Mr. Wood's patent. "Neither is it doubted," he wrote, "that when your
excellency shall be thoroughly informed, your justice and compassion for
an injured people, will force you to employ your credit for their
relief." Swift waited for more than a month, and on receiving no reply,
sent a second letter, which Sir Henry Craik justly calls, "a masterpiece
of its kind." It was as follows:
"June 9, 1724.
"MY LORD,
"It is above a month since I took the boldness of writing to your
excellency, upon a subject wherein the welfare of this kingdom is highly
concerned.
"I writ at the desire of several considerable persons here, who could
not be ignorant that I had the honour of being well known to you.
"I could have wished your excellency had condescended so far, as to let
one of your under clerks have signified to me that a letter was
received.
"I have been long out of the world; but have not forgotten what used to
pass among those I lived with while I was in it: and I can say, that
during the experience of many years, and many changes in affairs, your
excellency, and one more, who is not worthy to be compared to you, are
the only great persons that ever refused to answer a letter from me,
without regard to business, party, or greatness; and if I had not a
peculiar esteem for your personal qualities, I should think myself to be
acting a very inferior part in making this complaint.
"I never was so humble, as to be vain upon my acquaintance with men in
power, and always rather chose to avoid it when I was not called.
Neither were their power or titles sufficient, without merit, to make me
cultivate them; of which I have witnesses enough left, after all the
havoc made among them, by accidents of time, or by changes of persons,
measures, and opinions.
"I know not how your conception of yourself may alter, by every new high
station; but mine must continue the same, or alter for the worse.
"I often told a great minister, whom you well know, that I valued him
for being the same man through all the progress of power and place. I
expected the like in your lordship; and still hope that I shall be the
only person who will ever find it otherwise.
"I pray God to direct your excellency in all your good undertakings, and
especially in your government of this kingdom.
"I shall trouble you no more; but remain, with great respect, my Lord,
"Your excellency's most obedient,
"and most humble servant,
"JON. SWIFT."
This letter brought an immediate reply from Carteret, who confessed
himself in the wrong for his silence, and trusted he had not forfeited
Swift's friendship by it. With regard to Mr. Wood's patent, he said that
the matter was under examination, "and till that is over I am not
informed sufficiently to make any other judgment of the matter, than
that which I am naturally led to make, by the general aversion which
appears to it in the whole nation." Swift replied in a charming vein,
and elegantly put his scolding down to the testiness of old age. His
excellency had humbled him. "Therefore, I fortel that you, who could so
easily conquer so captious a person, and of so little consequence, will
quickly subdue this whole kingdom to love and reverence you" (Scott's
ed. 1824, vol. xvi., pp. 430-435). [T.S.]]
It is true indeed, that within the memory of man, there have been
governors of so much dexterity, as to carry points of terrible
consequence to this kingdom, by their power with _those who were in
office_, and by their arts in managing or deluding others with oaths,
affability, and even with dinners. If Wood's brass had in those times
been upon the anvil, it is obvious enough to conceive what methods would
have been taken. Depending persons would have been told in plain terms,
that it was a "service expected from them, under pain of the public
business being put into more complying hands." Others would be allured
by promises. To the country gentleman, besides good words, burgundy and
closeting. It would perhaps have been hinted how "kindly it would be
taken to comply with a royal patent, though it were not compulsory,"
that if any inconveniences ensued, it might be made up with other
"graces or favours hereafter." That "gentlemen ought to consider whether
it were prudent or safe to disgust England:" They would be desired to
"think of some good bills for encouraging of trade, and setting the poor
to work, some further acts against Popery and for uniting Protestants."
There would be solemn engagements that we should "never be troubled with
above forty thousand pounds in his coin, and all of the best and
weightiest sort, for which we should only give our manufactures in
exchange, and keep our gold and silver at home." Perhaps a "seasonable
report of some invasion would have been spread in the most proper
juncture," which is a great smoother of rubs in public proceedings; and
we should have been told that "this was no time to create differences
when the kingdom was in danger."
These, I say, and the like methods would in corrupt times have been
taken to let in this deluge of brass among us; and I am confident would
even then have not succeeded, much less under the administration of so
excellent a person as the Lord Carteret, and in a country where the
people of all ranks, parties and denominations are convinced to a man,
that the utter undoing of themselves and their posterity for ever will
be dated from the admission of that execrable coin; that if it once
enters, it can be no more confined to a small or moderate quantity, than
the plague can be confined to a few families, and that no equivalent can
be given by any earthly power, any more than a dead carcass can be
recovered to life by a cordial.
There is one comfortable circumstance in this universal opposition to
Mr. Wood, that the people sent over hither from England to fill up our
vacancies ecclesiastical, civil and military, are all on our side:
Money, the great divider of the world, hath by a strange revolution,
been the great uniter of a most divided people. Who would leave a
hundred pounds a year in England (a country of freedom) to be paid a
thousand in Ireland out of Wood's exchequer. The gentleman they have
lately made primate[17] would never quit his seat in an English House of
Lords, and his preferments at Oxford and Bristol, worth twelve hundred
pounds a year, for four times the denomination here, but not half the
value; therefore I expect to hear he will be as good an Irishman, upon
this article, as any of his brethren, or even of us who have had the
misfortune to be born in this island. For those, who, in the common
phrase, do not "come hither to learn the language," would never change a
better country for a worse, to receive brass instead of gold.