shall undergo if we be so foolish and wicked as to take this CURSED
COIN. It would be very hard if all Ireland should be put into one scale,
and this sorry fellow Wood into the other, that Mr. Wood should weigh
down this whole kingdom, by which England gets above a million of good
money every year clear into their pockets, and that is more than the
English do by all the world besides.
But your great comfort is, that as His Majesty's patent does not oblige
you to take this money, so the laws have not given the crown a power of
forcing the subjects to take what money the King pleases. For then by
the same reason we might be bound to take pebble-stones or cockle-shells
or stamped leather for current coin, if ever we should happen to live
under an ill prince, who might likewise by the same power make a guinea
pass for ten pounds, a shilling for twenty shillings, and so on, by
which he would in a short time get all the silver and gold of the
kingdom into his own hands, and leave us nothing but brass or leather or
what he pleased. Neither is anything reckoned more cruel or oppressive
in the French government than their common practice of calling in all
their money after they have sunk it very low, and then coining it anew
at a much higher value, which however is not the thousandth part so
wicked as this abominable project of Mr. Wood. For the French give their
subjects silver for silver and gold for gold, but this fellow will not
so much as give us good brass or copper for our gold and silver, nor
even a twelfth part of their worth.
Having said thus much, I will now go on to tell you the judgments of
some great lawyers in this matter, whom I fee'd on purpose for your
sakes, and got their opinions under their hands, that I might be sure I
went upon good grounds....
I will now, my dear friends, to save you the trouble, set before you in
short, what the law obliges you to do, and what it does not oblige you
to.
First, You are obliged to take all money in payments which is coined by
the King and is of the English standard or weight, provided it be of
gold or silver.
Secondly, You are not obliged to take any money which is not of gold or
silver, no not the halfpence, or farthings of England, or of any other
country, and it is only for convenience, or ease, that you are content
to take them, because the custom of coining silver halfpence and
farthings hath long been left off, I will suppose on account of their
being subject to be lost.
Thirdly, Much less are you obliged to take those vile halfpence of that
same Wood, by which you must lose almost eleven-pence in every shilling.
Therefore my friends, stand to it one and all, refuse this filthy trash.
It is no treason to rebel against Mr. Wood. His Majesty in his patent
obliges nobody to take these halfpence,[5] our gracious prince hath no
so ill advisers about him; or if he had, yet you see the laws have not
left it in the King's power, to force us to take any coin but what is
lawful, of right standard gold and silver; therefore you have nothing to
fear.
And let me in the next place apply myself particularly to you who are
the poor sort of tradesmen. Perhaps you may think you will not be so
great losers as the rich, if these halfpence should pass, because you
seldom see any silver, and your customers come to your shops or stalls
with nothing but brass, which you likewise find hard to be got. But you
may take my word, whenever this money gains footing among you, you will
be utterly undone; if you carry these halfpence to a shop for tobacco or
brandy, or any other thing you want, the shopkeeper will advance his
goods accordingly, or else he must break, and leave the key under the
door. Do you think I will sell you a yard of tenpenny stuff for twenty
of Mr. Wood's halfpence? No, not under two hundred at least, neither
will I be at the trouble of counting, but weigh them in a lump. I will
tell you one thing further, that if Mr. Wood's project should take, it
will ruin even our beggars; for when I give a beggar an halfpenny, it
will quench his thirst, or go a good way to fill his belly, but the
twelfth part of a halfpenny will do him no more service than if I should
give him three pins out of my sleeve.
In short these halfpence are like "the accursed thing, which," as the
Scripture tells us, "the children of Israel were forbidden to touch":
they will run about like the plague and destroy every one who lays his
hands upon them. I have heard scholars talk of a man who told a king
that he invented a way to torment people by putting them into a bull of
brass with fire under it, but the prince put the projector first into
his own brazen bull to make the experiment;[6] this very much resembles
the project of Mr. Wood, and the like of this may possibly be Mr. Wood's
fate, that the brass he contrived to torment this kingdom with, may
prove his own torment, and his destruction at last.
* * * * *
N.B. The author of this paper is informed by persons who have made it
their business to be exact in their observations on the true value of
these halfpence, that any person may expect to get a quart of twopenny
ale for thirty-six of them.
I desire all persons may keep this paper carefully by them to refresh
their memories when ever they shall have farther notice of Mr. Wood's
halfpence, or any other the like imposture.
[3] Swift's own _Proposal for the Universal Use of Irish Manufactures_.
[4] The famous "gun-money," coined to meet the exigencies of the Stuart
army in Ireland, a crown piece of which was by a proclamation of William
III. of July 10, 1690, to pass current as a penny.
[5] The words of the patent are "to pass and to be received as current
money, by such as shall or will, voluntarily and wittingly, and not
otherwise, receive the same" (the halfpence and farthings). [T. S.]
[6] Phalaris, the genuineness of whose _Letters_ had occasioned the
famous controversy which brought about Swift's first venture into
literature with the _Battle of the Books_.
CHARACTER OF GEORGE II. (1683-1760).
A. BY LORD HERVEY.
+Source.+--_Memoirs._ Vol. i., pp. 145, 146.
His faults were more the blemishes of a private man than of a King. The
affection and tenderness he invariably showed to a people over whom he
had unbounded rule [in Hanover] forbid our wondering that he used
circumscribed power with moderation [in England]. Often situated in
humiliating circumstances, his resentments seldom operated when the
power of revenge returned. He bore the ascendant of his Ministers, who
seldom were his favourites, with more patience than he suffered any
encroachment on his will from his mistresses. Content to bargain for the
gratification of his two predominant passions, Hanover and money, he was
almost indifferent to the rest of his royal authority, provided exterior
observance was not wanting; for he comforted himself if he did not
perceive the diminution of Majesty, though it was notorious to all the
rest of the world. Yet he was not so totally careless of the affection
and interests of his country as his father had been. George the First
possessed a sounder understanding and a better temper: yet George the
Second gained more by being compared with his eldest son, than he lost
if paralleled with his father.
B. BY HORACE WALPOLE.
+Source.+--_Memoirs of the Reign of George II._ (2nd ed.), 1848. Vol. i.,
pp. 175, 176; vol. iii., pp. 303, 304.
The King had fewer sensations of revenge, or at least knew how to hoard
them better, than any man who ever sat upon a Throne. The insults he
experienced from his own and those obliged servants, never provoked him
enough to make him venture the repose of his people, or his own. If any
object of his hate fell in his way, he did not pique himself upon heroic
forgiveness, but would indulge it at the expense of his integrity,
though not of his safety. He was reckoned strictly honest; but the
burning his father's will must be reckoned an indelible blot upon his
memory; as a much later instance [1749] of his refusing to pardon a
young man who had been condemned at Oxford for a most trifling forgery,
contrary to all example when recommended to mercy by the Judge, merely
because Welles, who was attached to the Prince of Wales, had tried him
and assured him his pardon, will stamp his name with cruelty, though in
general his disposition was merciful if the offence was not murder. His
avarice was much less equivocal than his courage; he had distinguished
the latter early [at Oudenarde]; it grew more doubtful afterwards[7]:
the former he distinguished very near as soon, and never deviated from
it. His understanding was not near so deficient, as it was imagined; but
though his character changed extremely in the world, it was without
foundation; for [whether] he deserved to be so much ridiculed as he had
been in the former part of his reign, or so respected as in the latter,
he was consistent in himself, and uniformly meritorious or absurd.
[7] This is unjust--George II. displayed conspicuous courage at
Dettingen.
THE CONDITION OF THE FLEET PRISON, AS REVEALED BY A PARLIAMENTARY
ENQUIRY (1729).
A. DESCRIPTION OF THE WARDEN, THOMAS BAMBRIDGE.
+Source.+--Horace Walpole: _Anecdotes of Painting in England_, 1771.
Vol. iv., p. 71.
I have a sketch in oil that Hogarth gave me, which he intended to
engrave.[8] It was done at the time when the house of commons appointed
a committee to enquire into the cruelties exercised on prisoners in the
Fleet to extort money from them. The scene is the committee; on the
table are the instruments of torture. A prisoner in rags, half starved,
appears before them; the poor man has a good countenance that adds to
the interest. On the other hand is the inhuman gaoler. It is the very
figure that Salvator Rosa would have drawn of Iago in the moment of
detection. Villainy, fear, and conscience are mixed in yellow and livid
on his countenance, his lips are contracted by tremor, his face advances
as eager to lie, his legs step back as thinking to make his escape; one
hand is thrust precipitately into his bosom, the fingers of the other
are catching uncertainly at his button-holes.
B. HIS CRUELTY.
+Source.+--_Lieutenant Bird's Letter from the Shades to T----s B-m-dge_,
1729. Pp. 37, 38.
As soon as he had introduced his Marmadons,[9] he began to treat the
Prisoners in a Manner little different from that Dragooning, which, upon
another Account the Protestants some time ago, suffer'd in _France_;
some he clapp'd into Irons, and others he flung into dungeons; so that
it may be said without much Impropriety, that the poor Prisoners
underwent a perfect Persecution from their New Warden. The Effect of
Persecution is always the same, tho' the Pretence may be Religion, or
something else, yet Interest is the true Cause. It soon appear'd that
all this Cruelty of B-mb-ge, was only to make the Prisoners more ready
to comply with his Demands, by striking a previous Terror into their
Minds, and they found out that the only Way to lay that spirit of
Cruelty, which possess'd the New Warden, was to give up to his Avarice
all the Little which was left them, or cou'd be procured from their
Friends to support Life, which every one knows is as much as the
generality of Men in those unfortunate Circumstances can hope or desire
to do, so helpless they are of themselves, and so cold and scanty is the
Charity and Allowance of Friends and Relations; many of those distress'd
People, in order to satisfy his avaricious Demands, and to avoid his
rigorous Treatment, which grew as terrible to them as an Inquisition,
have been obliged to sell their Cloathes off their Backs and give up
every Penny of their little Subsistence, by which Means they have been
ready to perish with cold and hunger, passing many miserable Days
together without eating a Morsel of Victuals.
C. FINDINGS OF THE PARLIAMENTARY COMMITTEE OF ENQUIRY.
+Source.+--T. B. Howell: _State Trials_. Vol. xvii., pp. 300-302.
The Committee of enquiry found amongst other things. That the said
Thomas Bambridge ... caused one Jacob Mendez Solas[10] ... to be seized,
fettered, and carried to Corbett's, the spunging-house, and there kept
for upwards of a week, and when brought back into the prison, Bambridge
caused him to be turned into the dungeon, called the Strong Room of the
Master's side.
This place is a vault like those in which the dead are interred, and
wherein the bodies of persons dying in the said prison are usually
deposited, till the coroner's inquest hath passed upon them; it has no
chimney nor fire-place, nor any light but what comes over the door, or
through a hole of about eight inches square. It is neither paved nor
boarded; and the rough bricks appear both on the sides and top, being
neither wainscotted nor plastered: what adds to the dampness and stench
of the place is, its being built over the common sewer.... In this
miserable place the poor wretch was kept by the said Bambridge, manacled
and shackled, for near two months. At length, on receiving five guineas
from Mr. Kemp, a friend of Solas's, Bambridge released the prisoner from
his cruel confinement. But though his chains were taken off, his terror
still remained, and the unhappy man was prevailed upon by that terror,
not only to labour _gratis_, for the said Bambridge, but to swear also
at random all that he hath required of him; and the Committee themselves
saw an instance of the deep impression his sufferings had made upon him;
for on his surmising, from something said, that Bambridge was to return
again, as Warden of the Fleet, he fainted, and the blood started out of
his mouth and nose.
[The sufferings of Captain John Mackpheadnis, who was ruined by being
surety for a man in the South Sea Bubble, are then narrated. He was
forced to pay double fees, his room, which he duly rented and had
himself furnished, was wrecked, and he was forced "to lie in the open
yard called the Bare," where the little hut he built was pulled down,
and he was exposed to the rain all night. Finally Bambridge used actual
torture.]
Next morning the said Bambridge entered the prison with a detachment of
soldiers, and ordered the prisoner to be dragged to the lodge, and
ironed with great irons, on which he desired to know for what cause, and
by what authority he was to be so cruelly used? Bambridge replied, "It
was by his own authority, and damm him he would do it, and have his
life." The prisoner desired that he might be carried before a
magistrate, that he might know his crime before he was punished; but
Bambridge refused, and put irons upon his legs which were too little, so
that in forcing them on, his legs were like to have been broken; and the
torture was impossible to be endured. Upon which the prisoner
complaining of the grievous pain and the straitness of the irons,
Bambridge answered, "That he did it on purpose to torture him;" on which
the prisoner replying "That by the law of England no man ought to be
tortured"; Bambridge declared, "That he would do it first and answer for
it afterwards;" and caused him to be dragged away to the dungeon, where
he lay without a bed, loaded with irons so close-rivetted that they kept
him in continued torture, and mortified his legs. After long
application[11] his irons were changed, and a surgeon directed to dress
his legs, but his lameness is not, nor ever can be cured. He was kept in
this miserable condition for three weeks, by which his sight is greatly
prejudiced, and in danger of being lost.
[8] This picture is now in the National Portrait Gallery.
[9] Myrmidons--_i.e._, the band of soldiers whom Bambridge had procured
under false pretences.
[10] A Portuguese prisoner for debt.
[11] _I.e._, after he had made many applications.
THE EXCISE BILL (1733).
+Source.+--Hervey's _Memoirs_. Vol. i., pp. 159-163, 175, 176.
But this flame[12] was no sooner extinguished in the nation than another
was kindled, and one that was much more epidemical, and raged with much
greater fury. Faction was never more busy on any occasion; terrors were
never more industriously scattered, and clamour never more universally
raised.
That which gave rise to these commotions was a project of Sir Robert
Walpole's to ease the land-tax of one shilling in the pound, by turning
the duty on tobacco and wine, then payable on importation, into inland
duties; that is, changing the Customs on those two commodities into
Excises; by which scheme, joined to the continuation of the salt-duty,
he proposed to improve the public revenue £500,000 per annum, in order
to supply the abatement of one shilling in the pound on land, which
raises about that sum.
The landed men had long complained that they had ever since the
Revolution borne the heat and burden of the day for the support of the
Revolution Government; and as the great pressure of the last war had
chiefly lain on them (the land having for many years been taxed to four
shillings in the pound), they now began to say, that since the public
tranquility both at home and abroad was firmly and universally
established, if ease was not at this time thought of for them, it was a
declaration from the Government that they were never to expect any; and
that two shillings in the pound on land was the least that they or their
posterity, in the most profound peace and fullest tranquility, were ever
to hope to pay.
This having been the cry of the country gentlemen and landowners for
some time, Sir Robert Walpole thought he could not do a more popular
thing than to form a scheme by which the land-tax should be reduced to
one shilling in the pound, and yet no new tax be substituted in the lieu
thereof, no new duty laid on any commodity whatsoever, and the public
revenue improved £500,000 per annum, merely by this alteration in the
method of management.
The salt-duty, which had been revised the year before, could raise only
in three years what one shilling in the pound on land raised in one
year; consequently, as that tax was an equivalent only to one-third of a
shilling on land, if the remission of that shilling on land was further
and annually continued, some other fund must be found to supply the
other two-thirds.
This of Excising tobacco and wine was the equivalent projected by Sir
Robert Walpole, but this scheme, instead of procuring him the popularity
he thought it would, caused more clamour and made him even, whilst the
project was only talked of and in embryo, more vilified and abused by
the universal outcries of the people, than any one Act of his whole
administration.
The art, vigilance, and industry of his enemies had so contrived to
represent this scheme to the people, and had so generally in every
county and great town throughout all England prejudiced their minds
against it; they had shown it in so formidable a shape and painted it in
such hideous colours, that everybody talked of the scheme as a general
Excise: they believed that food and raiment, and all the necessaries of
life, were to be taxed; that armies of Excise officers were to come into
any house and at any time they pleased; that our liberties were at an
end, trade going to be ruined, Magna Charta overturned, all property
destroyed, the Crown made absolute, and Parliaments themselves no longer
necessary to be called.
This was the epidemic madness of the nation on this occasion; whilst
most of the boroughs in England, and the city of London itself, sent
formal instructions by way of memorials to their Representatives,
absolutely to oppose all new Excises and all extensions of Excise laws,
if proposed in Parliament, though introduced or modelled in any manner
whatsoever.
It is easy to imagine that this reception of a scheme by which Sir
Robert Walpole proposed to ingratiate himself so much with the people,
must give him great disquiet. Some of his friends, whose timidity passed
afterwards for judgment, advised him to relinquish it, and said, though
it was in itself so beneficial a scheme to the public, yet since the
public did not see it in that light, that the best part he could take
was to lay it aside.
Sir Robert Walpole thought, since he was so far embarked, that there was
no listening to such advice without quitting the King's service, for as
it was once known that he designed to execute this scheme, had he given
it up, everything that had been said of its tendency, would have been
taken for granted; and the same men who had prepossessed the minds of
the people, so far as to have these things credited, would very
naturally and easily have persuaded them that their rescue from ruin,
and the stop that had been put to this impending blow, were entirely
owing to their patriotism; that it was the stand they had made had
prevented the universal destruction that had been threatened to the
liberties and fortunes of the people.
Sir Robert Walpole, therefore (who, if he could have foreseen the
difficulties in which this scheme involved him, would certainly never
have embarked in it at all), in this disagreeable dilemma chose what he
thought the least dangerous path, and resolved, since he had undertaken
it, to try to carry it through. His manner of reasoning was, that if he
had given way to popular clamour on this occasion, it would be raised,
right or wrong, on every future occasion to thwart and check any measure
that could be taken by the Government whilst he should have the
direction of affairs, and that the consequence of that must be, his
resignation of his employment or his dismissal from the King's
service....
At the same time, many pamphlets were written and dispersed in the
country, setting forth the dangerous consequences of extending the
Excise Laws, and increasing the number of Excise-officers; showing the
infringement of the one upon liberty, and the influence the other must
necessarily give the Crown in elections. And so universally were these
terrors scattered through the nation, and so artfully were they
instilled into the minds of the people, that this project, which in
reality was nothing more than a mutation of two taxes from Customs to
Excises, with an addition of only one hundred and twenty-six officers in
all England for the collection of it, was so represented to the country,
and so understood by the multitude, that there was hardly a town in
England, great or small, where nine parts in ten of the inhabitants did
not believe that this project was to establish a general Excise, and
that everything they ate or wore was to be taxed; that a colony of
Excise-officers was to be settled in every village in the Kingdom, and
that they were to have a power to enter all houses at all hours;[13]
that every place and every person was to be liable to their search, and
that such immense sums of monies were to be raised by this project, that
the Crown would no longer be under the necessity of calling Parliament
for annual grants to support the Government, but be able to provide for
itself, for the most part; and whenever it wanted any extraordinary
supplies, that the Excise officers, by their power, would be able at any
time to choose just such a Parliament as the Crown should nominate and
direct.
[12] The attempted repeal of the Test Act.
[13] This feeling found expression in various scurrilous ballads. The
following verse may serve as a specimen:
Who would think it a hardship that men so polite
Should enter their houses by day or by night,
To poke in each hole, and examine their stock,
From the cask of right Nantz to their wives' Holland smock?
He's as cross as the devil
Who censures as evil
A visit so courteous, so kind, and so civil;
For to sleep in our beds without their _permit_,
Were in a free country a thing most unfit.
THE PORTEOUS RIOTS (1736).
+Source.+--_Gentleman's Magazine_, 1736, p. 230.
One Wilson was hang'd at Edinburgh for robbing Collector Stark. He
having made an Attempt to break Prison, and his Comrade having actually
got off, the Magistrates had the City Guards and the Welsh Fusiliers
under Arms during the execution, which was perform'd without
Disturbance; but on the Hangman's cutting down the Corpse (the
Magistrates being withdrawn) the Boys threw, as usual, some Dust and
Stones, which falling among the City Guard, Capt. Porteous fired, and
order'd his Men to fire; whereupon above 20 Persons were wounded, 6 or 7
kill'd, one shot thro' the Head at a Window up two Pair of Stairs. The
Capt. and several of his Men were after committed to Prison.