who would have accompanied him among the ranks of the ministry, or at all events among the ranks of the ministerial supporters. But to Walpole such views were exceedingly distasteful. He well knew Bolingbroke's ability and feared him as a personal rival. He felt also that if Bolingbroke were instrumental in destroying the Tory opposition, the King could not but feel under considerable obligations to him, and that his own exclusive influence would be shaken. Bolingbroke's overtures were therefore most coldly received, and he withdrew again to Paris, where an intrigue was going on, in which he took a prominent part, and which ended in the fall of his friend Carteret. The intrigue itself was of a very despicable character, and was connected with the marriage of a daughter of Madame de Platen, sister of the King's mistress, the Countess of Darlington. To counteract Carteret, who was employing the English ambassador in the Countess's interest, Townshend sent Horace Walpole as his agent to Paris. The existence of two rival ambassadors, one only properly accredited, brought matters to a crisis. The King, in spite of a strong personal friendship for Carteret, was obliged to yield to the influence of Walpole, and his rival had to withdraw to the Lord Lieutenancy of Ireland. [Sidenote: Excitement in Ireland.] But although the office given to Carteret was regarded as a retirement, in the present instance it promised to be no sinecure. Ireland was in a state of wild excitement, lashed to fury by the exceedingly able but untrue writings of Swift, who in his Drapier's Letters had by exaggeration and falsehood given an aspect of tyrannical misgovernment to a commonplace and legitimate financial act. There was great need of a new small coinage for Ireland, and Walpole had given a patent in 1722 to a certain William Wood, giving him power to coin farthings and halfpence to the value of £108,000. The contract and quality had been declared satisfactory by Sir Isaac Newton, Master of the Mint. The Irish Parliament declared that the patent would occasion a loss to the nation of one hundred and fifty per cent., an extraordinary assertion based upon the fact that a pound of rough copper in Ireland was worth twelve pence, while a pound of coined fine copper was to be worth thirty pence. But the mint in London gave eighteenpence a pound for its copper. The charge of coinage was fourpence, the duties upon copper imported into Ireland were twenty per cent., and the difference of exchange between England and Ireland rendered a slight diminution of the weight reasonable. Of course, however, it is certain that the patentee made something by the bargain, especially as the voracious Duchess of Kendal had been bribed to obtain it. But all facts and all reasoning were useless against the storm raised by Swift's Letters, and it was not till Walpole had exhibited his usual prudence in accepting inevitable defeat, and cancelling the patent, that Ireland was quieted.