But your newsletter says, that an assay was made of the coin. How impudent and insupportable is this! Wood takes care to coin a dozen or two halfpence of good metal, sends them to the Tower, and they are approved; and these must answer all that he has already coined, or shall coin for the future. It is true, indeed, that a gentleman often sends to my shop for a pattern of stuff; I cut it fairly off, and, if he likes it, he comes, or sends, and compares the pattern with the whole piece, and probably we come to a bargain. But if I were to buy a hundred sheep, and the grazier should bring me one single wether, fat and well-fleeced, by way of pattern, and expect the same price round for the whole hundred, without suffering me to see them before he was paid, or giving me good security to restore my money for those that were lean, or shorn, or scabby, I would be none of his customer. I have heard of a man who had a mind to sell his house, and therefore carried a piece of brick in his pocket, which he showed as a pattern to encourage purchasers; and this is directly the case in point with Mr. Wood's assay. The next part of the paragraph contains Mr. Wood's voluntary proposals for preventing any further objections or apprehensions. His first proposal is, "That whereas he has already coined seventeen thousand pounds, and has copper prepared to make it up forty thousand pounds, he will be content to coin no more, unless the EXIGENCIES OF TRADE REQUIRE IT, although his patent empowers him to coin a far greater quantity." To which if I were to answer, it should be thus:--"Let Mr. Wood, and his crew of founders and tinkers coin on, till there is not an old kettle left in the kingdom,--let them coin old leather, tobacco-pipe clay, or the dirt in the street, and call their trumpery by what name they please, from a guinea to a farthing,--we are not under concern to know how he and his tribe of accomplices think fit to employ themselves. But I hope and trust, that we are all to a man fully determined to have nothing to do with him or his ware." The King has given him a patent to coin halfpence, but has not obliged us to take them; and I have already shown, in my letter to the shopkeepers, &c., that the law has not left it in the power of the prerogative to compel the subject to take any money besides gold and silver, of the right sterling and standard. Wood further proposes, if I understand him right--for his expressions are dubious--that he will not coin above forty thousand pounds, unless the exigencies of trade require it. First, I observe, that this sum of forty thousand pounds is almost double to what I proved to be sufficient for the whole kingdom, although we had not one of our old halfpence left.