Shopkeepers, look to yourselves!--Wood will oblige and force you to take fivepence halfpenny of his trash in every payment, and many of you receive twenty, thirty, forty payments in one day, or else you can hardly find bread. And, pray, consider how much that will amount to in a year. Twenty times fivepence halfpenny is nine shillings and twopence, which is above a hundred and sixty pounds a year; wherein you will be losers of at least one hundred and forty pounds by taking your payments in his money. If any of you be content to deal with Mr. Wood on such conditions, you may; but, for my own particular, let his money perish with him! If the famous Mr. Hampden rather chose to go to prison than pay a few shillings to King Charles I. without authority of Parliament, I will rather choose to be hanged than have all my substance taxed at seventeen shillings in the pound, at the arbitrary will and pleasure of the venerable Mr. Wood. The paragraph concludes thus:--"N.B." that is to say, _nota bene_, or _mark well_, "No evidence appeared from Ireland, or elsewhere, to prove the mischiefs complained of, or any abuses whatsoever committed, in the execution of the said grant." The impudence of this remark exceeds all that went before. First, the House of Commons in Ireland, which represents the whole people of the kingdom, and, secondly, the Privy-council, addressed his Majesty against these halfpence. What could be done more to express the universal sense of the nation? If his copper were diamonds, and the kingdom were entirely against it, would not that be sufficient to reject it? Must a committee of the whole House of Commons, and our whole Privy-council, go over to argue _pro_ and _con_ with Mr. Wood? To what end did the King give his patent for coining halfpence for Ireland? Was it not because it was represented to his sacred Majesty, that such a coinage would be of advantage to the good of this kingdom, and of all his subjects here? It is to the patentee's peril if this representation be false, and the execution of his patent be fraudulent and corrupt. Is he so wicked and foolish to think, that his patent was given him to ruin a million and a half of people, that he might be a gainer of three or four score thousand pounds to himself? Before he was at the charge of passing a patent, much more of raking up so much filthy dross, and stamping it with his Majesty's image and superscription, should he not first, in common sense, in common equity, and common manners, have consulted the principal party concerned,--that is to say, the people of the kingdom, the House of Lords, or Commons, or the Privy-council? If any foreigner should ask us, whose image and superscription there is on Wood's coin? we should be ashamed to tell him it was Cæsar's. In that great want of copper halfpence which he alleges we were, our city set up our Cæsar's statue[6] in excellent copper, at an expense that is equal to thirty thousand pounds of his coin, and we will