The object of this Letter is no longer to argue against a scheme which is universally condemned. The independence of Ireland is what he insists on: and the duty of her leading men is to assert that independence. In this he assumed a freedom of spirit which did not really exist. The sketch was skilfully drawn, so as to prepare men for a new appeal, and was far from being the last word. Two months after the fourth and greatest Letter appeared. LETTER III. _Some observations on a paper, called, The report of the committee of the most honourable the Privy-council in England, relating to Wood's halfpence._ TO THE NOBILITY AND GENTRY OF THE KINGDOM OF IRELAND. _August 25th, 1724._ Having already written two letters to the people of my own level and condition, and having now very pressing occasion for writing a third, I thought I could not more properly address it than to your lordships and worships. The occasion is this. A printed paper was sent to me on the 18th instant, entitled, "A Report of the Committee of the Lords of his Majesty's Most Honourable Privy-council in England, relating to Mr. Wood's Halfpence and Farthings." There is no mention made where the paper was printed, but I suppose it to have been in Dublin; and I have been told, that the copy did not come over in the _Gazette_, but in the _London Journal_, or some other print of no authority or consequence. And, for anything that legally appears to the contrary, it may be a contrivance to fright us; or a project of some printer, who has a mind to make a penny by publishing something upon a subject which now employs all our thoughts in this kingdom. Mr. Wood, in publishing this paper, would insinuate to the world, as if the Committee had a greater concern for his credit, and private emolument, than for the honour of the Privy-council and both Houses of Parliament here, and for the quiet and welfare of this whole kingdom; for it seems intended as a vindication of Mr. Wood, not without several severe reflections on the Houses of Lords and Commons of Ireland. The whole is indeed written with the turn and air of a pamphlet; as if it were a dispute between William Wood on the one part, and the Lords Justices, Privy-council, and both Houses of Parliament, on the other; the design of it being to clear William Wood, and to charge the other side with casting rash and groundless aspersions upon him. But, if it be really what the title imputes, Mr. Wood has treated the Committee with great rudeness, by publishing an act of theirs in so unbecoming a manner, without their leave, and before it was communicated to the Government and Privy-council of Ireland, to whom the Committee advised that it should be transmitted.