I confess, I have been sometimes tempted to wish that this project of Wood's might succeed; because I reflected with some pleasure, what a jolly crew it would bring over among us of lords and squires, and pensioners of both sexes, and officers civil and military, where we should live together as merry and sociable as beggars, only with this one abatement, that we should neither have meat to feed, nor manufactures to clothe us, unless we could be content to prance about in coats of mail, or eat brass as ostriches do iron. I return from this digression to that which gave me the occasion of making it. And I believe you are now convinced, that if the Parliament of Ireland were as temptable as any other assembly within a mile of Christendom (which God forbid!), yet the managers must of necessity fail for want of tools to work with. But I will yet go one step farther, by supposing that a hundred new employments were erected on purpose to gratify compliers, yet still an insuperable difficulty would remain. For it happens, I know not how, that money is neither Whig nor Tory--neither of town nor country party, and it is not improbable that a gentleman would rather choose to live upon his own estate, which brings him gold and silver, than with the addition of an employment, when his rents and salary must both be paid in Wood's brass, at above eighty per cent. discount. For these, and many other reasons, I am confident you need not be under the least apprehension from the sudden expectation of the Lord-Lieutenant,[9] while we continue in our present hearty disposition, to alter which no suitable temptation can possibly be offered. And if, as I have often asserted from the best authority, the law has not left a power in the crown to force any money, except sterling, upon the subject, much less can the crown devolve such a power upon another.... Another slander spread by Wood and his emissaries is, "That by opposing him we discover an inclination to throw off our dependence upon the crown of England." Pray observe how important a person is this same William Wood, and how the public weal of two kingdoms is involved in his private interest. First, all those who refuse to take his coin are Papists; for he tells us, "That none but Papists are associated against him." Secondly, "they dispute the King's prerogative." Thirdly, "they are ripe for rebellion." And, fourthly "they are going to shake off their dependence upon the crown of England;" that is to say, they are going to choose another king, for there can be no other meaning in this expression, however some may pretend to strain it.