Upon this principle I may venture to affirm, it is the hearty wish of the whole nation, very few excepted, that the Parliament, in this session, would begin by strictly examining into the detestable fraud of one William Wood, now or late of London, hardwareman; who illegally and clandestinely, as appears by your own votes and addresses, procured a patent in England for coining halfpence in that kingdom to be current here. This, I say, is the wish of the whole nation, very few excepted; and upon account of those few, is more strongly and justly the wish of the rest; those few consisting either of Wood's confederates, some obscure tradesmen, or certain bold UNDERTAKERS,[23] of weak judgment and strong ambition, who think to find their accounts in the ruin of the nation, by securing or advancing themselves. And because such men proceed upon a system of politics, to which I would fain hope you will be always utter strangers, I shall humbly lay it before you. Be pleased to suppose me in a station of fifteen hundred pounds a year, salary and perquisites: and likewise possessed of 800_l._ a-year, real estate. Then suppose a destructive project to be set on foot; such for instance, as this of Wood; which, if it succeed in all the consequences naturally to be expected from it, must sink the rents and wealth of the kingdom one half, although I am confident it would have done so five-sixths; suppose, I conceive that the countenancing, or privately supporting, this project, will please those by whom I expect to be preserved or higher exalted; nothing then remains, but to compute and balance my gain and my loss, and sum up the whole. I suppose that I shall keep my employment ten years, not to mention the fair chance of a better. This, at 1500_l._ a year, amounts in ten years to 15,000_l._ My estate, by the success of the said project, sinks 400_l._ a-year; which, at twenty years' purchase, is but 8000_l._; so that I am a clear gainer of 7000_l._ upon the balance. And during all that period I am possessed of power and credit, can gratify my favourites, and take vengeance on mine enemies. And if the project miscarry, my private merit is still entire. This arithmetic, as horrible as it appears, I knowingly affirm to have been practised and applied, in conjunctures whereon depended the ruin or safety of a nation; although probably the charity and virtue of a senate will hardly be induced to believe, that there can be such monsters among mankind. And yet the wise Lord Bacon mentions a sort of people (I doubt the race is not yet extinct) who would "set a house on fire for the convenience of roasting their own eggs at the flame."