But your great comfort is, that, as his majesty's patent does not oblige you to take this money, so the laws have not given the Crown a power of forcing the subjects to take what money the king pleases: for then, by the same reason, we might be bound to take pebble-stones or cockle-shells, or stamped leather for current coin, if ever we should happen to live under an ill prince, who might likewise by the same power make a guinea pass for ten pounds, a shilling for twenty shillings, and so on, by which he would in a short time get all the silver and gold of the kingdom into his own hands, and leave us nothing but brass or leather or what he pleased. Neither is anything reckoned more cruel or oppressive in the French Government than their common practice of calling in all their money after they have sunk it very low, and then coining it a-new at a much higher value, which however is not the thousandth part so wicked as this abominable project of Mr. Wood. For the French give their subjects silver for silver, and gold for gold; but this fellow will not so much as give us good brass or copper for our gold and silver, nor even a twelfth part of their worth. Having said this much, I will now go on to tell you the judgments of some great lawyers in this matter, whom I fee'd on purpose for your sakes, and got their opinions under their hands, that I might be sure I went upon good grounds. A famous law-book call'd the _Mirrour of Justice_, discoursing of the articles (or laws) ordained by our ancient kings, declares the law to be as follows: It was ordained that no king of this realm should change, impair, or amend the money or make any other money than of gold or silver without the assent of all the counties, that is, as my Lord Coke says, without the assent of Parliament. This book is very ancient, and of great authority for the time in which it was wrote, and with that character is often quoted by that great lawyer my Lord Coke. By the laws of England, several metals are divided into lawful or true metal and unlawful or false metal; the former comprehends silver or gold, the latter all baser metals: that the former is only to pass in payments appears by an Act of Parliament made the twentieth year of Edward the First, called the statute concerning the passing of pence, which I give you here as I got it translated into English; for some of our laws at that time were, as I am told, writ in Latin: Whoever in buying or selling presumeth to refuse an half-penny or farthing of lawful money, bearing the stamp which it ought to have, let him be seized on as a contemner of the king's majesty, and cast to prison. By this statute, no person is to be reckoned a contemner of the king's majesty, and for that crime to be committed to prison, but he who refuses to accept the king's coin made of lawful metal, by which, as I observ'd before, silver and gold only are intended.