Great Britain -- History -- 18th century -- Sources; Pitt, William, Earl of Chatham, 1708-1778; Walpole, Robert, Earl of Orford, 1676-1745
They say 'Squire Conolly [Speaker of the Irish House of Commons] has
sixteen thousand pounds a year. Now if he sends for his rent to town, as
it is likely he does, he must have two hundred and forty horses to bring
up his half-year's rent, and two or three great cellars in his house for
stowage. But what the bankers will do I cannot tell. For I am assured,
that some great bankers keep by them forty thousand pounds in ready cash
to answer all payments, which sum, in Mr. Wood's money, would require
twelve hundred horses to carry it.
For my own part, I am already resolved what to do; I have a pretty good
shop of Irish stuffs and silks, and instead of taking Mr. Wood's bad
copper. I intend to truck with my neighbours the butchers, and bakers,
and brewers, and the rest, goods for goods, and the little gold and
silver I have, I will keep by me like my heart's blood till better
times, or till I am just ready to starve, and then I will buy as my
father did the brass money, in K. James's time,[4] I who could buy ten
pound of it with a guinea....
When once the kingdom is reduced to such a condition, I will tell you
what must be the end: The gentlemen of estates will all turn off their
tenants for want of payment, because as I told you before, the tenants
are obliged by their leases to pay sterling which is lawful current
money of England; then they will turn their own farmers, as too many of
them do already, run all into sheep where they can, keeping only such
other cattle as are necessary, then they will be their own merchants and
send their wool and butter and hides and linen beyond sea for ready
money and wine and spices and silks. They will keep only a few miserable
cottiers. The farmers must rob or beg, or leave their country. The
shopkeepers in this and every other town, must break and starve: for it
is the landed man that maintains the merchant, and shopkeeper, and
handicraftsman.
But when the 'squire turns farmer and merchant himself, all the good
money he gets from abroad, he will hoard up or send for England, and
keep some poor tailor or weaver and the like in his own house, who will
be glad to get bread at any rate.
I should never have done if I were to tell you all the miseries that we
shall undergo if we be so foolish and wicked as to take this CURSED
COIN. It would be very hard if all Ireland should be put into one scale,
and this sorry fellow Wood into the other, that Mr. Wood should weigh
down this whole kingdom, by which England gets above a million of good
money every year clear into their pockets, and that is more than the
English do by all the world besides.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account