You cannot imagine how greatly I am vexed and disappointed, that I have been so long obliged to keep back my conversation piece[1]. I have, in this respect, wholly complied with the reasoning, or rather with the humours, of some of my friends. They were willing to try their skill in accommodating my Irish affairs[2]; in which, after all, I believe they will be disappointed as much as I have been: for the adversaries I have to deal with, proceed on a principle that will hear no reason, and do no good, not even to themselves, if others are at the same time to receive any benefit by the bargain. However, since you seem so earnestly to desire a second view of this work, I will send you a book by Mr. Swift, who intends to go from hence about ten days or a
- ↑ Meaning The Toast.
- ↑ Dr. King had a chancery suit in Ireland with the countess of Newburgh; the particulars of which are developed in the observations which accompany his celebrated satire.
moderate quantity of halfpence in general (which, it is certain, were much wanted in Ireland in the year 1724) as against Wood's adulterate copper in particular, which was not worth three pence in a shilling, and which might have been poured in upon the nation from Wood's mint to eternity; as he had neither given security for his honesty, nor obliged himself, like other patentees, to give either gold or silver in exchange for his copper, when it began to grow troublesome. Whereas the halfpence, sent over to Ireland in the year 1737, were coined in the Tower, by the express order of the crown, for the conveniency of the kingdom, and were not calculated to do any mischief; or, in fact, could they have done any, as all people were at that time sufficiently and thoroughly apprised, that halfpence were not sterling money, or could legally be tendered in any payment whatsoever; the only use of them being a sort of change in the small crafts and traffick of the world. However, it is certain that an advertisement of three lines, by order of Dr. Swift, had there been occasion for it, as there was not, would instantly have stopt their currency.
