oinage of three hundred and sixty ton of copper, sixteen
hundred and eighty pounds profit more than the patent allows him; Out of
which he may afford to make his comptrollers easy upon that article.

As to what is alleged, that "these halfpence far exceed the like coinage
for Ireland in the reigns of His Majesty's predecessors;" there cannot
well be a more exceptionable way of arguing: Although the fact were
true, which however is altogether mistaken; not by any fault in the
Committee, but by the fraud and imposition of Wood, who certainly
produced the worst patterns he could find, such as were coined in small
numbers by permissions to private men, as butchers' halfpence, black
dogs and the like, or perhaps the small St. Patrick's coin which passes
for a farthing, or at best some of the smallest raps of the latest kind.
For I have now by me some halfpence coined in the year 1680 by virtue of
the patent granted to my Lord Dartmouth, which was renewed to Knox, and
they are heavier by a ninth part than those of Wood, and in much better
metal. And the great St. Patrick's halfpenny is yet larger than either.

But what is all this to the present debate? If under the various
exigencies of former times, by wars, rebellions, and insurrections, the
Kings of England were sometimes forced to pay their armies here with
mixed or base money, God forbid that the necessities of turbulent times
should be a precedent for times of peace, and order, and settlement.

In the patent above mentioned granted to Lord Dartmouth, in the reign of
King Charles 2d. and renewed to Knox, the securities given into the
exchequer, obliging the patentee to receive his money back upon every
demand, were an effectual remedy against all inconveniencies. And the
copper was coined in our own kingdom, so that we were in no danger to
purchase it with the loss of all our silver and gold carried over to
another, nor to be at the trouble of going to England for the redressing
of any abuse.

That the Kings of England have exercised their prerogative of coining
copper for Ireland and for England is not the present question: But (to
speak in the style of the Report) it would "seem a little
extraordinary," supposing a King should think fit to exercise his
prerogative by coining copper in Ireland, to be current in England,
without referring it to his officers in that kingdom to be informed
whether the grant was reasonable, and whether the people desired it or
no, and w