d only by the restoration
of private prosperity; and private prosperity could be restored only
by years of peace and security. James was absurd enough to imagine that
there was a more speedy and efficacious remedy. He could, he conceived,
at once extricate himself from his financial difficulties by the simple
process of calling a farthing a shilling. The right of coining was
undoubtedly a flower of the prerogative; and, in his view, the right of
coining included the right of debasing the coin. Pots, pans, knockers of
doors, pieces of ordnance which had long been past use, were carried to
the mint. In a short time lumps of base metal, nominally worth near a
million sterling, intrinsically worth about a sixtieth part of that sum,
were in circulation. A royal edict declared these pieces to be legal
tender in all cases whatever. A mortgage for a thousand pounds was
cleared off by a bag of counters made out of old kettles. The creditors
who complained to the Court of Chancery were told by Fitton to take
their money and be gone. But of all classes the tradesmen of Dublin,
who were generally Protestants, were the greatest losers. At first, of
course, they raised their demands: but the magistrates of the city took
on themselves to meet this heretical machination by putting forth a
tariff regulating prices. Any man who belonged to the caste now
dominant might walk into a shop, lay on the counter a bit of brass worth
threepence, and carry off goods to the value of half a guinea. Legal
redress was out of the question. Indeed the sufferers thought themselves
happy if, by the sacrifice of their stock in trade, they could redeem
their limbs and their lives. There was not a baker's shop in the city
round which twenty or thirty soldiers were not constantly prowling. Some
persons who refused the base money were arrested by troopers and carried
before the Provost Marshal, who cursed them, swore at them, locked them
up in dark cells, and, by threatening to hang them at their own doors,
soon overcame their resistance. Of all the plagues of that time
none made a deeper or a more lasting impression on the minds of the
Protestants of Dublin than the plague of the brass money, [228] To the
recollection of the confusion and misery which had been produced by
James's coin must be in part ascribed the strenuous opposition which,
thirty-five years later, large classes, firmly attached to the House of
Hanover, offered to the government of George the F