er is not afraid of plain speaking. After saying that the king
cannot compel the subject to take any money except it be sterling gold
or silver, he adds:

'Now here you may see that the vile accusation of Wood and his
accomplices, charging us with disputing the King's prerogative
by refusing his brass, can have no place--because compelling the
subject to take any coin which is not sterling is no part of the
King's prerogative, and I am very confident, if it were so, we
should be the last of his people to dispute it, as well from
that inviolable loyalty we have always paid to his Majesty, as
from the treatment we might in such a case justly expect from
some, who seem to think we have neither common sense nor common
senses. But, God be thanked, the best of them are only our
fellow-subjects, and not our masters. One great merit I am sure
we have which those of English birth can have no pretence
to--that our ancestors reduced this kingdom to the obedience of
England; for which we have been rewarded with a worse
climate--the privilege of being governed by laws to which we do
not consent--a ruined trade--a House of Peers without
jurisdiction--almost an incapacity for all employments--and the
dread of Wood's halfpence. But we are so far from disputing the
king's prerogative in coining, that we own he has power to give
a patent to any man for setting his royal image and
superscription upon whatever materials he pleases, and liberty
to the patentee to offer them in any country from England to
Japan; only attended with one small limitation--that nobody
alive is obliged to take them.'

With much humour, in the last paragraph of the letter, Swift undertakes
to show that Walpole is against Wood's project 'by this one invincible
argument, that he has the universal opinion of being a wise man, an able
minister, and in all his proceedings pursuing the true interest of the
King his master; and that as his integrity is above all corruption, so
is his fortune above all temptation.'

Swift's arguments in the _Drapier's Letters_ are sophistical, his
statements grossly exaggerated, and his advice sometimes shameless, as,
for instance, in recommending what is now but too well known as
'boycotting.' The end, however, was gained, and the Dean was treated
with the honours of a conqueror. On his return from England in 1726, a
guard of honour conduc