those to whom the reversions were granted; and these have been generally followers of the chief governors, or persons who had interest in the court of England. So the lord Berkeley of Stratton holds the great office of master of the rolls; the lord Palmerstown is first remembrancer, worth near £2000 per annum. One Dodington, secretary to the earl of Pembroke, begged the reversion of clerk of the pells, worth £2500 a-year, which he now enjoys by the death of the lord Newtown. Mr. Southwell is secretary of state, and the earl of Burlington lord high treasurer of Ireland, by inheritance. These are only a few among many others which I have been told of, but cannot remember. Nay, the reversion of several employments during pleasure is granted the same way. This, among many others, is a circumstance whereby the kingdom of Ireland is distinguished from all other nations upon earth, and makes it so difficult an affair to get into a civil employ, that Mr. Addison was forced to purchase an old obscure place, called keeper of the records in Birmingham's tower, of £10 a-year, and to get a salary of £400 annexed to it, though all the records there are not worth half-a-crown either for curiosity or use. And we lately saw a favourite secretary descend to be master of the revels, which by his credit and extortion he has made pretty considerable. I say nothing of the under-treasurership, worth about £9000 a-year, nor of the commissioners of the revenue, four of whom generally live in England, for I think none of these are granted in reversion. But the jest is that I have known upon occasion some of these absent officers as keen against the interest of Ireland as if they had never been indebted to her for a single groat.

I confess I have been sometimes tempted to wish that this project of Wood's might succeed; because I reflected with some pleasure what a jolly crew it would bring over among us of lords and squires and pensioners of both sexes, and officers civil and military, where we should live together as merry and sociable as beggars, only with this one abatement, that we should neither have meat to feed nor manufactures to clothe us, unless we could be content to prance about in coats of mail or eat brass as ostriches do iron.

I return from this digression to that which gave me the occasion of making it. And I believe you are now convinced that if the parliament of Ireland were as temptable as any other assembly within a mile of Christendom (which God forbid !), yet the managers must of necessity fail for want of tools to work with. But I will yet go one step farther, by supposing that a hundred new employments were erected on purpose to gratify compliers; yet still an insuperable difficulty would remain. For it happens, I know not how, that money is neither Whig nor Tory-neither of town nor country party; and it is not improbable, that a gentleman would rather choose to live upon his own estate, which brings him gold and silver, than with the addition of an employment, when his rents and salary must both be paid in Wood's brass at above 80 per cent. discount.

For these and many other reasons I am confident you need not be under the least apprehension from the sudden expectation of the lord-lieutenant, while we continue in our present hearty disposition, to alter which no suitable temptation can possibly be offered. And if, as I have often asserted from the best authority, the law has not left a power in the crown to force any

money, except sterling, upon the subject, much less can the crown devolve such a power upon another.

This I speak with the utmost respect to the person and dignity of his excellency the lord Carteret, whose character was lately given me by a gentleman that has known him from his first appearance in the world. That gentleman describes him as a young nobleman of great accomplishments, excellent learning, regular in his life, and of much spirit and vivacity. He has since, as I have heard, been employed abroad; was principal secretary of state; and is now, about the thirty-seventh year of his age, appointed lord-lieutenant of Ireland. From such a governor this kingdom may reasonably hope for as much prosperity as, under so many discouragements, it can be capable of receiving.

It is true, indeed, that within the memory of man there have been governors of so much dexterity as to carry points of terrible consequence to this kingdom by their power with those who are in office; and by their arts in managing or deluding others with oaths, affability, and even with dinners. If Wood's brass had in those times been upon the anvil, it is obvious enough to conceive what methods would have been taken. Depending persons would have been told in plain terms," that it was a service expected from them, under the pain of the public business being put into more complying hands." Others would be allured by promises. To the country gentlemen, beside good words, burgundy, and closeting, it might perhaps have been hinted, "how kindly it would be taken to comply with a royal patent, although it were not compulsory; that if any inconveniences ensued, it might be made up with other graces or favours hereafter; that

gentlemen ought to consider whether it were prudent or safe to disgust England. They would be desired to think of some good bills for encouraging of trade and setting the poor to work; some further acts against popery, and for uniting protestants." There would be solemn engagements, "that we should never be troubled with above £40,000 in his coin, and all of the best and weightiest sort, for which we should only give our manufactures in exchange, and keep our gold and silver at home." Perhaps a seasonable report of some invasion would have been spread in the most proper juncture; which is a great smoother of rubs in public proceedings; and we should have been told "that this was no time to create differences when the kingdom was in danger.

These, I say, and the like methods would, in corrupt times, have been taken to let in this deluge of brass among us; and I am confident, even then would not have succeeded; much less under the administration of so excellent a person as the lord Carteret, and in a country where the people of all ranks, parties, and denominations, are convinced to a man that the utter undoing of themselves and their posterity for ever will be dated from the admission of that execrable coin; that if it once enters, it can be no more confined to a small or moderate quantity than a plague can be confined to a few families; and that no equivalent can be given by any earthly power, any more than a dead carcase can be recovered to life by a cordial.

There is one comfortable circumstance in this universal opposition to Mr. Wood, that the people sent over hither from England, to fill up our vacancies, ecclesiastical, civil, and military, are all on our side.

Money, the great divider of the world, has, by a strange revolution, been a great uniter of a most divided people. Who would leave £100 a-year in England (a country of freedom) to be paid £1000 in Ireland out of Wood's exchequer? The gentleman they have lately made primate would never quit his seat in an English house of lords, and his preferments at Oxford and Bristol, worth £1200 ayear, for four times the denomination here but not half the value; therefore, I expect to hear he will be as good an Irishman, at least upon this one article, as any of his brethren, or even of us who have had the misfortune to be born in this island. For those who in the common phrase do not come hither to learn the language would never change a better country for a worse, to receive brass instead of gold.

Another slander spread by Wood and his emissaries is "that by opposing him we discover an inclination to throw off our dependence upon the crown of Eng. land." Pray observe how important a person is this same William Wood, and how the public weal of two kingdoms is involved in his private interest. First, all those who refuse to take his coin are papists; for he tells us, "that none but papists are associated against him." Secondly, "they dispute the king's prerogative." Thirdly, "they are ripe for rebellion." And, fourthly, "they are going to shake off their dependence upon the crown of England;" that is to say, they are going to choose another king; for there can be no other meaning in this expression, however some may pretend to strain it.

And this gives me an opportunity of explaining to those who are ignorant another point, which has often