another, attended with fuch confufion and inconvenience to the people in general, that when the ftorms which had agitated the country had fubfided, upon the return of the public to reafon and royalty, it became neceflary for Government to turn its moft ferious thoughts toward the discountenancing this bafe and nefarious traffic, and authorifing a copper coinage under its own inspection. Accordingly, in the year 1672, halfpence and farthings, truck at the Tower, were first published under the fanction of the Legiflature.

In the course of this brief inquiry into the ftate of the ancient and modern copper coinage, it will be neceffary for me to direct the reader's attention once more to Ireland. Upon turning our eyes to that kingdom we fhall find that, as I have hinted in a preceding note, halfpence and farthings of that metal had a circulation from a period confiderably antecedent to their publication in England; and from the licence given to individuals to become coiners, an immenfe number of thefe kind of tokens, under the appellations of Galley balfpence, Butcher's baifpence, Black-dogs, Jews, and St. Patrick's Raps, had been circulated through the kingdom and as they continued to increale, while the gold and lver coin in a certain proportion diminished and difappeared, the Adminiftration of the country thought it neceffary to check their circulation, by granting a patent for the coining halfpence, which thould not be liable to the depreciation of the former, as the perfon who held it fhould be obliged to give fecurity that he would upon demand exchange them for gold or filver.

Under thefe reftri&tions Mr. Knox, in the year 1690, obtained the said patent, and began to coin; but it does not appear that this fpeculation was attended with much fuccefs, for a fhort time after he transferred his patent to Mr. Moor, who was obliged to difcontinue the operation from the difficulty he found in the performance of the condition of the obligation which he had entered into; as he had contracted, not only to fuftain the lofs that had, and might accrue from his being obliged to change his own halfpence into gold or filver foon after they were iffued, but was called upon to

make good the deficiency of an immense quantity of raps or counterfeits which had got into circulation. In this fituation Mr. Moor abandoned his project, and the raps, which I have juft mentioned, having obtained this triumph over the halfpence fanctioned by Government, continued to be almost the only copper coin circulated in Ireland until the year 1724.

At this period Mr. Wood obtained a patent under the broad feal to coin one hundred and eight thousand pounds worth of copper, for the use of the kingdom of Ireland; a tranfaction which gave rife to the Drapier's Letters, and, in other of his publications, excited that keennefs of irony, and afperity of obfervation, for which that eccentric genius Dr. Swift was fo remarkable.

"The itinerant Brazier," fhielded as he was by his patent, and guarded by the fword of the Legislature, had to contend with an enemy by much too powerful for him; an enemy who could give dignity and importance (I will not, in other inftances, lay fuccefs) to any cause which he chofe to efpoufe; and who had, in this difpute, io artfully applied himself to the paffions, the prejudices, the intereft, nay to the very exiftence of the middle and lower orders of the people; who had fo well calculated the means neceflary to obtain his end; that he gained a popularity by far more gratitying, as it was by far more ample, than had attended any of his former political exertions, or had accrued from any of his former publications.

The perfecution that attached to the printer of the Drapier's Letters, and the reward that was offered for difcovering their author, caufed the Dean, who was perhaps more than fufpected, to be confidered as the tutulary genius of the nation. Whitfhed, the Lord Chief Juftice, and all that were concerned in the profecution of the aforefaid printer, were constrained to "hide their diminished rays," while Mr. Wood was forced to withdraw his patent, and with empty pockets retire from a country which he had entered with the expectation of finding it to him an El-dorado; in which, like Midas, he fhould with a touch convert fhip-loads of copper into the most precious of metals,

Vol. XXXIII. APRIL 1798.

на

It

It might, if fuch a difquifition were neceffary, be an amufing fpeculation to enquire whether the motives which prompted Swift to fo efficacious an oppofition to a measure, which has, now party virulence hath long fince fubfided, been on all fides deemed inimical to the true interefts of his country, was purely patriotic. Perhaps, if we were accurately to examine, we should discover through the whole of the conteft, on the part of the Dean, traces of the operation of that difappointment which infufed fuch a portion of keennefs and acrimony into the productions of his pen, after he had been forced to relinquish that fhare, whether principal or fubordinate, which he had had in the tranfactions of the latter years of Queen Ann.

Conceiving that the Tories had received their coup de grace from the Whig Administration, which came into office upon the acceffion of the Houfe of Brunfwick to the throne; that they had fallen never to rise again; and, as he alfo thought, that the political offences of his friends fhrunk to nothing when compared with his own, which that anxiety and irritability that are the concomitants of genius whispered him were in magnitude as much fuperior as their effufions were in wit and humour, he rightly judged that he was, by the faid party, confidered as a perfon the most hoftile to their meafures, which he certainly, though fecretly, endeavoured to thwart.

The patent for the copper coinage in Ireland, denominated Wood's halfpence, was a Whig measure; and although it would be too much to aver that the circulation of its product would have been attended with all thofe evils which the Drapier prophecied, it certainly, upon the face of it, was fufficiently marked with the appearance of a job, to alarm the people, and to give to the Dean of St. Patrick, who well knew how to take advantage of the irritability of the public mind, a celebrity and popularity, perhaps far greater than even his ambition had led him to expect *.

This digreffion would indeed have been

ufelefs in this fpeculation, and written to little purpofe, did I not endeavour to apply the preceding history of the fraud, for fo it appeared to be, which under the colour of aflifting commerce was attempted to be committed upon the revenue, and ultimately upon the people of Ireland, to a number of recent attempts of the like kind, but infinitely more flagitious, because the perions concerned in them do not even alledge that they act under any authority, however obtained; but with the fame pretence, namely, to allift the retail venders of commodities with that kind of small change which every one knows to be fo necellary, and to promote the general purpoles of trade, proceed to levy contributions upon the public to an almost incalculable amount.

The reader will now fee that I am arrived at the period when the provincial copper tokens, which I obferved at the beginning of this treatife have been, by thofe that have written on the fubject, generally commended, had obtained a confiderable circulation: and I will freely allow, that when I firit faw the Anglefey penny, I joined the multitude in admiration of the venerable countenance which the obverie exhibits: and without reflecting that the circulation of a coin, of which the firft dies were exceedingly well executed, could ever be attended with any inconvenience either to the community in general, or to particular individuals, confidered it only as a hand fome medal, intended to perpetuate the memory of a Company, who had revived a branch of commerce in a remote part of the iland, which had been neglected perhaps from the time of the Romans; who, owing to laudable industry, had arrived at the height of opulence, and confequently importance; and whole exertions and fuccefs were equally a be nefit to their country and their neigh bourhood.

But although I confidered the coin in question in this point of view, and it was probably the light in which the Company who promulgated it intended

that

that it fhould be confidered, it foon appeared that the fabricators had given a hint which was feized with avidity and profecuted with fuccefs, and that a fet of ingenious men had combined, I mean combined in principle, to fave Government the trouble of a copper coinage, which, every one allowed, next to one of filver, was much wanted (efpecially as the reasons which caused the delay of the former did not operate against the latter): and inftead of the portrait of his Majetty, fpread thofe of merchants, mechanics, manufacturers, and tradefmen, far and wide, upon a fubftance fo permanent, that thefe tokens in their circulation fhould not only excite the admiration of the prefent age, but bid fair to defcend to the remoteft pofterity.

This idea of the permanence of the materials which they had to work upon, feems to have introduced another into the minds of the ingenious fabricators of thefe halfpence: they knew that by the coinage laws, however defective they might be in general, and by two ftatutes in particular, they were reftricted from counterfeiting balfpence and farthings; but they knew, at the fame time, that in the name of thefe fpecies of coin lay the greatest objection; they also knew, that no one had ever yet thought of framing promiffory notes of any fubftance more folid than paper. Pleafed therefore to find that their former flimfy materials might, with great advantage, be changed for one of a much more intrinfic value, they feized this happy opportunity, and literally became the coiners of notes, which certainly exceed those of many of the country banks as much in real worth as they do in durability.

From this circumftance, it is probable, has been derived the creation of fuch an immenfe variety of forts and fpecies of this coin as is now difperfed through our provinces, and which are fo various in their defcriptions, and indeed fubftances; for although a few may be of pure copper, the far greater part of them are of bafe metal, or in other words, compofed of the drofs, filings, and fweep, of the Birmingham, Bilton, and Wolver

hampton manufactories. These tokens, though (as I have obferved) of more value than paper, are certainly not of the value that a halfpenny ought to be. Indeed fome of them are fo thin, that according to the calculation which I have made, a pound of this metal, which unwrought is of about the value of fevenpence halfpenny, may be made to produce from feventy to eighty of thefe pieces; thisbusiness therefore, if only confidered as a fpeculation, is, it seems, a pretty profitable one. But there is another confideration annexed to the circulation of thefe pieces, which has fometimes been known to have a stronger operation upon the human mind than even avarice, or is perhaps in these commercial adventurers clofely connected with that paffion, I mean the love of fame: the defire of celebrity, of notoriety; which has led many of thefe perfons, while they have thought it neceffary to oblige the world with their portraits on the face of their domeftic medals, to give, on the reverse, the arms of their illuftrious family, or a view of thofe fhops in which the cheapest books, hats, candles, foap, linen, &c. in the faid world, were to be fold.

I have now before me above an hundred different impreffions of these kind of halfpence, of which I will just enumerate and obferve upon a few, viz.

1, 2, 3. The London and Middlefex halfpenny, two impreffions, with the head of the Prince of Wales, front and fide face; a third, with his buft and feathers on the reverfe.

4, 5. The Duke of York halfpenny, two impreffions; reverfe of one, a fhip; of the other, the figure of Fortitude. Motto of the latter, "God fend peace."

6. The next, taken in the order that they lay before me, is the Liverpool halfpenny. Front, a fhip: reverse, Motto, "Deus nobis hæc otia

arms.

fecit."

7. The Birmingham promissary halfpenny, with the portrait of that truly benevolent and philanthropic character, the late John Howard, F. R. S. † on the front. Cypher on the reverse. 8. Leck commercial halfpenny, 1792: obverfe,

31. An abftrufe masonic effufion, with a triangle compofed of wisdom, ftrength, and beauty, on the reverfe.

32. Lace Manufactory halfpenny. 33. Ditto of the cheapelt hat-maker in the world.

34. Another Freemafon's coin: the hieroglyphics on the front and reverfe of which are fo far above my comprehenfion that I fhall not venture a defcription of them.

35. Shrewsbury halfpenny: arms of the town on the front: reverfe, a woolpack.

36. Birmingham Coining Copper Company: obverfe, a female figure holding the fafces: reverse, a ftork upon a cornucopia.

37. Liverpool Metal and Copper Company: the fame figure on the obverfe: reverfe, a ship.

38. The halfpenny of a grocer at Manchester.

39. Portfea ditto: arms on the one de: fhip on the other.

40. The Baker's halfpenny: wheatTheaf on the front: infcription on the reverte, "To leffen the flavery of Sunday baking, and provide for the public wants, an act was paled anno Domini 1794."

ment as remarkable for its elegance as its antiquity, 1792.

47. London and Middlesex halfpenny: butt of Shakspeare on the front: reverse, Britannia, with a cornucopia, 1792.

48. Patent Boot halfpenny: obverse, the King's arms: reverfe, a boot fupported by a pair of shoes!

49. A halfpenny current every where: obverfe, a dove, olive branch, and cornucopia: reverse, a fitting figure of Hope: motto, "Peace and plenty."

59. Warwickshire halfpenny: head of Shakspeare: reverfe, Plenty, with a cornucopia fhip under fail in the back ground.

60. Surry Poft-office halfpenny: front, arms: reverie, cypher P. D. and Crown: metto, "The Commerce of Britain," and "Success to the Plough and Fleece."

61. Bull-ftreet, Birmingham halfpenny: front, a bee-hive: reverse, an intcription to ferve as a fhop-bill.

62. Liverpool ditto: obverfe, the buft of George Washington: reverse, a fhip failing.

63. Sudbury ditto: the arms of the borough on the front: reverfe, a fhip under fail, 1793: infcription, " Pro bono publico:" motto, "May the trade of Sudbury flourish !”

64. Coal-brook Dale halfpenny: on the front, a view of that ftupendous piece of architecture, confidering the materials, the iron bridge; a trough failing under it: infcription, "Erected anno 1779; pan 100 feet :" reverfe, a view of the inclined plane at Katley *.

65. Tallow chandler's halfpenny : obverfe, the King's arms: reverfe, a mould for candles!

66. Glafgow ditto: on the front, Neptune reclining upon an urn: reverse, "May Glafgow flourish!"

67. A Birmingham token, which advertifes cheap cloaths, fhoes, &c. on the one fide on the other, a well-dreffed manditplays a flag, and fupports a fhield; by the infcription upon which we learn that a Panorama is to be seen!

68. Another Birmingham coin: obverfe, a naked boy: reverie, arms motto, "Industry has its fure reward.”

[To be continued.]

ΤΟ