how to extricate themselves from its continuance: a mode of restitution, however, inadequate to the injury, yet demonstrating, at least, the contrition from which it sprung."

In Fishamble-street, in the seventeenth century, stood the "Fleece Tavern," the locality of which is still indicated by "Fleece-alley," on the west side of the street, which, in the last century, was chiefly inhabited by velvet weavers, many of whom were renowned for the beauty and richness of their fabrics.

On the same side of the street is situated "Molesworth'scourt," which takes its name from the family of De Moldesworth, or Molesworth. Robert Molesworth served, in the station of captain, under his brother Guy, throughout the Irish wars of 1642 :

"After this Kingdom of Ireland was delivered up by the Marquis of Ormond to the Parliament of England, he became an adventurer for carrying on the war, in order to reduce it to their obedience, by making three several subscriptions, two of £600 each, and one of £300, for which he had allotted 2,500 acres of land, Irish measure, in the baronies of Moghergallin and Lune, in the county of Meath. He afterwards became a very eminent merchant in the city of Dublin, and in high confidence with the Government, then presiding in Ireland; by whom, 25 May 1653, he was appointed, with others, to take subscriptions within the city and division of Dublin, for the relief of the poor thereof; and 7 December that year, the Surveyors of the Revenue and Stores were ordered to contract with him for so much cloth, as should be sufficient for a thousand tents, with the other materials necessary for making up the same, after the usual proportions. Also, the inconveniences attending the public, and the many sufferings and losses of the merchants, by the want of stationed ships to serve all public occasions on the coast, being very great, the commissioners sought to redress them; and to that end, in 1654, agreed with Mr. Molesworth for the victualling, from time to time, such ships at Dublin, as should be designed for that service, with provisions of all sorts, both for quality and price, as the victuallers did the Protector's ships in England; the Commissioners having often experienced the greatest want of ships of force here to arise from their frequent retiring to Chester, Liverpool, or elsewhere, to victual, where they generally lay for a long time, pretending the want of wind to come from thence: to prevent which they took that course for their present victual on any emergent occasions, and he contracted with them to supply 200 men aboard the Wren Pink, the Greyhound, and other frigates, appointed for guard of the Irish coast.'

Here, in 1656, was born his son, Robert Molesworth, Envoy Extraordinary to the Court of Denmark in 1692, one

of the earliest advocates of civil and religious liberty, and the friend and associate of Locke, Shaftesbury, and Molyneux. He was author of the celebrated "Account of Denmark," first published in 1694, in which year it went through three editions, and has since been translated into most of the European languages. "Lord Molesworth's Account of the Revolution in Denmark," says Horace Walpole, "totally overturned the constitution of that country, and is one of our standard books."

John Harding, publisher of the "Dublin News Letter," dwelt in Molesworth-court, early in the last century. From his press, in the year 1724, issued the famous "Drapier's Letters," "strong in argument, and brilliant in humour, but unequalled in the address with which these arguments were selected, and that humour applied."

Swift's design in publishing the letters, which appeared under the signature of "M. B. Drapier," was to avert the ruin with which Ireland was threatened by the English ministers, who, for the sake of enriching a courtezan, and with the design of insidiously undermining the liberty of this kingdom, endeavoured to oblige the people of Ireland to receive, as current copper coin, the base* money manufactured by William Wood, a Staffordshire hardware-man.

In the year 1722, the Duchess of Kendal, one of the mistresses of George I., obtained, through Lord Sunderland, who had been deeply concerned in the infamous South Sea bubble, an exclusive patent, under the Great Seal of England, for coining halfpence and farthings, for Irish circulation, to the amount of £100,800. This patent, surreptitiously obtained, she sold to William Wood, brother-in-law to a Dublin ironmonger. Wood, relying on the influence of his patroness, coined the halfpence of such base metal that,

Among the many political verses circulated on this occasion, is the "Irish Cry, a new song on Wood's halfpence," printed by Harding :

"The halfpence are coming, the nation's undoing,

There's an end of your ploughing, and baking, and brewing;
In short, you must all go to wreck and to ruin,

Which nobody can deny.

Both high men and low men, and thick men and tall men,
And rich men and poor men, and free men and thrall men,
Will suffer; and this man, and that man, and all men.

Now God bless the Drapier, who open'd our eyes!
I'm sure, by his book, that the writer is wise:

He shows us the cheat, from the end to the rise."

"in truth," wrote Archbishop King, "if they should pass on us they would sink the kingdom.' He had, however, taken the precaution to send a few specimen coins of good metal for assay at the London mint, over which Sir Isaac Newton then presided.

"Progressive steps," says a learned writer, "had been making, for the space of near eighty years, to reduce this ancient kingdom into the condition of a conquered province, bound by the acts of the British parliament, wherein it is doubtful whether she had a friend, but certain that she had no representative during this period of time, she 'was subjected to a commercial slavery, which left neither her credit, her commodities, nor her havens at her own disposal; and how long the civil and domestic freedom of her people might be spared, was a question which seemed to depend on the moderation of those who usurped the right of being her legislators.' Ireland had still, however, been permitted to retain the outward insignia of national legislation, and sovereign power; but, on this occasion it was attempted to wrest from her even these small remnants of sovereignty; the right of coinage, that peculiar attribute of regal power, was granted in farm to an ordinary contractor, without consent, nay even in despite of the Irish Parliament and Privy Council; such disregard of common forms, added to the disrespectful and unceremonious manner in which it was exercised by the patentee, argued such a contempt of decency, as fully justified the people of Ireland in apprehending consequences still more fatal and more arbitrary. To the speculative apprehension of future dangers, there was superadded, upon this occasion, the actual experience of past calamities; during the several intestine wars with which that unhappy kingdom had been, for upwards of a century, distracted, there were no evils of which she felt so sensibly the smart, as those which arose from corruption in the current coin; for those measures, which mistaken policy or imperious necessity had suggested, excuses were to be found in the ignorance of the projectors, or the calamities of the times; but now that war was ended, and that she began to cultivate the blessings of peace, she felt it hard that the stream of commerce should be defiled by this corruption in the medium of exchange: she thought it high time too, that the office of dictator, assumed during the late period of anarchy, by the British nation, should be laid

aside, and was preparing to assert her claim to her place among nations, and to determine, according to her natural rights, such matters as exclusively concerned her own interests, of which she held herself to be the most competent judge, and was therefore justly offended when she discovered, that the right of deciding upon so important a case had been superceded, and one which she had frequently, during the years immediately preceding, exercised, to prevent the attempts of private self-interested individuals."

The influence, however, of the English government was so strenuously exerted, and the general ignorance relative to the ruinous nature of the patent so great, that the Irish people were on the point of receiving the spurious coin when, from the press of John Harding, of Molesworth's Court, issued

"A Letter to the Tradesmen, Shopkeepers, Farmers, and Country People in general, of the Kingdom of Ireland, concerning the brass Halfpence coined by one William Wood, hard-wareman, with a Design to have them pass in this Kingdom. Wherein is shown the Power of his Patent, the Value of his Halfpence, and how far every Person may be obliged to take the same in Payments, and how to behave himself in Čase such an Attempt should be made by Wood or any other Person. (Very proper to be kept in every Family.) By M. B. Drapier. 1724."

This was followed by a second letter, dated 4th August, 1724, in the conclusion of which the Drapier says, "I must tell you in particular, Mr. Harding, that you are much to blame. Several hundred persons have inquired at your house for my 'Letter to the Shopkeepers,' &c., and you had none to sell them. Pray keep yourself provided with that letter, and with this; you have got very well by the former: but I did not then write for your sake, any more than I do now. Pray advertise both in every newspaper; and let it not be your fault or mine if our countrymen will not take warning. I desire you likewise to sell them as cheap as you can. Never were any pamphlets better calculated to achieve their purpose. The assumed character of a Dublin shopkeeper is admirably sustained throughout; and, without descending to vulgarity, the writer's meaning is couched in such plain terms, that the dullest peasant could not fail to understand it thoroughly. The Irish people now saw that they stood on the brink of a dangerous precipice. "At the sound of the Drapier's trumpet, says Lord Orrery, "a spirit arose among the people, that, in

the eastern phrase, was like unto a tempest in the day of the whirlwind. Every person of every rank, party, and denomination, was convinced, that the admission of Wood's copper must prove fatal to the commonwealth. The papist, the fanatic, the tory, the whig, all listed themselves volunteers under the banners of M. B. Drapier, and were all equally zealous to serve the common cause.'

The Drapier's third letter, in answer to the report of the Committee of the English Privy Council, effected a change in the British cabinet, and the accomplished Earl of Carteret was dispatched as Governor of Ireland, in the hope that his influence would induce the acceptance of the base coin. In this letter the Drapier tells his readers :

"I am very sensible that such a work as I have undertaken might have worthily employed a much better pen: but when a house is attempted to be robbed, it often happens the weakest in the family runs first to stop the door. All the assistance I had were some informations from an eminent person; whereof I am afraid I have spoiled a few by endeavouring to make them of a piece with my own productions, and the rest I was not able to manage. I was in the case of David, who could not move in the armour of Saul, and therefore I rather chose to attack this uncircumcised Philistine (Wood I mean) with a sling and a stone. And, I may say, for Wood's honour as well as my own, that he resembles Goliah in many circumstances, very applicable to the present purpose; for Goliah had a helmet of brass upon his head, and he was armed with a coat of mail; and the weight of the coat was five thousand shekels of brass; and he had greaves of brass upon his legs, and a target of brass between his shoulders.' In short, he was like Mr. Wood, all over brass; and he defied the armies of the living God. Goliah's condition of combat were likewise the same with those of Wood: if he prevail against us, then shall we be his servants; but if it happens that I prevail over him, I renounce the other part of the condition, he shall never be a servant of mine: for I do not think him fit to be trusted in any honest man's shop.

6

On the 23rd of October, Carteret had been sworn into

1724, the day after Lord office, the Drapier's fourth

* This is alluded to in the poem entitled "Prometheus" :

"A strange event! whom gold incites
To blood and quarrels, brass unites;
So goldsmiths say, the coarsest stuff
Will serve for solder well enough :
So by the kettle's loud alarm

The bees are gather'd to a swarm:
So by the brazen trumpet's bluster

Troops of all tongues and nations muster;
And so the harp of Ireland brings

Whole crowds about its brazen strings."