tracts, as a screen against the insults of the savages; and many have as much land as they can clear from the woods, at a very reasonable rate, if they can afford to pay about a hundred years' purchase by their labor. Now, beside the fox's reason,' which inclines all those who have already ventured thither to represent everything in a false light, as well for justifying their own conduct as for getting companions in their misery, the governing people in those plantations have also wisely provided that no letters shall be suffered to pass from thence hither, without being first viewed by the council; by which our people here are wholly deceived in the opinions they have of the happy condition of their friends gone before them. This was accidentally discovered some months ago by an honest man, who having transported himself and family thither, and finding all things directly contrary to his hope, had the luck to convey a private note by a faithful hand to his relation here, entreating him not to think of such a voyage, and to discourage all his friends from attempting it. Yet this although it be a truth well known, has produced very little effect which is no manner of wonder; for as it is natural to a man in a fever to turn often, although without any hope of ease; or when he is pursued, to leap down a precipice, to avoid an enemy just at his back; so men in the extremest degree of misery and want will naturally fly to the first appearance of relief, let it be ever so vain or visionary. You may observe that I have very superficially touched the subject I began with, and with the utmost caution; for I know how criminal the least complaint has been thought, however seasonable or just or honestly intended, which has forced me to offer up my daily prayers, that it may never, at least in my time, be interpreted by innuendoes as a false, scandalous, seditious, and disaffected action, for a man to roar under an acute fit of the gout; which, beside the loss and the danger, would be very inconvenient to one of my age, so severely afflicted with that distemper. I wish you good success, but I can promise you little, in an ungrateful office, you have taken up without the least view either to reputation or profit. Perhaps your comfort is, that none but villains and betrayers of their country can be your enemies. Upon which I have little to say, having not the honor to be acquainted with many of that sort; and therefore, as you may easily believe, am compelled to lead a very retired life. I am, Sir, your most obedient humble servant, A. NORTH. Who, having lost his tail, would have persuaded the rest to cut off theirs. lowed at least to wonder, although he dare not complain, why a new regulation of coin among us was not then made; much more, why it has never been since. It would surely require no very profound skill in algebra to reduce the difference of ninepence in 30s., or threepence in a guinea, to less than a farthing; and so small a fraction could be no temptation either to bankers, to hazard their silver at sea, or tradesmen to load themselves with it in their journeys to England. In my humble opinion, it would be no unseasonable condescension, if the government would graciously please to signify to the poor loyal Protestant subjects of Ireland, either that this miserable want of silver is not possibly to be remedied in any degree by the nicest skill in arithmetic; or else that it does not stand with the good pleasure of England to suffer any silver at all among us. the former case, it would be madness to expect impossibilities; and, in the other, we must submit: for lives and fortunes are always at he mercy of the conqueror. The question has been often put in printed papers, by the drapier and others, or perhaps by the same writer under different styles, why this kingdom should not be permitted to have a mint of its own, for the coinage of gold, silver, and copper; which is a power exercised by many bishops, and every petty prince, in Germany? this question has never been answered; nor the least application, that I have heard of, made to the crown from hence for the grant of a public mint; although it stands upon record, that several cities and corporations here, had the liberty of coining silver: I can see no reasons, why we alone, of all nations, are thus restrained, but such as I dare not mention; only thus far I may venture, that Ireland is the first imperial kingdom since Nimrod, which ever wanted power to coin their own money. I know very well, that in England it is lawful for any subject to petition either the prince or the parliament, provided it be done in a dutiful and regular manner: but what is lawful for a subject of Ireland, I profess I cannot determine: nor will undertake that the printer shall not be prosecuted in a court of justice for publishing my wishes, that a poor shopkeeper might be able to change a guinea or a moidore when a customer comes for a crown's worth of goods. I have known less crimes punished with the utmost severity, under the title of disaffection. And I cannot but approve the wisdom of the ancients, who, after Astrea had fled from the earth, at least took care to provide three upright judges for hell. Men's ears among us are indeed grown so nice, that whoever happens to think out of fashion, in what relates to the welfare of this kingdom, dare not so much as complain of the toothach, lest our weak and busy dabblers in politics should be ready to swear against him for disaffection. There was a method practised by sir Ambrose Crawley, the great dealer in iron works, which I wonder the gentlemen of our country, under this great exigence, have not thought fit to imitate. In the several towns and villages where he dealt, and many miles round, he gave notes instead of money, (from twopence to twenty shillings,) which passed current in all shops and markets, as well as in houses where meat or drink was sold. I see no reason, why the like practice may not be introduced among us with some degree of success ; or, at least, may not serve as a poor expedient in this our blessed age of paper; which, as it discharges all our greatest payments, may be equally useful in the smaller, and may just keep us alive, until an English act of Parliament shall forbid it. I have been told, that among some of our poorest American colonies upon the continent, the people enjoy the liberty of cutting the little money among. them into halves and quarters, for the conveniences of small traffic. How happy should we be in comparison of our present condition, if the like privilege were granted to us of employing the shears for want of a mint, upon our foreign gold, by clipping it into half-crowns, and shillings, and even lower denominations; for beggars must be content to live upon scraps; and it would be our felicity, that these scraps could never be exported to other countries while anything better was left. If neither of these projects will avail, I see nothing left us but to truck and barter our goods, like the wild Indians, with each other, or with our too powerful neighbors; only with this disadvantage on our side, that the Indians enjoy the product of their own land; whereas the better half of ours is sent away, without so much as a recompense in bugles or glass in return. It must needs be a very comfortable circumstance in the present juncture, that some thousand families are gone, are going, or preparing to go from hence, and settle themselves in America: the pooror sort for want of work; the farmers, whose beneficial bargains are now become a rack-rent too hard to be borne, and those who have any ready money, or can purchase any by the sale of their goods or leases, because they find their fortunes hourly decaying, that their goods will bear no price, and that few or none have any money to buy the very necessaries of life, are hastening to follow their departed neighbors. It is true, corn among us carries a very high price; but it is for the same reason that rats and cats, and dead horses, have been often bought for gold in a town besieged. There is a person of quality in my neighborhood, who, twenty years ago, when he was just come to age, being unexperienced, and of a generous temper, let his lands, even as times went then, at a low rate to able tenants; and, consequently, by the rise of lands since that time, looked upon his estate to be set at half-value: but numbers of these tenants, or their descendants, are now offering to sell their leases by auction, even those which were for lives, some of them renewable for ever, and some fee-farms, which the landlord himself has bought in at half the price they would have yielded seven years ago. And some leases let at the same time for lives, have been given up to him without any consideration at all. This is the most favorable face of all things at present among us; I say among us of the north, who were esteemed the only thriving people of the kingdom. And how far, and how soon, this misery and desolation may spread, it is easy to foresee. The vast sums of money daily carried off by our numerous adventurers to America, have deprived us of our gold in these parts, almost as much as of our silver. And the good wives who come to our houses offer us their pieces of linen, upon which their whole dependence lies, for so little profit, that it can neither half pay their rents, nor half support their families. It is remarkable, that this enthusiasm spread among our northern people, of sheltering themselves in the continent of America, has no other foundation than their present insupportable condition at home. I have made all possible inquiries to learn what encouragement our people have met with, by any intelligence from those plantations, sufficient to make them undertake so tedious and hazardous a voyage in all seasons of the year, and so ill accommodated in their ships that many of them have died miserably in their passage, but could never get one satisfactory answer. Somebody, they knew not who, had written letters to his friend or cousin from thence inviting him by all means to come over; that it was a fine fruitful country, and to be held for ever at a penny an acre. But the truth of the fact is this: the English established in those colonies are in great want of men to inhabit that tract of ground which lies between them and the wild Indians, who are not reduced under their dominion. We read of some barbarous people, whom the Romans placed in their army for no other service than to blunt their enemies' swords, and afterward to fill up trenches with their dead bodies. And thus our people who transport themselves, are settled into those interjacent tracts, as a screen against the insults of the savages; and many have as much land as they can clear from the woods, at a very reasonable rate, if they can afford to pay about a hundred years' purchase by their labor. Now, beside the fox's reason,' which inclines all those who have already ventured thither to represent everything in a false light, as well for justifying their own conduct as for getting companions in their misery, the governing people in those plantations have also wisely provided that no letters shall be suffered to pass from thence hither, without being first viewed by the council; by which our people here are wholly deceived in the opinions they have of the happy condition of their friends gone before them. This was accidentally discovered some months ago by an honest man, who having transported himself and family thither, and finding all things directly contrary to his hope, had the luck to convey a private note by a faithful hand to his relation here, entreating him not to think of such a voyage, and to discourage all his friends from attempting it. Yet this although it be a truth well known, has produced very little effect: which is no manner of wonder; for as it is natural to a man in a fever to turn often, although without any hope of ease; or when he is pursued, to leap down a precipice, to avoid an enemy just at his back; so men in the extremest degree of misery and want will naturally fly to the first appearance of relief, let it be ever so vain or visionary. You may observe that I have very superficially touched the subject I began with, and with the utmost caution; for I know how criminal the least complaint has been thought, however seasonable or just or honestly intended, which has forced me to offer up my daily prayers, that it may never, at least in my time, be interpreted by innuendoes as a false, scandalous, seditious, and disaffected action, for a man to roar under an acute fit of the gout; which, beside the loss and the danger, would be very inconvenient to one of my age, so severely afflicted with that distemper. I wish you good success, but I can promise you little, in an ungrateful office, you have taken up without the least view either to reputation or profit. Perhaps your comfort is, that none but villains and betrayers of their country can be your enemies. Upon which I have little to say, having not the honor to be acquainted with many of that sort; and therefore, as you may easily believe, am compelled to lead a very retired life. I am, Sir, your most obedient humble servant, A. NORTH. Who, having lost his tail, would have persuaded the rest to cut off theirs. |