was to make twenty-four thousand pounds by receiving thirteen shillings and fourpence on every seven pounds four shillings that were issued, three hundred thousand pounds' worth of base coin would be let out over the Irish people in a single year.
Sir Edward Bellingham had shown the Irish one aspect of English administratipn. The home Government were preparing to show them another. The seed was sown, the harvest would be certain, and not distant. It would not, however, be gathered in by Sir Anthony St Leger, whose footing in the now swollen waters was almost instantly lost. The Lords of the Council, more anxious for the purity of the gospel than of the currency, charged St Leger especially to keep pace with the movements in England. Vainly he protested that 'he would sooner be sent to Spain.' They told him that he must go to Ireland, there to follow his vocation of making rough things smooth.
He went, and proceeded at once to follow his old course of attempting to rule the Irish by pleasing them. Among his first acts he permitted high mass to be said at Christ's Church, in Dublin, and was himself present at the service.[1] 'To make a face of conformity he put
- ↑ Sir Anthony, upon his arrival, went to the chief church of this nation, and there, after the old sort, offered to the altar of stone, to the great comfort of his too many like Papists and the discouragement of
that the pound weight was to he made into a hundred and forty-four groats; in which statement, it seems, he must have mistaken the word. The pound weight of pure silver would produce a hundred and forty-four pure groats; hut the two pounds of alloy, which he admits were added to it, must have produced twice as many more.
