The Art of Getting Money by Double-Fac’d Wagers: or, Cross and pile whether Mons be taken, or no? A dialogue between a courtier, a citizen, and a sharper of the town. The scene, Jonathan’s coffe-house (London, n.p., 1691), 4pp.; 4°. Huntington Library, California: 33273. ESTCR9408

A four-page prose satirical dialogue on gambling in coffee-houses, directed generally at the confusion of values in contemporary society for which, again, coffee-house sociability is deemed emblematic. The particular focus of the satire is gambling on the outcome of military campaigns, set in the context of the War of the League of Augsburg. Betting on such events, where the outcome depended on the lives of soldiers, and the national interest was at stake, was widely considered morally questionable. A newspaper, The Weekly Remarks (No. 2, 8 April 1691), commented that some were ‘more surprized and dejected’ at the fall of Mons than becomes ‘brave Men. Others, ‘who are deep in Wagers […] may be more concerned at the Loss of their Money than the Garrison. Such gambling, then, was perceived as part of a wider set of concerns about the Whig financial revolution of the 1690s.