The Economic Writings of Sir William Petty; together with the Observations upon the Bills of Mortality, more probably by Captain John Graunt

Volume 1

Volume 1 of The Economic Writings of Sir William Petty contains:

Volume 2

Volume 2 contains:

Further Observation upon the Dublin-Bills: or, Accompts of the Houses, Hearths, Baptisms, and Burials in that City. (London, 1686).

Two Essays in Political Arithmetick, concerning the People, Housing, Hospitals, &c. of London and Paris. (London, 1687).

Observations upon the Cities of London and Rome. (London, 1687).

Five Essays in Political Arithmetick. (London, 1687).

A Treatise of Ireland. (1687). From the Additional MS. in the British Museum.

Appendix.

Supplement to the Bibliography of Petty's Works.

Bibliography of the Natural and Political Observations.

List of Books and Manuscripts used.

Index.

Volume 1

Jump to contents

THE

ECONOMIC WRITINGS

OF

Sir WILLIAM PETTY

: C. J. CLAY and SONS,

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS WAREHOUSE,

AVE MARIA LANE.

: 263, ARGYLE STREET.

: F. A. BROCKHAUS.

: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.

: E. SEYMOUR HALE.

Petty to Aubrey, 12 July, 1681 (Aubrey MS. ii, fol. 101a, Bodleian Library), referring to his corrections of the Southwell MS. of the Political Arithmetick. Cf. pp. 236 — 238.

One of Petty's corrections of the Southwell MS. of the Political Arithmetick (now Addl. MS. 21,128, British Museum, fol. 26a). Cf. pp. 292—293.

To face Title Vol. I.

THE

ECONOMIC WRITINGS

OF

TOGETHER WITH THE

OBSERVATIONS UPON THE BILLS OF MORTALITY

MORE PROBABLY BY

CAPTAIN JOHN GRAUNT

EDITED BY CHARLES HENRY HULL, Ph.D. CORNELL UNIVERSITY

VOL. I

CAMBRIDGE AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS 1899

[All Rights reserved]

PRINTED BY J. AND C. F. CLAY, AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.

to

M. J. H.

PREFACE.

THE writings of Sir William Petty may be roughly divided into three classes. The first relates to his activities as surveyor of forfeited lands in Ireland under the Protectorate; its present interest is chiefly biographical. The second includes his papers on medicine and on certain mathematical, physical and mechanical subjects. These are now forgotten. The third class comprises his economic and statistical writings. The merit of these has been freely recognized. No writer on the history of political economy who touches the seventeenth century at all has failed to praise them; but the scarcity of the scattered pamphlets in which they were published has prevented them from becoming as generally known as they deserve to be. The present edition of Petty's Economic Writings is designed to meet this difficulty. It has not been undertaken without warrant. Critics as diverse as McCulloch, Roscher and Ingram have noted the need of a collected edition of Petty's economic pamphlets, and it appears that his descendants have twice considered its publication. But the project of the Earl of Kerry was interrupted by his untimely deaths, and Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice, who had contemplated supplementing his "Life of Petty" by an edition of Petty's works, generously surrendered his intention upon learning that a similar undertaking was already under way.

The editor has endeavoured to include all of Petty's published writings which bear upon economic or statistical subjects. The "Observations upon the Bills of Mortality of London," though they probably were not written by Petty, are also reprinted—not less on account of their intrinsic merits than because of their close connection with his acknowledged works. The text selected for reproduction is, in each case, that of the best published edition, and the original paging is indicated in the margin. By good fortune authentic manuscripts of several of the works are still preserved, and their readings, given in the foot-notes, make a number of passages clear which, as heretofore printed, were confusing or absurd. One considerable tract, the "Treatise of Ireland," and a few fragments, are added from manuscripts hitherto unpublished.

The notes are confined, for the most part, to the economic or biographical aspects of the passages commented upon, and no attempt has been made to elucidate purely historical questions. Thus when Petty asserts that in the Irish Court of Claims after the Restoration all claimants were fully heard, the editor does not enter upon a discussion upon that disputed point. In the introductory sections, likewise, he has not used the opportunity to sketch the general history of political economy apropos of Petty and Graunt, but has confined himself to such remarks as are thought to bear directly upon them and their writings. On the other hand the history of the London bills of mortality has been entered into at some length, as no place seemed more appropriate to that purpose than a reprint of the writings which first indicated the importance of the bills.

In preparing this book, the editor has received help from a number of persons, to all of whom he would express his appreciation of their kindnesses. It gives him especial pleasure to acknowledge the gracious permission of the Marquis of Lansdowne to consult the Petty papers at Bowood—though it became impossible for him to make use of that privilege—and to thank Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice for repeated suggestions. He has received valued assistance from J. Eliot Hodgkin, Esq., of Richmond-on-Thames, from the Rev. Dr William Cunningham of Trinity College, Cambridge, from Professor F. York Powell of Oxford, from Professor V. John of Innsbruck, from his colleagues H. Morse Stephens and Walter F. Willcox of Cornell, and from his sister. None of these however should be held responsible for such errors as may be found in the book.

Various officials of the British Museum, the Record Office, the Royal Society, the Bodleian Library, the libraries of Cambridge University and of Brasenose College, Oxford, of the Royal Irish Academy, the King's-Inns, and Trinity College, Dublin, of the Institute of France, the Universities of Leipzig and of Pennsylvania, and of Harvard and Cornell Universities have allowed the editor the use of sundry books and manuscripts. For privileges of this character he is under especial obligation to Professor Michael Foster, Secretary of the Royal Society, and to the Rev. Llewellyn J. M. Bebb, Librarian of Petty's college. He cannot omit to mention, likewise, the services of the proof-readers who have made comparisons with manuscripts and original editions to which he has no present access.

Last but by no means least, he wishes to acknowledge both the generosity of the Syndics of the University Press in providing for the publication of a book whose editor might have looked in vain for assistance at home, and the untiring patience of their Secretary, Mr Richard T. Wright, who must have been sorely tried by its slow passage through the press.

C. H. H.

Cornell University. 24 April, 1899.

CONTENTS OF VOLUME I.

PAGES

Introduction (by Charles Henry Hull)

The 'Introduction' to the Economic Writings of Sir William Petty (Cambridge 1899), by Charles Henry Hull, consists of seven sections:

Introduction: Petty's Life (by Charles Henry Hull)

INTRODUCTION.

PETTY'S LIFE.

William Petty was born on Monday, 26 May, 1623, at the house of his father, a poor clothier of Romsey in Hampshire.

According to the detailed account of his childhood which he gave to Aubrey, his chief amusement consisted in "looking on the artificers, e.g. smyths, the watchmaker, carpenters, joiners, etc." until he "could have worked at any of their trades." "At twelve years of age he had acquired a competent smattering of Latin," and before his sixteenth year he was well advanced in Greek, mathematics and navigation. It was, perhaps, in his fourteenth year that Petty was overtaken by an accident which gave him opportunity to turn his precocity to good account. After some ten months' service as cabin boy on an English merchantman, he had the misfortune to break his leg. Hereupon the crew set him ashore on the French coast, not far from Caen. The unhappy lad, thus left to shift for himself, recounted his misfortunes in Latin so excellent that the Jesuit fathers of that city not only cared for him but straightway admitted him a pupil of their college. Here he prosecuted his former studies and incidentally learned the French language as well. Meanwhile he supported himself in part by teaching navigation to a French officer and English to a gentleman who desired to visit England—Latin serving, apparently, as the medium of communication in both cases—and in part by traffic in "pittiful brass things with cool'd glasse in them instead of diamonds and rubies." Upon his return to England he appears to have spent some months in the Royal Navy, but in 1643, "when the civil war betwixt the King and Parliament grew hot," he joined the army of English refugees in the Netherlands and "vigorously followed his studies, especially that of medicine," at Utrecht, Leyden and Amsterdam. By November, 1645, he had made his way to Paris where he continued his anatomical studies, reading Vesalius with Hobbes and forming many acquaintances in the group of scholars that gathered around Father Mersen and the Marquis of Newcastle. In the following year he returned to Romsey, and appears to have taken up for a time the business formerly carried on by his father. At Romsey he busied himself also with an instrument for double writing, which he had so far completed by March, 1647, that a patent upon it was then granted him for a term of seventeen years. In November, if not earlier, he went to London with the intention of selling this device. His expectations were not realized, and it may be inferred from his subsequent remarks upon patent monopolies that his career as an inventor proved far from gainful. In London Petty was "admitted into several clubbs of the virtuosi," and secured the friendship, among others, of Milton's friend, Samuel Hartlib, to whom he addressed the "Advice of W. P. for the Advancement of some Particular Parts of Learning." It was upon Hartlib's encouragement, also, that he began his abortive " History of Trades."

In 1648 Petty removed from London to Oxford, where the University had been recently reorganized by the parliamentary party. He was soon made deputy to Clayton, the professor of anatomy, and succeeded him in January, 1650, "Dr Clayton resigning his interest" in the professorship "purposely to serve him." Meanwhile he had become a doctor of medicine and a fellow of Brasenose College, and, in December, 1650, had added to his reputation by participating in the reanimation of one Ann Green, a wench hanged at Oxford for the supposed murder of her child. At about the same time he was chosen vice-principal of Brasenose and professor of music in Gresham College. The vice-principalship he retained until 9 August, 1659, the Gresham professorship until 8 March, 1660. In April, 1651, the visitors to the University had granted him the unusual favour of two years' leave of absence, with an allowance of ₤3o per annum. The occasion of this grant and the nature of his occupation during the next few months are unknown; Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice conjectures that he travelled. However that may be, there soon came to him an appointment which exercised a determining influence upon the entire course of his subsequent life; he was made physician to the army in Ireland and to the family and person of the Lieutenant-General. Thenceforward his chief interests, both material and intellectual, were intimately connected with affairs beyond St George's Channel.

As physician to the army Petty resided in Ireland nearly seven years, returning to England in 1659 as the bearer of Henry Cromwell's letter of acquiescence in the government set up by the Rump. It was during this first period of his Irish residence that he made the "Down Survey" of Ireland, a work which laid the foundation of his fortune and constituted his earliest title to fame. After the suppression of the Irish rebellion of 1641 the government prepared to distribute the forfeited lands of the rebels, one moiety among the soldiers of the victorious army, the other among the adventurers who, under the provisions of 17 Car. I., c. 34, had advanced money for the army's support. As a preliminary to the proposed distribution, it was necessary that the situation and area of the forfeited holdings be determined. When Petty first reached Ireland he found a survey for this purpose already in progress. He soon concluded that this survey was being "most insufficiently and absurdly managed" by its director, one Benjamin Worsley, and he promptly proposed to make a more satisfactory survey himself. This he promised to complete, duly set down in maps and books, within a year and a month. After much discussion his proposals were accepted, 11 December, 1654, but the time for the completion of the survey was afterwards extended to thirteen months from February, 1655. Petty thus agreed to measure and record, on a scale of forty perches to an inch, all forfeited lands, profitable and unprofitable, set aside for the satisfaction of the officers and soldiers,—the so-called "army lands"—down to the smallest recognized civil denominations. He also undertook to survey and map, for general use and upon a smaller scale, the bounds of all baronies, whether forfeited or not, in all counties which contained forfeited lands. By March, 1656, the survey of the army lands was virtually completed, and he applied to the Council for payment and for release from his bond. His work was referred to a committee representing the army and was by them pronounced satisfactory. Worsley, on the contrary, pointed out a number of minor errors. These were such, in Petty' s view, as should "bee not charged uppon" him "as faults; but rather such accidents and disasters as ever attend vast and variable undertakings." Nevertheless he attempted a detailed answer to Worsley's objections. General Larcom, a judge eminently competent, declares that he met the charges satisfactorily, indeed triumphantly: for whatever shortcomings or blemishes might be detected in so great a work, performed with such extraordinary rapidity, over so great an extent of country at the same time, there can be no doubt that, on the whole, it exceeded the articles of agreement, and that the delay which will be seen to have taken place in the payment, was vexatious and unjust." Nevertheless Petty was obliged to wage a prolonged contest for his rights, the final order for his payment being postponed until March, 1657, while his bond was not released until December of the same year. The publication of the results of the general survey, on the other hand, appears to have been delayed for several years.

The completion of the Down Survey of the army lands by no means concluded Petty's "services and sufferings" in Ireland. On the 7th July, 1656, he was named a member of the commission to distribute among the officers and soldiers the forfeited lands which he had surveyed. Vincent Gookin, one of his associates on the commission, presently departed for England to attend Parliament, and fear of offending military friends deterred the other member, Major Miles Symner, from taking an active part in its labours. Petty was therefore, obliged, "to manage the executive part of that vast and intricate work, as if it were alone, Few other Commissioners (for fear of falling into some Error) adventuring to do business without" him, "Whereby all displeasures real or imaginary, were accounted not onely" his "Permission but Commission: Not onely" his "simple Act, but design, contrivance and revenge." Working thus singlehanded, he set out their lands to the army with such dispatch that the distribution was completed in February, 1657. Meanwhile he had begun, in conjunction with Worsley, a survey of the adventurers' moiety of the forfeited lands. Distribution based upon this survey was delayed by disagreements among the adventurers at London until finally, in May, 1658, the patience of the Lord Deputy was exhausted by their indecision and he sent Petty to treat with them for the appointment of a commission which should adjust their claims out of hand. Upon his arrival in London, Petty found the adventurers already in receipt of an anonymous communication from Dublin, alleging that he intended if possible to cheat them as, it was charged, he had cheated the army. In the face of this charge he won the entire confidence of the adventurers' committee, and was provided by them with a petition to the Council at Dublin requesting "that, instead of all the said Commissioners, Dr Petty alone may bee authorized and approved by your Lordshipps, to act as well in behalfe of your Lordshipps as the adventurers, as a person best able to give the business a dispatch." The news of his triumph at London stirred up Petty's enemies at Dublin to prepare a second letter—Petty called it a libel—directed ostensibly to the adventurers and assuring them that his dishonesty in surveying and setting out the army lands had gone unpunished only because of his position as a clerk of the Council and prime favourite of the Lord Deputy. By prearrangement this letter was intercepted on its way to London and was brought to the attention of Henry Cromwell. Cromwell, whose confidence in Petty never wavered, at once referred the charges to a committee of seven officers. "Whilst these things were doeing in Ireland, the doctor rides night and day from London, in the end of December [1658], and through many hazards comes to Dublyn, God having kept him safe in the greatest storme that ever was knowne, as he thankfully construed it, to preserve him for his vindication." At Petty's request the officers' committee already appointed was increased by the addition of "the Receiver-General, Auditors-General, and one Mr Jeoffryes, a person well reputed for his integrity and skill in accompts, that, having given a satisfactory accompt unto these able and proper ministers of the State, he might all under one bee discharged both from the State and armyes further question or suspicion." A majority of the committee as thus constituted declared the charges to be without foundation. Three of the officers, a minority of the original committee, for a time dissented from this finding, but eventually, affecting to believe that in a new attack brought against Petty from an unexpected quarter "his Excellency himselfe was strucke att," they declined to "muddle or make further in the business."

The scruples of the officers in Ireland were by no means groundless. The death of the Lord Protector had reanimated the purely parliamentarian party of the army in England to an activity that boded no good to his sons. Petty was, throughout his life, a firm supporter of the family of Cromwell, and it was as Henry Cromwell's friend that he had been elected member for West Looe in Richard's parliament. It is not surprising, therefore, that the charges of bribery and breach of trust now preferred against him in the House of Commons by Sir Jerome Sanchey should have appeared to the officers at Dublin as a blow struck at the Lord Deputy himself. A letter from speaker Bampfield brought Sanchey's charges to Petty 's attention. On the day set for his reply he appeared in the House and defended himself with great moderation. The charges were vague and there was no proof. In so extensive and difficult a work as the distribution of the army's lands it was inevitable that he should make many enemies, while he had the opportunity to make scarce any friends. He had nothing to conceal. He had often endeavoured to bring himself to a trial, but his adversaries had now done more for him than he was ever able to do for himself: they had brought him to the very fountain of justice and he willingly threw himself into it to be washed of all that was foul and superfluous. The manner of his trial and vindication he committed to the wisdom and justice of the House, asking only that instead of Sanchey's heaps of calumnies and reproach, he might receive a more distinct and particular charge, whereby he might be put in a way to vindicate himself effectually. Sanchey replied in a speech which, as reported by Petty, is remarkable for its violence and incoherence. The House lost all patience with him and he was ordered to bring in his charges in writing. The next day, 22 April, Richard Cromwell dissolved Parliament and Petty was once more defrauded of his desired vindication.

Upon the dissolution of Parliament Petty hastened to Ireland, but soon returned to England again, being sent by Henry Cromwell to Fleetwood as one whom he could best trust now his nearest concernments were at stake. Sanchey, now a person of importance in the republican reaction, took advantage of Petty's presence in London to present to the Rump Parliament, 12 July, no less than eleven "new Articles of high misdemeanours, frauds, breach of trusts and several other crimes" chargeable against him. The Rump promptly referred them to the Commissioners for Ireland, before whom they never came to trial. The possibility of an official vindication being thus precluded, Petty resolved to carry his case before the bar of public opinion. With this end in view he published a succinct account of the dispute with Sanchey down to 13 July, 1659 and the succeeding year he followed it up with a volume of nearly two hundred pages describing the work of survey and distribution, answering the charges brought against him, and explaining how they arose "from the envy and hatred of several parties promiscuously" and "from particular designing persons and parties" in Ireland. About October, 1659, he also prepared for the press, at great length, a History of the Down Survey, containing what he regarded as a complete vindication of his conduct, and two further works, now probably lost, upon the same subject.

Among the clubs of the virtuosi to which, as Petty's will relates, it was his privilege to be admitted soon after he came to London, none is more memorable than that company of "capacious and searching spirits inquisitive into natural philosophy and other parts of human knowledge," whose habit it was to meet for discussion either at Dr Goddard's lodgings in Wood Street or at the Bull's Head Tavern in Cheapside. There is no evidence that Petty was an original member of this company. But it appears probable that he was early invited to join their Invisible College, and it is certain that when parliamentary reorganization of the more visible colleges at Oxford brought Goddard, Wallis, Wilkins, and other followers of the new philosophy to the venerable home of the old, they there found in Petty an enthusiastic colleague. Their Oxford meetings were held first in his lodgings at the apothecary's because of the convenience of examining drugs and the like when there was an occasion, "and after his removal to Ireland (though not so constantly) at the lodgings of Dr Wilkins." Those of the company who remained in London meanwhile continued their inquiries in a somewhat desultory manner until the Restoration brought back to the city the more prominent members of the Oxford branch, when it became necessary to change their place of meeting from the Bull's Head to the halls of Gresham College. Here the reunited company was in the habit of assembling for the discussion of questions in natural philosophy. They met regularly on Wednesdays and Thursdays, after the astronomy lectures of Christopher Wren and the geometry lectures of Lawrence Rooke, and on Wednesday, the 28th of November, 1660, after Wren's lecture, the conversation chancing to turn upon foreign institutions for promoting physico-mathematical experimental learning, the company then present, of whom Petty was one, resolved to improve this meeting to a more regular way of debating things and that they might do something answerable and according to the manner in other countryes for the promoting of experimental philosophy. Among those who, in pursuance of this plan, were invited to read papers before the association thus informally organized, Petty's name appears repeatedly and when, with fitting circumstance, the association was incorporated (15 July, 1662) as the Royal Society for Improving of Natural Knowledge, he was named a charter member of its council.

Petty's famous plan for a "double bottomed" vessel, a sort of catamaran, which should excel in swiftness, weatherliness and stability any "single body" afloat, was probably set forth in one of his papers before the Society. To demonstrate the correctness of his views he built at least three such "sluice boats." The first was laid down at Dublin in 1662. She distinguished herself by beating all the boats in the harbour, and subsequently outsailed the Holyhead packet, the swiftest vessel that the King had there. Hereupon Petty brought her to England where, probably through the intervention of his friend Pepys, the attention of the Duke of York, then Lord High Admiral, and eventually the notice of the King himself was turned to the novel craft. Charles II. appears to have combined wonder at Petty's energy with quizzical amusement at his numerous projects. He at first chaffed the naviarchal Doctor without mercy, but relented sufficiently to attend the launching of a new Double Bottom which he dubbed "The Experiment." She also proved herself a swift sailor, but was presently lost in the Irish Channel. This disaster, followed by the burning of several of his London houses in the great fire and by the adverse decisions of some of his Irish law suits, restrained Petty from further shipbuilding experiments for nearly a score of years; but in 1682, while he was considering the establishment at Dublin of a philosophical society similar to that of London, the fit of the Double Bottom, as he tells us, did return very fiercely upon him. His new vessel, however, performed as abominably, as if built on purpose to disappoint in the highest degree every particular that was expected of her and caused him to stagger in much that he had formerly said. But so much did he prefer truth before vanity and imposture that he resolved to spend his life in examining the greatest and noblest of all machines, a ship, and if he found just cause for it to write a book against himself.

The Restoration brought Petty no misfortune. A royal letter dated 2 Jan., 1660, secured to him all lands that he had held on

the 7th May, 1659, and the Acts of Settlement and of Explanation confirmed them to him by name. Like other owners of forfeited lands in Ireland, he suffered by the operation of the Court of Innocents in 1662, and was never able to convince himself that all who claimed innocency were in fact innocent. But in spite of his losses, he retained large Irish estates, and, in evidence of the King's approval, he was knighted and appears to have been appointed Surveyor-General of Ireland. The duties of this office at the time cannot have been more than nominal, for Petty continued to reside in London. During the Plague he withdrew to Durdens in Surrey where Evelyn found him, with Dr Wilkins and Mr Hooke, busied in contriving mechanical inventions.

In the spring of 1666 Petty was once more called to Ireland by the operations of the Court of Claims, and took up his residence in Dublin. During the ensuing period of his second prolonged stay in Ireland, he thoroughly identified himself with the material interests of that kingdom. As an army physician and surveyor of forfeitures, he had felt himself at most but a sojourner. As a Kerry landholder, able from Mount Mangerton in that country to behold 50,000 acres of his own land, he found abundant occupation, first in defending his titles during the sessions of the Court of Claims, and subsequently in managing his property. The uncertainty of titles in Ireland was great. "The Truth is," said Essex, "ye Lands of Ireland have bin a meer scramble." Flaws and defects of various sorts, based on allegations of illegal forfeiture, or of unpaid quit rents, were being continually found out, and it had become "A principal trade in Ireland to... prevail with persons conversant with the Higher Powers to give grants of these Discoveries, and thereupon, right or wrong, to vex the Possessors into such a Composition as may be of Profit to the Prosecutors." Petty by no means escaped such attacks. He refused to compromise, and in consequence his time was so fully occupied with defending himself that in 1667 he grimly entered "Lawsuits" as his only work accomplished.

Upon his escape from "the fire of this legal purgatory" Petty at once set about the improvement of what remained. His household was established at Dublin, but his most extensive possessions were at Kenmare in Kerry, and there he gradually built up an "industrial colony" of protestants. To this enterprise he gave the closest attention, making the difficult overland journey to that "obscure corner of the world twice a year through thick and thin."

The prospect was not encouraging. His Irish neighbours were hostile, and of Kenmare itself a well informed contemporary reported that while the harbours were very good for ships to load at, the place was so rocky and bare that it would hardly maintain people enough to keep a brogue-maker employed. But there were compensating advantages. The remote bay abounded with salmon. Abundance of wood made charcoal cheap and therefore he established iron and copper works, hoping vainly to discover Irish ores for their supply. The protestant colonists prospered in trade, as he had observed the heterodox everywhere to do, and Kenmare clearly demonstrated what thrift, backed by sufficient capital and directed by conspicuous shrewdness, could do for the real settlement of Ireland even under Charles II. After the accession of James II. the colonists fell victims to the jealousy of the surrounding Irish, whose violence was encouraged by Tyrconnel's policy, and thus the most successful of Petty's numerous experiments finally came to naught.

As Petty's stake in the prosperity of Ireland grew larger, his interest in the affairs of the kingdom likewise increased. He had been a member of the Irish parliament of the Restoration and one of the commissioners appointed to execute the Act of Settlement, he had taken a prominent part in opposing the bill which prohibited the importation of Irish cattle into England, and he had even attempted, though apparently quite ignorant of the law, to fill the position of a judge of admiralty; but the incidental discharge of these public duties had little or no effect upon the subsequent course of his life. His concern with the public revenues of Ireland was far more significant. As early as 1662 he had "frequently applied to present state and affairs of Ireland" certain of the conclusions reached in his "Treatise of Taxes." To the mere theoretical interest in the subject thus evinced, the events of later years added an interest of a very practical character. In 1668 charges of mismanagement of the Irish revenues were brought against Ormond, the Lord Lieutenant, and Anglesey, the Lord Treasurer, by certain persons who desired to farm the revenues themselves. Their intrigue was successful, and the King agreed with them for seven years from Christmas, 1668, for ₤219,500 per annum. The management of the new farm was both unsatisfactory to the exchequer and oppressive to the subject. Especially did the energy of the farmers in collecting alleged arrears of quit-rents stir the landowners thus charged to active resistance. Among them was Petty. He promptly took up a "legal fight with the farmers," an account of which occupies for several years a large space in his correspondence with Southwell. His tone makes it evident that a considerable spice of personal animosity was thus added to his previous disgust with the inequalities of Irish taxation and in part explains his subsequent conduct. As the time drew near for the farm of 1668 to expire, he resolved to carry the war into the enemy's camp. Accordingly in the latter part of 1673 he made his way to London and became a bidder, on what he considered a reformed basis, for the new farm beginning Christmas Day, 1675. It appears that an agreement with him was actually made but Ranelagh's influence with Buckingham was sufficient to procure its abrogation and the substitution of the scandalous contract under which Ranelagh, Lord Kingston, and Sir James Shaen continued to mismanage the finances of Ireland until Ormond finally exposed them. Meanwhile Petty remained more than two years in London, renewing his old acquaintances and becoming once more a member of the Council of the Royal Society.