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Life of Sir William Petty 1623 – 1687 (1895)
Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice
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2361373Life of Sir William Petty 1623 – 1687 — Chapter V1895Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice


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CHAPTER V

THE ACTS OF SETTLEMENT AND EXPLANATION

1660-1667

Condition of Kerry—Ireland in 1662—The Acts of Settlement and Explanation—Dr. Petty and the Cromwell family—The settlement of Ireland in 1667—Sir James Shaen—Quarrel with the Duke of Ormonde—The Irish Cattle Acts—Effects of Absenteeism—Estimate of the Irish character—Interests of the Irish people—Settlement at Kenmare— Instructions for Kerry.


The Restoration had necessarily reopened the Irish Land Question, and Sir William had once more to attend to 'his surveys, distributions, and other disobliging trinkets,' as he termed them. He was, however, by this time secure of the royal protection, though a long struggle was yet before him. His stake in Irish property was large, nor was it represented merely by the land he had received in direct payment for his official services on the survey. The long delay which had taken place in the payment of the army had reduced a great number of the soldiers, and even of the officers, to great distress. Land debentures began to pour into the market soon after the passing of the Act of 1653, especially those belonging to the common soldiers; and the process had gone on ever since. These debentures in 1653 were not commanding more than a price of from four shillings to five shillings in the pound, and they were eagerly bought up by the officers from their own men at reduced prices. A regular land market existed, and brokers established a sort of Exchange in Dublin. When the army was satisfied, and the prohibitions of the Act had therefore ceased to be operative, Dr. Petty, as already seen, himself entered the market as a buyer—chiefly from the debenture brokers—and thereby largely increased his own stake in Irish land.

​The net sum which, after paying all outgoings, remained to Dr. Petty as the result of his labours was 13,000l. For the Army Survey he received 9,000l., and 600l. for the survey of the adventurers' land. He had saved 500l. before going to Ireland, and laid by 800l.— viz. two years' salary of his official post as Clerk of the Council—and 2,100l. from his salary as Physician-General and his private practice. For the distribution of the adventurers' land he had not as yet been paid at all. Of the above sums he invested part in debentures at a time when, as he wrote in his will, 'men bought without art, interest, or authority, as much land for 10s. in real money as in this year, 1685, yields 10s. per annum above His Majesty's quit rents.' With the rest he bought the Earl of Arundel's house and grounds in Lothbury, known as Token-House Yard. That he had bought debentures was one of the charges by which Sir Hierome Sankey, though fully aware that his own conduct had been far more open to criticism in this respect than that of Dr. Petty, attempted to inflame the public mind in England when bringing forward his main accusations as to lands having been wrongfully kept back from the distribution to the army.

The lands which Sir William had acquired were principally in Kerry: the county which the original allottees of Irish land did all in their power to avoid, because of the apparently rough and unprofitable character of the soil and the wildness of the inhabitants. 'When we first came into that country,' says Mr. Lewin Smith, one of the assistant surveyors, 'wee viewed the place in a generall way, considering the lands to be exceedingly bad; and was about not to returne any part of the said countrey profitable, but only arable and good pasture, though our instructions did make mention of severall kinds of pasture, which did include and reach the worst pasture, viz. rocky, fursy, heathy, mountaine, and bog, &c.; but yet it was soe bad, that wee intended to proceed. Butt then comming to the more remote part, viz. Iveragh, Dunkeron, Glanneroughty barronyes, the greatest part of Corkeaguiny barrony, the parishes of Kilcommen, Killagha, &c, and the ​west fractions in Magunnity, with much of the mountaine called Sleavelogher, in the barony of Trughanackny, Magunnity, Clanmorris, and Iraghticannor, wee were at a loss; for the like quantity that wee were about to returne unprofitable in the more habitable places, was even as good as many whole denominations consisted of in the said places, except some small spotts of arable that was in some of them, and yet goeing by the names of plowlands and parishes, &c, some men's whole estates consisting of such like; some of the said denominations wholly without arable. Soe that wee did not know what to doe, but was very inquisitive of those that had been inhabitants on the said places, and of our bounders; soe that we did clearly see that something had been made of those places, and something might be made of them againe, if stocked with cattle; and we did not judge it safe to take uppon us to cast away towne lands, parishes, nay, even allmost barronyes, wholly for unprofitable. Wee could, although we did at first soe judge, having never been in the like places before; yett having information of the aforesaid, and seeing that the said places were turned in the abstracts, and as plowlands and as parishes, and were some men's whole estates, and that we were informed that the said coarse plowlands formerly paid contribution or taxes with the rest of the countrey, when the same was levied by plowlands, therefore we could not but judge these places good for something, and resolved to make something of them.'[1]

Dr. Petty had himself noticed, apart from the possible agricultural value of the land at some future date, the facilities which the geographical situation, the land-locked harbours, the extensive forests, the valuable quarries, and other natural resources of the county might give in the development of other than merely agricultural wealth. He therefore added largely by purchase to the original allotment which he had received in that desolate district in payment of his services on the survey. Aubrey described him, in 1661, as able 'from Mount Mangerton in that county to behold 50,000 acres of his own land,' most of it, indeed, waste and unprofitable, but ​which he hoped would ultimately be a source of both private profit and national wealth.[2] These estates were principally on the north and south shore of the Bay of Kenmare, in the baronies of Iveragh and Dunkerron, and lay in a district famous from the earliest times for the interminable feuds of the heads of the Irish tribes which inhabited it, conspicuous among whom were the O'Sullivans and the McCartys, whose lands were bounded south and west by the sea, and to the north and east by the territories of the descendants of earlier settlers, the so-called 'degenerate English:' Fitzmaurices, Sarsfields, Barrys, Boches, and Fitzgeralds, many of whom had fled, but whose head, Patrick, the principal representative of the rebellious houses of the great insurrection of the Earl of Desmond in the reign of Elizabeth, had somehow succeeded in proving constant 'good affection,' and in thus retaining his large territories on the Bay of Tralee, near Listowel and Lixnaw.[3]

The peace and material improvement which Clarendon noted as having begun in Ireland immediately after the resettlement has already been mentioned. 'Yet in all this quiet,' he goes on to say, 'there were very few persons pleased or contented,' and so stormy was the outlook at the Restoration, and so intricate was the whole situation, that when created Chancellor and practically First Minister of the Crown, 'he made it his humble suit,' as he himself records, 'that no part of it might ever be referred to him.'[4]

Four parties at the Restoration were eagerly pressing their claims. The first and largest was the English party, the 'settlers,' as they called themselves, the 'usurpers,' as they were termed by others.[5] Owing to the energy with which the survey and distribution had been carried out by Dr. Petty, this party was now in possession of the lands assigned to them. They held the reins of government; they filled the army ​and the public offices; they formed the body of freeholders by whom the restored Irish Parliament, about to meet in Dublin, was elected; and they urged it as a great merit that they, quite as much as General Monk, had made the Restoration possible. The King, though bound by no tie of affection to men, many of whom had been distinguished by their exertions against his royal father, was obliged, from the peculiar circumstances which had attended his restoration to the throne, to conciliate their interests with his own, and to defer as largely as was possible to their views. The second party consisted of the old Anglo-Irish aristocracy, some of whom were loyal Roman Catholics, others were members of the Church of England. Of this party the Duke of Ormonde was the recognised head. Though small in numbers, it included many of the most distinguished Irishmen of the day. They had lost their homes and their possessions in the service of the King and that of his father, and now expected their reward. With them to a certain extent might be classed 'the '49 men,' or those officers who had served the King before 1649, and had subsequently served the Commonwealth against the Irish. Dr. Petty considered that at the time of the survey they had been harshly dealt with,[6] and he had tried to protect them; but the rapacity of their demands now knew no bounds. The third party consisted of the Presbyterians of the North, who had fought against the King in the first civil war, but had supported their Scotch brethren on the royal side in the second. They had seen large portions of their lands in Ulster confiscated in consequence; and had also suffered heavy losses in the walled towns, where many of them resided, being members of the class principally engaged in commerce. Outside the limits of these parties, all in a greater or less degree British in origin and sympathy, were the great mass of the old native Irish Roman Catholic proprietors, of whom some had been undoubted rebels against the English connection, while others had been innocent altogether, or had only played with sedition. There were some also who had first rebelled against the King, and had then joined Ormonde to fight for the King against the ​Commonwealth. But all were now equally prepared to declare, and if necessary upon oath, that they had been loyal subjects of his late Majesty throughout, and had suffered on his behalf in consequence; and all were eager to join in demanding that the lands in the hands of the 'usurpers' should be restored to the original and rightful owners. Such was the tangled skein of affairs; and under these circumstances, the difficulties of settling the tenure of the land of Ireland without exciting almost endless discontents were well-nigh insuperable.

In August 1661, Dr. Petty, who had been elected member of Parliament for Innistioge in Kilkenny, was appointed by the Irish Parliament, which had met early in the summer, a member of a special deputation sent over to England. A plan had already been laid before the King in November of the previous year by Lord Broghill, Sir A. Mervyn, and Sir J. Clotworthy, persons largely interested on behalf of the Commonwealth officers and the Adventurers. This plan professed to show that, after leaving the soldiers and Adventurers in possession of the lands they actually occupied, a sufficient acreage would be found in the 'dubious' and still unallotted lands, to enable the King to compensate or 'reprize' the innocent Catholics, and to indemnify his own supporters and friends. Charles, despairing of ever seeing any perfect settlement of so troublesome a matter, and anxious, above all things, both by disposition and interest, to get rid of the question somehow, caught at the solution thus offered, and on November 30, 1660, signed a 'Declaration,' which was the first step taken towards a settlement.

This Declaration, and the Act which in 1662 gave effect to it in detail,[7] being framed upon the representations of persons mainly bound up with the Army and Adventurer interest, naturally provided in the first place for the security of the property they held, in return for an increase of the royal quit rents and a grant of one year's value. The grantees were accordingly confirmed in their possessions as existing on May 7, 1659, subject to certain conditions and exceptions. Loyal ​Protestants whose lands had been given to Adventurers or soldiers, and innocent Papists, were to be at once restored to their estates, and the persons removed were to be compensated elsewhere. Special provisoes were also inserted in favour of the Commission officers under the King who had served in Ireland against the Irish rebels before 1649, and in favour of the Duke of Ormonde and thirty-six other particular objects of the royal favour termed 'mero motu men.' All Church and capitular lands were to be restored to their ecclesiastical owners, and enormous grants were made to the Duke of York and a few special favourites. The still undistributed lands, the lands of the regicides, and of some other prominent partisans—amongst others Sir Hierome Sankey[8]— were to form the reprisal fund.

A Commission was appointed under the Declaration of November 30 to carry out the Act, and Sir William Petty received a place upon it. It consisted of thirty-six persons, and they proceeded to appoint a Court of Claims to hear cases, with full authority to decide and arbitrate. Satisfactory to the army as the scheme adopted at first appeared, in practice it worked very differently from what was expected. The 'dubious' lands had been stated to the King as representing one million acres; and to these the lands of the Regicides and other prominent 'fanaticks' were to be added in order to swell the amount. But so favourable to the old Irish proprietors and Royalists did the majority of the Executive Court of Claims, instituted by the Commission, prove itself in judging 'innocency,' that a loud outcry began to arise, as the compensation fund was seen to be totally inadequate to meet the claims upon it. The Protestant interest became seriously alarmed, and the mutterings of an intended insurrection began to be heard. Soon an actual outbreak took place. The Irish Parliament once more intervened and the so-called 'Act of Explanation' was passed.[9] The Army and ​Adventurers now had to agree to give up one-third of their lands, on condition of receiving an absolute title to the remainder; and in order yet further to increase the fund for the reprisal of the Protestants who were called upon to make way for innocent Catholics, deductions were made from the estates of the King's grantees and other great landed proprietors. Thus at length was some kind of settlement arrived at, at least in theory; for the task of carrying out these arrangements was long and complicated, giving rise to interminable questions both of law and fact, and leaving behind a legacy of passion and hatred amongst those whose lot it had been in many cases to see, as Sir William Petty described it, 'the shrinking of their hopes into a Welshman's button.'[10]

The Act of Settlement by the 43rd section formally acknowledged the debt due to Sir William, and the 101st clause confirmed him in the property actually held by him on May 7, 1659.[11] The survey was also recognised by the Act as the authentic record for reference in cases of disputed claims: discontented claimants not being permitted to call for other surveys, unless they could show an error of more than one-tenth in the measurements. By the 55th clause of the Act of Explanation his property was again confirmed to him, and a charge on certain of the Adventurers' lands was made by the 100th section 'for his better encouragement to finish the maps and description of the kingdom.'[12] On October 14 he again memorialized the Privy Council for the payment of the debt due to him on this account. The memorial concludes by saying, 'Your petitioner hath been at many hundred pounds charge and several years labour, in composing a most exact mapp of that kingdom, which is yet imperfect for want of reasonable help and encouragement,'[13] and he expressed the wish to be able to finish it; but nothing appears to have been paid him. In 1665 he again petitioned, but whatever assistance he received was either small or in illusory ​securities. Fortunately the work had become a labour of love, and in the 'Political Anatomy of Ireland' he was at length able to record in 1673 that 'at his own charge, besides those maps of every parish which by his agreement he delivered unto the Surveyor General's office, he had caused maps to be made of every barony or hundred, as also of every county, engraved on copper; and the like of every province and of the whole kingdom.' The map so published, which was engraved at Amsterdam at a cost of 1,000l., was declared by Evelyn to be 'the most exact map that ever yet was made of any country.'[14]

Throughout these transactions Sir William continued to act for the Cromwell family, and was no doubt able to contribute to the protection of his former chief, to whom the King seems to have been personally well disposed, from the attacks of the old Cavalier party, who were constantly attempting to persuade the Court that the former Lord Deputy was engaged in a plot. By means of a trust the property of Henry Cromwell escaped, at least in part, the general confiscation which befell the property of the regicides and those immediately connected with the Protector,[15] though at a later date the Clanrickarde family succeeded in ejecting the representatives of the Lord Deputy's family, on some question of title.[16]

The following letter to the Lady Cromwell was written several years after, in connection with these affairs, when she was living at Spinney, the country place in Cambridgeshire to which Henry Cromwell retired after the Restoration:—

'Madam,—I hope your Ladyshipp will not take it ill that I have not often troubled you with letters. And I hope you ​beleeve that if writeing or any other labour of mine would availe you, that your Ladyshipp should not want it. I must now desire your Ladyship to renew a letter of Attorney which I formerly had from my dear friend (who is now with God), whereby to enable mee to gett some right from Captn Stopford, who hath abused mee and his best benefactors exceedingly in the matter of the arreares, which I purchased from our friend, who dyed since I commenced a certaine suit against that man. Wherefore I desire your Ladyshipp to send mee a new letter of Attorney to recover the said arreares, with leave to take out letters of administration here for Collonell Cromwell's personall estate in this Kingdome, of which nature these arrears are which I bought of him. And if there bee any other personall estate of his in Ireland which may bee recovered, it shall bee to your Ladyshipps advantage onely.

'Doctor Wood knoweth all the circumstances of this business, and I hope will inform your Ladyshipp that there can bee noe inconvenience in doeing what I desire, even although there were noe legall obligation (as there is) for doeing the same. I shall send a man down to your Ladyship to bee witnesse to this Instrument. In the meane time I am,

'Madam,
'Your Ladishipps most
humble and faithfull servant,
'William Petty.

'For Madam Cromwell at Spinny, these.'[17]


In the work entitled 'The Political Anatomy of Ireland,' published in 1672, Sir William makes an estimate of the general result of the successive convulsions in the land tenure of Ireland between 1641 and 1663. He takes the area of the country to be 10,500,000 Irish acres,[18] of which 7,500,000 were good meadow, arable, and pasture. Of this amount 5,200,000 belonged in 1641 to 'Papists and sequestered Protestants.' Of all the land seized by the usurpers,' the Papists, he says, recovered 2,340,000 acres; the ​'Protestants' and Churches, 2,400,000; and other miscellaneous claimants, 460,000. 'Of all that claimed innocency,' he says, 'seven in eight obtained it. The restored persons by innocence and proviso have more than what was their own, 1641, by at least one fifth. They have gotten by forged feoffments of what was more than their own, at least one third; and of those adjudged innocents not one in twenty were really so.'[19] In his opinion the whole proceedings after the Restoration were a mass of favouritism and oppression, in which the strong trampled on the weak, and the guilty robbed the innocent. 'It may be inquired,' he wrote in 1686, 'who caused and procured the said enormities?' 'Whereunto it may be readily answered,' he replies, 'Those who got enormous profit by the same.' Wherefore it ought to be inquired as followeth:

'1. Who brought in the "49 officers" to be satisfied, wholly excluding the Soldiers? and who had greatest Pretence to "49" arrears?

'2. Whose Chaplains and Creatures were the Bishops whose Revenues were augmented?

'3. For whose sake were the Articles of 1648 reputed for no miscarriage?[20]

'4. Who had the 300 thousand Pounds raised as year's value and supplement?

'5. Who in particular had the many vast Forfeitures, which should have been apply'd to the Publick?

'6. Who put in the 49 Trustees?

'7. Who named the Nominees?

'8. Whose Servants, Friends and Creatures, were the Private Grantees?

'9. Who had the general Power and Government, while these Things were transacting?

'10. Who were the Privy Councillors, that transmitted these Acts, and what have they gotten by the same?

'11. What has some one man gotten out of Ireland by and ​since his Matys Restoration? And to how many unrestored Estates is the said Gain equivalent?

'12. By the last Clause of the Act of Settlement the Lord Lieutenant and Council had Power to alter all the premises.

'Memorandum. That the Duke of Ormond, to keep himself unconcern'd in these Matters, got his Lands restored (Ao 1660) by an Act of Parliament in England, and also his Pardon; and soon after his Regalities in Tipperary were set up.

'He only endeavour'd to have gotten some Lands in Desmond as holding of his ancient mannors, but quitted ye same.'[21]

Such, for the time, was the result of the dealings with Irish land by the successive Governments which existed between the Rebellion of 1641 and the year 1665. The whole story forms one of the most extraordinary chapters in the history of any country, and leaves the reader to wonder how any notion of right or respect for law could survive such an ordeal. 'If in Ireland you are conquered,' Sir William afterwards wrote, examining why the number of years' purchase of land was so far less than in England, 'all is lost; or, if you conquer, yet you are subject to swarms of thieves and robbers, and the envy which precedent missions of English have against the subsequent. Perpetuity itself is but forty years long, as within which time some ugly disturbances hath hitherto happened, almost ever since the first coming of the English thither. The claims upon claims which each hath to the other's estates, and the facility of making good any pretence whatsoever, by the favour of someone or other of the Governors and ministers which within forty years shall be in power there; as also the frequency of false testimonies and abuse of solemn oaths,' rendered a real security of title impossible.[22] It specially irritated him that in the settlement many of the great Roman Catholic nobles, whom he regarded as the prime fomenters of the Civil War, ​succeeded by perjury and falsification of documents in getting back their own lands and others also; while thousands of those whom they had misled, their own co-religionists, lost everything irrevocably.[23]

Sir William had escaped destruction; but, notwithstanding his tenacity, it was only after many suits and after surrendering much, that he succeeded in getting into actual possession of his property, even after his legal title had been recognised and in retaining it when he had once got into possession. The custom still was to farm out the royal revenues to the highest bidder, and the farmers of the Irish Revenue, of whom Sir James Shaen, now an avowed enemy, was the head, were not only a powerful, but an unscrupulous body. Every species of abuse and oppression arose in consequence. The people, Sir William says, preferred 'to pay anything that was required, rather than to pass the fire of that Purgatory.'[24] One device was to claim arrears of rent from the present holders as due to the Crown on account of the whole period of the Civil Wars, all such lands having no doubt been charged with a head rent to the State, which, however, the Act had remitted for five years from 1653; but there were no doubt some arrears antecedent to 1653, which technically were due from the holders of the lands as representing the previous proprietors. Another device was to find a title for the Crown in the estates of men who had long been in undisputed possession of their holdings, and to eject on the title, often for the benefit of some royal favourite. As the greater part of the land in Ireland during the previous hundred and fifty years had at one time or another been forfeited, the opportunities of raising such questions were endless, and it became a regular trade 'to find out these flaws and defects and to procure a commission on the results of such inquiries.'[25] Sir William, with characteristic fearlessness, determined to resist what he considered extortion, even at the risk of the loss of favour. The farmers of the revenue soon made him feel the effects of their displeasure. 'The ​prejudices His Majesty hath taken against me,' he writes to Mr. Oldenburg, one of the Secretaries of the Royal Society, 'are a great affliction. But because I am conscious of no kind of guilt, the more tolerable; notwithstanding I have been punished with the loss of near half my lands already. If His Majesty hath any sparks of kindness for me, try of him the particulars of my faults. If not, I will bear the burthen with as much patience and belief that others have abused him, as any subject he hath.'[26] A quarrel with the Duke of Ormonde about some lands may have been the cause.

'Dear Cousin,' Sir William wrote to Sir Robert Southwell, 'you did in your late friendly letter blame me for not getting some terra firma in England. I answered you by an essay, shewing I had thought of your matter in earnest; and you sent me a paper wherewith—as with okum—I calked up the leaves of my Essay. You advised me in the same letter to compound my present law suites and prevent new ones. I answered you by telling what lawsuites I have; and wished I could prevent one for about 15,000l. against McGillicuddy, etc. You in your last promise that dear Neddy shall (I suppose when he is a Maynard or Hales) ferret McGillicuddy, but say nothing of it in the mean time. Cousin, hoping what I am now saying shall not recoyle and kill me, I tell you the Duke of Ormonde is David; but I am Uriah; my estate in Kerry is Bathsheba; you should bee Nathan, and then my estate would be the poor man's lamb. Nathan told David that he had Wives and Concubines enough, without taking Bathsheba from Uriah and without murdering Uriah, a worthy man, who had served him bravely in his wars and difficulties; as I had done the Duke and his interest before the King's restoration and now lately, to my great hazard. The Duke, his three sons and his servant, Sir G. L., gott more by the rebellion of Ireland and the King's restoration, than all the lands of Ireland were worth as they left it, and ​as in anno 1653; besides advantages which cannot well be expressed by sums of money. You may now say, "What is that to you?" I answer: "he needed not my Bathsheeba, nor the poor man's lamb." I might add that the ship settlement, wherein I am a sufferer, was thereby made top heavy and lop sided, so as she could not bear saile nor work in foul weather. Wherefore, dear Cousin Nathan, go down to Gilgal and tell old David—the first gentleman of Europe and whom I ever sought to serve—before hee dyes, that he should not have meddled with Bathsheeba, nor have caused Uriah to be killed, who by his means hath been set in the front rank of all battles.

'I have sent Neddy the best present I am able to make him; viz. a specimen of my algebra or Logick; which, with what I have formerly said of settling and signification of words, is as much as I think necessary. Doing as wee would be done unto is a very short rule, but requires much practice, and so doth Logick. Adieu.'[27]


The quarrel did not last long, for as soon as the Duke was made aware of an error of fact into which his agents had fallen, he allowed judgment to be entered against him by default. Sir William would have been fortunate if all his disputes had ended so easily.

'I have not as yet contributed,' he wrote about this time to Lord Aungier, 'to the applications lately made to Parliament, nor am I naturally forward to engage with multitudes. Nevertheless your Lordship knows it is my opinion that there is much to complain of; and that wrongs have been done needlessly, wantonly, and absurdly; and it is notorious that I have had my share; yet all this shall not provoke me to speak evil of dignityes, nor to desire great changes; nor do I hope ever to see the world and the justice thereof really mended; but I believe there may be a change of evil and evil-doers. I cannot think with your Lordship that some of ​the late rules and practice in Ireland are to be called "old foundations," but do know them to be new, and already rotten. I wish that renouncing all my pretensions, an oblivion of all my wrongs could beget a true settlement upon principles of natural equity, and not the fictions and shifts of interest. I will pray for the peace of Jerusalem.'[28]

But peace seemed further off than ever, owing to the policy of the English Government at this juncture.

There was, in the first place, a constant interference on the part of the Court in questions of Irish patronage; and the tendency had already begun to assert itself to pension off on Irish revenues every person to whom it was undesirable to attract too much attention in England. Public opinion indicated Sir William as the author of a set of propositions concerning the government of Ireland which the Duke of Ormonde submitted about this time to the Crown. The first of these insisted on the necessity of an absolute cessation of further grants by way of reward to the King's servants, till the ordinary revenue was able to sustain the necessary charge of Government, and all debts had been fully paid; and another sought to prevent applications being made in England in regard to Ireland over the head of the Lord-Lieutenant, and their decision without consultation with him.'[29] The country, it was pointed out, was weighed down by the charge of worthless favourites. Nor was this the only cause of dispute. Although the Parliament at Westminster, in which Ireland was no longer represented, was ready enough to secure the legal hold of the English interest in Ireland on the land, it was equally determined that that interest should not be allowed to develop the resources of the country in any way which might establish industries, whether agricultural or commercial, likely to interfere with the interests of the landowners and manufacturers of England. A fall of one-fifth in the rent of land, which took place in 1661 in England, was attributed to the import of Irish cattle; and in 1663 an Act was passed at Westminster, practically prohibiting the importation of fat beasts from Ireland into England between the months of July ​and December.[30] Rents, however, continued to fall, and nothing less would then satisfy the English landed interest than the total prohibition of the import into England of Irish cattle, Irish wool, and Irish meat.[31] A fatal blow was thereby struck, not only at the branch of industry most suitable to the Irish soil and climate, but also at the Irish carrying trade into England. There was a strong opposition to the Bill both in Parliament and in the Privy Council, but the majority were of opinion that 'in a point evidently for the benefit and advantage of England, Ireland ought not to be put into the scale, because it would be some inconvenience there,' and that 'some noblemen of that kingdom lived in a higher garb and made greater expenses than the noblemen of England; and that if something was not done to prevent it, the Duke of Ormonde would have a greater revenue than the Earl of Northumberland.'[32] It was true that it could be shown that many English counties—those which bought their cattle in Ireland to fat them for the English market—would suffer greatly by the projected legislation, and that the King and a majority of the Peers were opposed to the Bill. But the House of Commons, where the landowners held the preponderating power, insisted on the Bill, and made it a condition of voting supplies. Ireland was also excluded from the advantages of the Navigation Act, and her independent trade with New England was thereby destroyed. Against these restrictions, so injurious not to trade only but to the Protestant interest also, largely composed as that interest was of the commercial and trading classes, Sir William strongly exerted himself. He drew up a paper of 'Observations upon the trade in Irish cattle,' in which he pointed out that the value of the Irish cattle imported into England had been too small to have been the cause of the fall in the value of English land. 'The owners of breeding lands' (in England), he said, 'since the prohibition, have gotten above ten shillings more for their cattle per head than before it, which the owners of the feeding lands (in Ireland) have lost. Moreover, the mariners of ​England have lost the getting of nine shillings and six pence for freight and primage, and the people of England have lost four shillings and sixpence per head more for driving and grazing. The King hath lost three shillings and sixpence per head for customs on both sides: besides officers' fees. And the traders in hides and tallow have lost what they might have gained out of fifteen shillings per head. And the merchants and artizans of England have lost yearly what they might have gained by one hundred and forty thousand pounds worth of English manufactures.'[33]

He went over to England as the head of a deputation to oppose the Bill before both Houses of Parliament. But so violent were the passions of the English landed interest, that even the intercession of Sir Heneage Finch on behalf of the Crown could not prevail on the House of Commons—then sitting at Oxford, owing to the plague in London—to stop their headlong course, or to give a copy of the Bill to the petitioners. They were told that it might be read to them once, and then they must immediately say what they had to offer in objection.[34] Sir William next appeared with Mr. Boyle and others before the Committee of the Lords, but there also his efforts were useless, and the Bill passed into law.

In 1664, which Sir William considered the year of Ireland's greatest commercial prosperity, three-fourths of her foreign trade was with England, but afterwards it was only one-fourth.[35] To alleviate the injury done to Ireland, a project was started to set up an export trade to Holland, and Sir William wrote a paper in support of it; but it does not appear that the plan was ever carried into effect. He also did all in his power to second the efforts of the Duke of Ormonde to encourage the linen trade as some compensation to Ireland, and to establish a bank to supply a circulating medium of exchange for the country on a firm basis. 'We do the trade between England ​and Ireland,' he wrote at this period, 'as the Spaniards in the West Indies do to all other nations; for which cause all other nations have war with them there.' It was absurd, he pointed out, 'that a ship trading from Ireland into the islands of America, should be forced to unlade the commodities shipt for Ireland in England, and afterwards bring them home, thereby necessitating the owners of such goods to run unnecessary hazard and expense.' The Irish cattle trade was thenceforward diverted to the West Indies, where the cattle were sold in exchange for sugar; then this sugar had to be transported to England in English bottoms, and was sold there to pay what Ireland owed.[36]

The amount of remittances to England was greatly increased by the rise at this period of the new class of nonresident proprietors, and the artificial obstacles placed by the English Parliament in the way of the natural development of Irish trade were rendering absenteeism peculiarly injurious to the country. The ordinary arguments against absenteeism Sir William Petty rejected, because he considered the remittance of rents to England as simply the remittance of interest on money invested in Ireland by English capitalists, which would bring back goods in exchange from England in the ordinary course; but 'to remit so many and great sums out of Ireland into England, when all trade between the two kingdoms is prohibited must,' he argued, 'be very chargeable; for now the goods which go out of Ireland in order to furnish the said sums in England must, for example, go into the Barbadoes, and there be sold for sugars, which, brought into England, are sold to pay for what Ireland owes. Which way being so long, tedious, and hazardous, must necessarily so raise the exchange of money, as we have seen 15% frequently given, anno 1671 and 1672.' Exchange, he points out, naturally corresponds 'with the land and water carriage of money, and the insurance of it while on the way, if the money is alike in both places.'[37] 'If,' he continues, 'it be for the good of England to keep ​Ireland a distinct kingdom, why do not the predominant party in Parliament−suppose the Western members—make England beyond Trent another kingdom under commerce, and take tolls and customs upon the border? Or why was there ever union between England and Wales, if the good effects and fruits whereof were never questioned? And why may not the entire kingdom of England be further cantonized for the advantage of all parties?'[38] 'If,' he goes on to argue, following the same line of thought, 'the whole substance of Ireland be worth 16 millions, as above-said: if the customs between England and Ireland were never worth above 32,000l. per annum: if the titles of estates in Ireland be more hazardous and expensive, for that England and Ireland be not under one legislative power: if Ireland till now hath been a continual charge to England: if the reducing the late rebellion did cost England three times more in men and money than the substance of the whole country, when reduced, is worth: if it be just that men of English birth and estates, living in Ireland, should be represented in the legislative power; and that the Irish should not be judged by those who, they pretend, do usurp their estates; it then seems just and convenient that both kingdoms should be united, and governed by one legislative power....

'In the mean time, it is wonderful that men born in England, who have lands granted to them by the King for service done in Ireland to the Crown of England, when they have occasion to reside or negociate in England, should by their countrymen, kindred and friends there, be debarred to bring with them out of Ireland food whereupon to live; nor suffered to carry money out of Ireland, nor to bring such commodities as they fetch from America directly home, but round about by England, with extream hazard and loss, and be forced to trade only with strangers, and become unacquainted with their own country; especially when England gaineth more than it looseth by a free commerce, as exporting hither three times as much as it receiveth from hence: insomuch as 95l., in England, is worth ​about 100l. of the like money in Ireland, in the freest time of trade.'[39]

'I have lately perused all the Acts relating to Trade and Manufactures which are of force in Ireland,' he wrote some years after to Southwell, when the full evils of the system had had time to make themselves felt, 'and could without tears see them all repealed as encroachments on the Laws of Nature; for Trade will endure no other Laws, nec volunt res male administrari. But, Lord, Cousin, to what a magnitude will the Statutes both of England and Ireland swell, if they grow at this rate. How hard will it be for our lives, liberties, limbs, and estates to be taken away upon Statutes which we can never remember nor understand. Oh, that our book of Statutes were no bigger than the Church Catechism! '[40]

The hostility of the English Parliament was doubly odious to Sir William, because knowledge and experience had convinced him of the possibility of a great increase in the wealth of Ireland under natural laws, if the country were allowed to develop her own resources without impediment, and the freedom of intercourse which had existed under the Protectorate were allowed to continue. But it was useless, he said, to have broken the power of the chiefs and 'lazing friars,' if the English Parliament was to throttle all the natural industries. Like Sir John Davis, in the previous century, he observed nothing in the character of the people to prevent them attaining a high degree of material civilisation and prosperity. He considered their faults, such as they were, to be the result of the confusion and anarchy of the times, and of ignorance, not of any innate inferiority to the English, or unwillingness on their part to work, if given a fair opportunity, and if order were maintained.

'As for the manners of the Irish,' he said, 'I deduce them from their original constitutions of body, and from the air; next, from their ordinary food; next, from their condition of estate and liberty, and from the influence of their governors ​and teachers, and lastly from their ancient customs, which affect as well their consciences as their nature. For their shape, stature, colour, and complexion, I see nothing in them inferior to any other people, nor any enormous predominancy of any humour.

'Their lazing seems to me to proceed rather from want of employment and encouragement to work, than from the natural abundance of flegm in their bowels and blood; for what need they to work, who can content themselves with potatoes, whereof the labour of one man can feed forty; and with milk, whereof one cow will, in summer time, give meat and drink enough for three men; when they can every where gather cockles, oysters, muscles, crabs, &c, with boats, nets, angles, or the art of fishing; and can build an house in three days? And why should they desire to fare better, though with more labour, when they are taught that this way of living is more like the patriarchs of old, and the saints of later times, by whose prayers and merits they are to be relieved, and whose examples they are therefore to follow? And why should they breed more cattle, since 'tis penal to import them into England? Why should they raise more commodities, since there are not merchants sufficiently stocked to take them of them, nor provided with other more pleasing foreign commodities to give in exchange for them? And how should merchants have stock, since trade is prohibited and fettered by the statutes of England? And why should men endeavour to get estates, where the legislative power is not agreed upon; and where tricks and words destroy natural rights and property?

'They are accused also of much treachery, falseness, and thievery; none of all which, I conceive, is natural to them; for as to treachery, they are made believe that they all shall flourish again, after some time; wherefore they will not really submit to those whom they hope to have their servants; nor will they declare so much, but say the contrary, for their present ease, which is all the treachery I have observed: for they have in their hearts, not only a grudging to see their old properties enjoyed by foreigners, but a persuasion they shall be shortly restored. As for thievery, it is affixt to all thin-peopled ​countries, such as Ireland is, where there cannot be many eyes to prevent such crimes; and where what is stolen is easily hidden and eaten, and where 'tis easy to burn the house, or violate the persons of those who prosecute these crimes; and where thin-peopled countries are governed by the laws that were made and first fitted to thick-peopled countries; and where matters of small moment and value must be tried with all the formalities which belong to the highest causes. In this case there must be thieving, where there is neither encouragement, nor method, nor means for labouring, nor provision for impotents.

'As for the interest of these poorer Irish, it is manifestly to be transmuted into English, so to reform and qualify their housing, as that English women may be content to be their wives; to decline their language, which continues a sensible distinction, being not now necessary; which makes those who do not understand it, suspect, that what is spoken in it, is to their prejudice. It is their interest to deal with the English for leases for time and upon clear conditions, which being performed they are absolute freemen, rather than to stand always liable to the humour and caprice of their landlords, and to have everything taken from them, which he pleases to fancy. It is their interest, that he is well-pleased with their obedience to them, when they see and know upon whose care and conduct their well-being depends, who have power over their lands and estates, than to believe a man at Rome has power in all these last particulars in this world, and can make them eternally happy or miserable hereafter. 'Tis their interest to join with them, and follow their example, who have brought arts, civility and freedom into their country.

'On the contrary, what did they ever get by accompanying their lords into rebellion against the English? what should they have gotten if the late rebellion had absolutely succeeded, but a more absolute servitude? and when it failed, these poor people have lost all their estates, and their leaders increased theirs and enjoyed the very land which their leaders caused them to lose. The poorest now in Ireland ride on horseback, when heretofore the best ran on foot like animals. ​They wear better clothes than ever; the gentry have better breeding, and the generality of the plebeians more money and freedom.'[41]

It was, he said, often his lot to hear 'wise men,' when bewailing the vast losses of England in suppressing rebellions in Ireland, and considering how little profit had come thereby, proceed to wish in their melancholy 'that (the people of Ireland being saved) the island were sunk under water,' while others wished for another rebellion as an excuse for stamping out the inhabitants. To these melancholy philosophers he used to reply that 'the distemper of his own mind' caused him to dream that the benefit of their wishes might practically be obtained without the adoption of such very extreme courses, 'if all the moveables and people of Ireland and of the Highlands of Scotland, were moved into the rest of Great Britain,' where he was prepared to show there was abundant room and occupation for them; though he thought it as well to guard himself by saying that, however ingenious and attractive these speculations might be, they were to be considered 'a dream or reverie,' rather than rational or serious proposals.'[42] He did, however, seriously favour a considerable State-aided emigration from Ireland to England and vice versá, as affording a partial solution of many political and religious difficulties.[43] This proposal he renewed more than once. He also suggested that the inhabitants of New England might, as had been proposed in the time of the Commonwealth, be removed to Ireland. 'The Government of New England, both civil and ecclesiastical,' he wrote in almost prophetic words, 'doth so differ from His Majesty's other dominions, that 'tis hard to say what may be the consequence of it.... I can but wish they were transplanted into Old England or Ireland (according to proposals of their own made within this twenty years) although they were allowed more liberty of conscience than they allow one another.'[44] But his favourite idea was the union of the countries. ​'May not the three kingdoms,' he asks, 'be united into one, and equally represented in Parliament? Might not the several species of the King's subjects be equally mixt in their habitations? Might not the parishes and other precincts be better equalized? Might not jurisdictions and pretences of powers be determined and ascertained? Might not the taxes be equally applotted and directly applied to their ultimate use? Might not dissenters in religion be indulged, they paying for a competent force to keep the public peace? I humbly venture to say, all these things may be done if it be so thought fit by the Sovereign power, because the like hath often been done already, at several places and times.'[45]

In order to set the example of promoting the development of the country, he established an industrial colony of English Protestants at Kenmare, in Kerry, with iron and copper works; and attempted to develop the sea fisheries. For the former undertaking ore was shipped from Wales and Bristol, where Sir Robert Southwell, who lived near the city, at King's Weston, probably assisted in the undertaking. The ore was sent to Kenmare, where the woods which clothed the mountains afforded a large supply of the best fuel.

But there were great local difficulties to contend with. 'The Ministers of Justice,' he writes, 'have been often abused in their persons and goods; they have been either terrified from proceeding in their duty, or else wearied into a compliance with or connivance at those whom they before sought to punish.... In all the Baronies—being about 100 miles in compass—there is resident but one Minister, and he without Churchwardens or Service Books; officiating only now and then in one place, and who, although he have 300l. due to him, is now ready to perish for want of maintenance.'[46]

Some instructions given to his agent illustrate the difficulties of the situation, and show the minute care with which he superintended every detail.

​

'Mr. Cheesey.—Instructions for Kerry.

'By Sir William Petty.

'1. When you goe into Kerry find out Cornelius Sulivane of Dromoughty, in the barrony of Glanneroughty, and take directions from him for goeing into all the woods in the 2 barronyes of Glanneroughty and Dunkerron, and particularly those of Glancurragh, soe as to satisfie yourself what clift ware, ship tymber, house timber, and other wooden commodityes may bee made out of them, and at what charges they may bee brought to the water-side, how far each respective wood.

'2. I would have you take the best accoumpt you can of all the staffes and other clift-ware which now lyeth upon the river, and examine by all the meanes you can what part of them was brought from any other than my woods, and to oppose the shipping of any untill all controversyes of that point bee cleared, to prevent the cutting of any wood but by my order, to bringe in English and Protestante workmen in the greatest number you can, assureing all such who are able and honest they shall have the best incouragement in Munster, and forbidding all tenants from paying any rent to any but myself or my order.

'I would have you encourage Sandford and Sellberry, and lett Sandford goe on with his boate, slender worke, such a one as may be able to carry 20 tunne to Corke or Lymericke, and sett as many hands as you thinke convenient to worke upp the timber already fallen into clift-ware, and sawing-tymber, according to such scantlings as I have given you.

'And to agree with as many as you can to take the rent of the land or stocke for their wages.

'To take care that noe pipe staffes coming from any other woods be shipped before they have paid the lawfull dutyes and customes for the same.

'To consider what conveniencey is for making of sale for beefe and fish.

'Dublin, dated the 24th of May, 1666.'[47] ​Meanwhile for three weary years the struggle with the farmers of the revenue had continued, complicated by another with the ''49 men' who claimed the whole of Sir William's Limerick property. Events in England influenced the situation. The death of the Lord Treasurer Southampton in 1667, followed as it was shortly after by the fall of the Chancellor Clarendon and the rise into power of the heterogeneous body of statesmen known as the Cabal, had for an immediate consequence the retirement of Ormonde from the Lord-Lieutenancy of Ireland. John Petty was thereupon removed from the Surveyorship, and was succeeded by Sir James Shaen. Misfortunes, as usual, did not come singly. About the same time Sir William's house in London was destroyed by the Great Fire, and his surrounding property seriously depreciated in value.

'You know,' Sir William writes to a friend in 1667, 'when I had much money in the bank, much land in Ireland, and some houses in London; but the houses and money are gone, and only so much of the land remains as is a continual fountain of vexations to me, for I have about thirty lawsuits.'[48] In another letter he gives the following enumeration of the storms which had befallen him since the Restoration:—

'1. The "49 men" siege of my Limerick concernment, and Sir Alan Broderick; 1661 and 2.

'2. The Court of Clayms and Innocents, 1663.

'3. The great "Double bottom," 1664.

'4. The Plague, 1665.

'5. Lord Ranelagh and the Fire of London, 1666.

'6. War with Lord Kingston, 1667-8-9-70 and 1, when Sir W. Fenton died.'

In addition to these, he got involved in a suit with Sir George Carteret, the Treasurer of the Navy, who had joined him in one of his Irish undertakings.

During the first of these storms, Sir Alan Broderick, 'one of the '49 men' who had put in a claim to part of the Limerick lands, and in other respects also was a sort of second edition of Sir Hierome Sankey, being given to preaching in Dublin ​when not engaged in soldiering elsewhere, sent Sir William a challenge to fight. Sir William, however, notwithstanding his recent knighthood, was not more desirous of distinction in martial exercises than in the days when Sir Hierome's friends had pressed on him the command of a troop of horse. Being the person challenged, it lay with him to nominate place and weapon. As he was very short-sighted, he claimed, in order that his adversary should have no unfair advantage over him, that the place should be a dark cellar, and the weapon a great carpenter's axe. This turned the challenge into ridicule, and Sir Alan declined so unexpected a form of contest.[49]


  1. ↑ Down Survey, p. 94.
  2. ↑ Bodleian Letters, ii. p. 484; Wood's Ath. Oxon., iv. 215. See also Sir William Petty's Will, which says his intention was to 'promote the trade of lead, iron, marble, fish, and timber, whereof his estate was capable.' And on the subject generally, see Smith's History of Kerry, pp. 65, 85, 86, 90.
  3. ↑ Smith's History of Kerry, p. 217.
  4. ↑ Life of Clarendon, pp. 106, 116.
  5. ↑ The latter phrase is frequently used even by Sir William himself, probably as the current Irish expression.
  6. ↑ Down Survey, p. 210.
  7. ↑ 14, 15 Charles II. c. 2 (Irish Statutes). Return of Members of Parliament, March 1, 1878, vol. ii. 621, 638. Petty was first returned for Enniscorthy also, but chose to sit for Innistioge.
  8. ↑ Carte's Ormonde, iv. 53. He appears, however, subsequently to have recovered some of his estate. He was arrested in 1660. See Rugge's MS. Diary, 228, 229, quoted by Taylor, Cont. Writers, Reign of Charles II., p. 40.
  9. ↑ 17, 18 Charles II. c. 2. (Irish Statutes).
  10. ↑ The Elements of Ireland, Nelligan MS., British Museum.
  11. ↑ 14, 15 Charles II. c. 2, s. 101.
  12. ↑ 17, 18 Charles II. 1663, s. 55. See too Evelyn's Memoirs, ii. p. 96.
  13. ↑ Down Survey, Appendix XV. p. 399.
  14. ↑ Political Anatomy, ch. ix.; Evelyn's Memoirs, ii. p. 96.
  15. ↑ See 14, 15 Charles II. c. 2, 5, ccxxiv. The persons there named are connections by marriage of the Cromwell family. Henry Cromwell died March 23, 1674. The Lady Cromwell died April 7, 1687, only a few months before Sir William Petty.
  16. ↑ See article 'Henry Cromwell' in the Dictionary of National Biography. The recently published Literary Recollections of Mr. Lespinasse contain an account of an interesting conversation on the character of Henry Cromwell between Lord Macaulay, Thomas Carlyle, and Sir G.C. Lewis, Pages 84 and 85, note. In the Bodleian Library the conveyance of Henry Cromwell's Irish estate to trustees, Sir W. Russell and Mr. E. Waldron, exists, dated April 3 and 4, 1661. Rawlinson MSS. (A. 253, 188).
  17. ↑ Dublin, October 10, 1679. Petty MSS.
  18. ↑ 121 Irish = 196 English acres.
  19. ↑ Political Anatomy ch. i. p. 304.
  20. ↑ The offer by Owen Roe and the Irish to make a separate peace with the Commonwealth. See Froude, English in Ireland, i. 119.
  21. ↑ Nelligan MS., British Museum. 'Narrative of the Sale and Settlement of Ireland.' The reference to 'one man' is to the Duke of York.
  22. ↑ Treatise on Taxes, p. 33. Compare the observations in Arthur Young's Travels in Ireland, ch. vii.
  23. ↑ Political Anatomy, p. 368.
  24. ↑ Ibid. p. 359.
  25. ↑ Ibid. ch. xi. p. 359.
  26. ↑ November 24, 1663, Petty MSS. In a list of his works found amongst his papers, in his own handwriting, occurs the following entry, 'Lawsuits,' inserted between the titles of two poetical effusions.
  27. ↑ Petty to Southwell, March 1667. See Carte's Ormonde, iv. p. 386, where the author charges Sir William with 'having bragged, he had got witnesses who would have sworn through a three inch board.'
  28. ↑ March 14, 1667.
  29. ↑ Political Anatomy, pp. 399-401.
  30. ↑ 15 Charles II. c. 7 (English Statutes).
  31. ↑ Life of Clarendon, p. 959 et seq.
  32. ↑ Ibid. p. 967.
  33. ↑ Petty MSS. The substance of the argument is reproduced in the Political Anatomy, ch. x.
  34. ↑ Commons' Journals, 1665.
  35. ↑ Carte's Ormonde, iv. 245; Political Anatomy, ch. x. p. 348, ch. xi p. 362. The Acts in question are 18 Charles II. c. 2, and 32 Charles II. ch. 2. (English Statutes.)
  36. ↑ Political Anatomy, ch. v. p. 323.
  37. ↑ Ibid. ch. x. p. 349, ch. xi. p. 357.
  38. ↑ Political Anatomy, ch. v. p. 324.
  39. ↑ Political Anatomy, ch. xv. p. 384; comp. ch. v. p. 322.
  40. ↑ To Southwell, September 10, 1678.
  41. ↑ Political Anatomy, ch. xii. p. 366.
  42. ↑ Political Arithmetic, ch.iv. p. 252.
  43. ↑ Political Anatomy, ch. v. pp. 318, 320.
  44. ↑ Political Arithmetic, ch. v. p. 269. The allusion is to the expulsion of Roger Williams from Massachusetts and the persecution of the Quakers.
  45. ↑ Political Arithmetic, ch.v. p. 269.
  46. ↑ Report on the condition of Kerry addressed to the Lord-Lieutenant. Petty MSS.
  47. ↑ History of the Kingdom of Kerry, pp. 279-80.
  48. ↑ Petty to Southwell, January 21, 1667.
  49. ↑ Evelyn's Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 96. Bodleian Letters, ii. p. 485.
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