As Petty carried out the whole work of survey under the Commonwealth, and had access to every available source of information, and was besides a painstaking investigator, one would at first sight accept his figures as accurate. A closer investigation, however, raises doubts. A curious light on his accuracy is thrown by his estimate of the number of Catholic freeholders in 1641. As printed in Hull's edition of the "Political Anatomy," we find first on p. 141: "The Claymants of Land or the number of Proprietors and number of Catholic Freeholders before the War was"—and then a space left blank. Twelve pages farther on the number is given as 3,000. Now, this, we know from other sources—sources accessible to Petty, and even probably officially used by him—to be untrue.
There is still extant a document printed in Hart's "Irish Landed Gentry when Cromwell came to Ireland," entitled, "Forfeiting Proprietors Listed"[1] made in 1657 by Christopher Gough. This list gives the names of Catholic landowners in 1641 for six counties of Leinster, two of Munster, six of Ulster, and one county and one barony of Connaught.[2] The total for these is somewhat over four thousand. Now, the six Ulster counties given include five out of the six "plantation counties," and the number of Catholic
- ↑ Page 247, and following.
- ↑ The Leinster counties are Dublin, Louth, Kildare, Longford, Kilkenny and Wexford, with a total of 1,816 proprietors, of whom 621 were in Wexford. Cork had over 1,000, and Kerry nearly 550. In the five "Plantation Counties, about 20 of the 291 names given are those of English or Scotch Protestants. The exact total is 4,124, but it is probable that some names figure more than once, and there were certainly some loyal Protestants who forfeited outside the Plantation Counties.
