By his marriage Sir William became connected with the family of his friend, Sir Robert Southwell, and they now addressed each other in their correspondence as cousins.[1]
About the time of his marriage, Sir William appears to have been offered a peerage; but there was a condition annexed—a round contribution to the Exchequer of the impecunious King. The offer came at a peculiarly inopportune moment, when his house in London had just been destroyed, and in the midst of his struggle with the farmers of the revenue. It appears to have been made through the Bishop of Killaloe, a friend of Lady Petty; the title offered, according to Aubrey, being that of Baron Kilmore.[2]
To the Bishop Sir William replied as follows: —
'My Lord,—I thank you on my wife's behalf for your good intentions; but is it better for me at this time to buy titles, or to get me a house and furniture, whereby I may do for your Lordship as your Lordship hath done for me; and to rebuild my ruins at London; to pay my year's rent; to restore the iron works and fisheries of Kerry; to buy off my incumbrances, and to carry on the just and necessary war against Lord Kingston?
'I will not tell your Lordship what I think of people who make use of titles and of tools; nor would I fall into the temptation of doing the like. The end of those things will be like that of the Dublin tokens. I had rather be a copper farthing of intrinsic value, than a brass half-crown, how gaudily soever it be stamped and guilded. I might have had those things a long time ago, for the third part of what your Lordship propounds. Beside, if ever a thirst of that kind should take me, I hope to quench it at the very fountain, where those matters are most clear and wholesome. Herewith then, I thank your Lordship for the honour you intended me, and if I can serve your Lordship's friend by being his broker
