next Parliament in England' in his opinion was: 'To come to a full understanding with Ireland. To form a Grand and General Council for all the King's dominions. To make a new aplottment of the public revenue. A new apportionment and election for the House of Commons. To restore the true use of seats and titles. To understand and allow liberty of conscience, and to level the rewards and punishments depending on religion with oaths, &c. To institute an account of lands and hands of all the King's subjects. To moderate the use and learning of the Latin and Greek tongues. To limit the City of London, to make the same a county and diocese and a bank. To lessen the sad effects of the plague in that City. To regulate coins, usury and exportation of bullion. To increase the King's subjects, and fully people his territories.'[1]
In a letter to Southwell he gives an account of his interview with the King. 'As to the Great Man you mention,' he says, 'I had indeed strange access and acceptance. I spake unto him as one having authority, and not as the Scribes and Pharisees; I said several soure things, which he took as juice of orange, squeezed into his mince meat, and not as vitrioll; for some of the things I told him were these.1. That all the lands which the Irish lost as forfeited, were not worth, anno 1653, when they left them, 300,000l.2. That the 34,000 men, which the heads of the Irish were permitted and assisted to carry to foreign states, at 10l. pr head, were worth more than the said lands; that 10l. is not ½ the value of negroes, nor 1⁄5 of Algeir slaves, nor 1⁄7 of their value in Ireland.3. I said that what the Irish got restored, anno 1663, more than what belonged to them, anno 1641, is worth more than all they ever lost.4. That they got 1,110,100 acres of land by innocency, making 7 out of 8 innocent. He heard me with trouble and admiration. He press'd me to speak of the Settlement. I told him there were things in it against the Light of Nature, and the current equity of the world; but whether it was worth the breaking I doubted; but if it were broken by Parliament, I offered things to be
- ↑ An Opinion of what is Possible to be Done, 1685. Petty MSS.
