[Dedication of the Second Edition, 1719.]
To the Right Honourable
THOMAS,
Lord PARKER[1],
Baron of Macclesfield in the County
of CHESTER;
Lord High Chancellor
of GREAT BRITAIN.
My Lord,
THE following Treatise of Sir William Petty's having already met with a favourable Reception from the Publick, even when it was im-||perfect in some of its parts: I beg leave to offer it now to your Lordship, with some Additions[2], necessary for the better understanding of it.
- ↑ Thomas Parker was born, it is said, 23 July, 1666. He entered Trinity College, Cambridge in 1685, but did not take a degree, and, having been a student of the Inner Temple, was called to the Bar 24 May, 1691. In 1705 he sat for Derby as a Whig. In 1710 he became Lord Chief Justice of England, and the following year declined the Lord Chancellorship, to which he was finally appointed 12 May 1718. In 1716 he was created Baron Macclesfield, and in 1721 he was raised to an earldom. In 1725 he was impeached of corruption and found guilty by the unanimous voice of the peers present. He died 28 April, 1732. His mathematical interest exhibited itself chiefly in the patronage of mathematicians, but his own attainments were unquestionably sufficient for the comprehension of Political Arithmetick.
- ↑ No addition of importance was made to Petty's part of the book, but the editor suppressed several passages of the first edition and altered others. Such of his changes as give rise to readings substantially different from those of the first edition, here reprinted, are incorporated in the foot notes; but mere differences of orthography are ignored. The largest addition made in the second edition was "A List of the Lords spiritual and temporal of Ireland," and "A List of the Knights, Citizens and Burgesses of the Parliament of Ireland," 1715. These lists are omitted from the present edition.
