# Life of Sir William Petty 1623 - 1687/Chapter IX

CHAPTER IX
SIR WILLIAM PETTY AND KING JAMES II
1685-1687
In Ireland the accession of James II. was received with the gravest apprehension. It was generally believed that the new king, exasperated by the attempts of the extreme Protestant party in England in the previous reign to exclude him from the succession, and elated by their failure, would ascend the throne with a fixed determination to revenge the wrongs of the Roman Catholics on those who had not only attempted to deprive him of the throne for changing his religion, but had also caused innocent blood to be shed during the outburst of fanaticism in 1678. The Acts of Settlement and Explanation were looked upon as doomed, for although James, as Duke of York, held vast tracts of Irish land, it was believed that the surrender of these to the former owners would be easily purchased by a liberal grant, from a Roman Catholic Parliament, of lands to be taken from Protestant proprietors. Only a small minority clung to the hope that, sobered by misfortune and warned by the example of his father of the danger of extreme courses, he might follow a prudent policy; and while gaining religious toleration and a free exercise of their form of worship for his own co-religionists—which might also be the occasion of securing like benefits for the Protestant Nonconformists—he would not seek to repeal the Acts of ​Settlement and Explanation, and while freeing England from the domination of the narrow party which had governed it almost uninterruptedly since the Restoration, would not be tempted into seeking to throw Ireland into the hands of the Talbots. To the views of this minority Sir William was inclined to lean, and his friendship with Penn, who held similar views, no doubt increased his tendency to be hopeful of the royal intentions. According to Sir John Perceval, a friend of Sir William's and a member of the old Cromwellian party, 'the King, in order to persuade men to vote for taking off the penal laws and tests, was ready to renounce the Pope's supremacy, and not suffer him to concern himself with any branches of his prerogative. This promise he undertook to embody in a Test that should be a greater security than the existing one, which he would have taken off. He offered besides to part with the greatest part of his dispensing powers and the greatest part of his army, and that the established religion should be inviolably preserved.'
Parliament had met in May, and was then prorogued till the autumn of 1685. 'Will you be in London on the 9th of October,' Sir William wrote to Southwell, 'when the Parliament sits; and help to do such things for the common good, that no King since the Conquest besides his present Majesty can so easily effect?' He augured well of the personal disposition of the King; but he acknowledged his 'fear as to what men, drunk with rage and mad with revenge, might do of harm to themselves and others,' notwithstanding the good intentions with which he credited the new occupant of the throne. 'Pamphlets,' he wrote, 'are very rife, pro and contra, concerning religion; the clergy also, of all parties, are very busy concerning the same.' 'When anybody,' he told Southwell, 'would have you to be a Roman Catholic, a Papist, a Protestant, a Church of England man, a Presbyterian, Anabaptist, Quaker, fanatick &c, or even Whig and Tory, let them quit ​all those gibberish denominations and uncertain phrases; but make you a list of credenda and agenda, necessary for your eternal happiness, and give you the reasons for the same. This being done, let them give you a clear and sensible explanation of these words: viz. God, Omnipotent, Soule of Man, Soule of Beast, Church, Christian, Pope, Spirituall, Substance, Scripture, Reason, and Sense. For without these words you cannot understand these matters, much less can come into any conclusion.'
Events in Ireland soon began to show clearly in which direction things were about to move. As soon as the failure of the movement headed by Monmouth and Argyle was assured, the Irish Roman Catholic party began to betray their real intentions. The corporations, partly by fraud and partly by force, were everywhere packed; and every post the appointment to which lay in the hands of the Crown, from the Lord-Lieutenancies of the counties to the commissions of the smallest places, from Dublin and Cork to the remotest districts, fell into Roman Catholic hands. The repeal of the Acts of Settlement and Explanation and the practical expulsion of the whole Protestant population, were already announced as imminent by the more outspoken members of the party, of which Richard Talbot, now created Earl of Tyrconnel, was the daring and unscrupulous mouthpiece. But it was officially denied that such were the intentions of the King, and on the recall of the Duke of Ormonde, the special object of the hatred of the priests, who owing to age and infirmity was glad to retire from the scene of his long labours and avoid the coming storm, the Lord-Lieutenancy was conferred, after an interregnum of nine months, in December 1685, on the Earl of Clarendon, brother of the Lord Treasurer Rochester. Hopes were therefore still entertained that matters might not be pushed to extremes, and these hopes still continued, even when the command of the forces had been conferred on Richard Talbot, in June 1686, and the Irish Privy Council had been at the same time entirely remodelled.
​At the end of the year a pamphlet, entitled 'The Sale and Settlement of Ireland,' appeared, and attracted great attention. It was believed to be inspired from high quarters. The author was one David Fitz-Gerald. It impugned the whole Irish land settlement, made a series of bitter charges against the Duke of Ormonde, and accused Lord Clarendon of desiring to extirpate the Irish people root and branch. It was soon followed by another publication of a similar kind, called 'Queries on the State of Ireland,' written by Dr. Gorges and also aimed at the Duke of Ormonde and the Earl of Clarendon.
Sir William was urged to write a reply. He at first considered it was not within his province to do so. 'As to my answering the "Queries,"' he said, 'I say that my Lord of Ormonde and Lord Chancellor Clarendon's family are much concerned to satisfy the world as to the said "Queries;" and also the substance of the scandalous Treatise called the "Sale and Settlement of Ireland;" and that therefore it should be done by such hands as they think sufficient for it; by lawyers, skilled in Parliamentary and Prerogative Law; and such as are well versed in the history of the wars of Ireland, and in all the transactions between the Phelym O'Nealians, Owen O'Nealians, Rinuccinians, and Clanricardians of the one side, and the Ormondians, Inchiquinians, and the Oliverians of the other side; or in other words between those who changed the Government, rebelled against the same, and would have extirpated the English name and Religion—whom we may in one word call "Rebells"—on the one side, and those who endeavoured to avenge the wrongs done to their King, countrymen, and religion, under the best Captains and conductors, which they could from time to time find, in direct pursuance of the Act made 17 Car. prim, for that purpose; whom in one other word we call "Patriots" of the other side.'
He was, however, ultimately prevailed upon to write a memorandum in reply to Fitz-Gerald and Gorges, which he developed into a small book called 'Speculum Hiberniæ,' the ​object of which was to set out in greater detail the conclusions to be found in the first chapter of the 'Political Anatomy of Ireland:' viz., that when all the circumstances of the case were considered, from the rebellion of 1641 onwards, the grievances of the great Roman Catholic proprietors were not what they had been represented, because those proprietors had deliberately courted the arbitrament of the sword, which had proved adverse, and nevertheless had been reinstated in a very large proportion of their possessions at the Restoration. Since then the steady growth of the prosperity of the country had left them, if with possessions in extent diminished, yet, all the circumstances considered, in a far more favourable position pecuniarily, owing to the increase in the value of land, than would otherwise have been the case. To overturn the whole of the Land Settlement would, he argued, not only be an act of injustice, but would once more plunge the whole country—the great need of which was security and order—into confusion. It would be far better to compensate the dissatisfied Catholics in some other way: for example, with grants of land in England, which would have the effect of strengthening the Roman Catholic interest there, an object which he considered equally desirable with the strengthening of the Protestant interest in Ireland, in order to prevent the supremacy of either denomination in any part of the two kingdoms. He also prepared a plan for the partial disendowment of the Established Church both in England and Ireland, in order to pay the Roman Catholic priests, and wrote three small tracts developing the same order of ideas; but it does not appear that, though privately circulated, any of them were printed or published.
Already early in 1686, in a letter written to Southwell, ​after mentioning some particular cases of oppression which the Roman Catholics had complained of, he acknowledged that the situation had made great 'tourbillons' in his mind; but, he continued, 'I retreat to the sayings following:—1. God is above all.2. Few designs succeed thoroughly.3. Naturam expellas furcà.4. The balance of knavery.5. The follyes of our enemies.6. Res nolunt male administrari.7. We shall live till we dye.8. Time and chance, &c.9. Another shuffling may cause a better dealing.10. Fish in troubled waters.11. Trees may grow the better for pruning.12. Lets do what we can.13. 'Twill be all one 2,000 y$^{rs}$ hence.14. Una salus miseris nullam sperare salutem.15. Some other Bowls may drive the Jack from the Best.16. Playing at tennis in a wheelbarrow, etc'
'The late new addition to the Council,' Southwell replied, 'is a new light which is very dazzling, and will need all y$^r$ 16 axioms for consolation.... I wish it were as easy to find the cure as the disease. A consultation of doctors is scarce to be thought of; for such advising might be called combination, and so pass for witchcraft. Wherefore all I can at present think of, is to pray God that there may be from all good Protestants, such demonstrations of Loyalty, zeal, and affection to his Majesty's person and Government, that their enemies may not have credit in objecting that his authority is not safe in their hands, or that they are still the race of those who murdered the father.'
Sir William still went on hoping against hope. He disliked the extreme Protestant interest, and he had suffered so much under preceding Councils, that he was inclined to take a lenient view of the present members, and could not help trusting that things might still not come to the worst, and that, as on other occasions, the sun might shine forth again.
'I will set all the Goblins, Furies, Demons, and Devills, which stand straggling up and down within this letter, in battle array,' he writes to Southwell on June 5, 1686. He acknowledges that he knows he is not 'a general favourite' and that Kerry will be 'a gnawing vulture,' and that he is himself ​ill and the cure not clear; 'to all which,' he goes on, his irrepressible spirits again getting the upperhand, 'I say —
"Hulchy, Pulchy, suckla mee, Hoblum, Doblum, Dominee."
'I heartily join in your prayer,' he concluded, 'and you know that my studyes are how his present Majesty may even by and with his religion, do glorious things for God himself and his subjects; and trust his affairs in no worse hands than the maligned persons you mention, who will serve him upon demonstrable motives, not base assentation; and who saith, with our friend Horace,
'Si fractus illabatur orbis, Impavidum ferient ruinæ.'
Southwell, from London, again warned him of the serious character of the position, and against indulging in a foolish optimism based on the mere fact of Lord Clarendon being still nominally kept in office, while the real power was fast passing into the hands of Tyrconnel. 'I have known you formerly,' he said, 'to mind the cylinders, while your acres were tearing from you; and you would not desist from Philosophy as long as it was not in the power of a decree to forbid rubarb and Cena from purging.'
Sir William's natural inclination to make the best of what he could not avoid, and his evident disposition at the moment to put a favourable construction on conduct deserving the worst, was strengthened by the encouraging manner in which he was received by the King, who at this juncture accorded him an interview. His experiments in ship-building in the previous reign, it has been seen, had brought him into frequent relations with James during the time that the latter was Lord High Admiral. It would appear that James had learnt to place confidence in him, and the optimistic temperament of Sir William led him to desire to take the most lenient view that was possible under the circumstances of the intentions of the new ruler. On general grounds Sir William probably sympathised with the abortive attempts made in the ​previous reign by the late King to effect a general measure of toleration: efforts which had been defeated by the Parliamentary action of the Church and State party, in their blind hatred of the Protestant Nonconformists. Then had come the passage of the Test Act, when the popular fury had turned against the Roman Catholics; and by this Act the political position was further complicated, for it at once divided the advocates of religious liberty between those who simply desired to see the free exercise of religion, whether in private or in public, guaranteed by law, and those who wished also for the repeal of the civil disabilities imposed by the Act. This second party again was itself divided between those who desired to repeal the tests altogether, and those who would still have maintained the tests against the Roman Catholics, not as holders of unsound theological opinions, but as the champions of tenets inconsistent with the maintenance of the free institutions and the existing government of the country.
'By liberty of conscience,' Sir William said, 'is meant the liberty of professing any opinion concerning God, angels, good and bad, the souls of men and beasts, rewards and punishments after death, immense space and eternity; concerning the Scriptures, the truth of their copies and translations; as also of their history; with the authority of their doctrines, precepts and examples; as also concerning the will of God revealed in any other ways. But not concerning the lives, limbs, liberties, rights and properties of men in this world; nor extending to punish or reward any man for sin or not sin against God; leaving offences against the peace and commonwealth of the nation to the civil magistrate, God's visible vicar and lieutenant and true representative of the people, whether the same be in one or more persons.'
In regard to England he saw no difficulty; but in the existing condition of affairs in Ireland, the free admission of Roman Catholics to power was, he thought, too dangerous an experiment to be tried as an isolated measure. His wish, therefore, was that 'England and Ireland should be united by one Common Council, or Parliament, at the ​proportion of ten to one, without tests or embarassing oaths, and that there be a well grounded liberty of religion in these Kingdoms such as may be depended on.'
'What is meant,' he asked, 'by Union between England and Ireland?' He answered: 'That the wealth of both peoples united will increase faster than of both distinct, and consequently that their revenue may also increase proportionally. That the Government of both united will be less expensive and more safe. That the enrichment of Ireland will necessarily enrich England, even in spite of statutes made to the contrary. That the prevention of rebellion in Ireland attainable by this Union is a benefit to England: former rebellions, and the last particularly, having been a vast prejudice to England. That the said Union will weaken the Popish power and party as well without as within his Majesty's own dominions. That the King's loss of Customs between the two kingdoms will be easily and willingly repaired by the same Parliament which makes the Union. That neither the prerogative of King nor the privilege of Peers, or of either House of Parliament in either kingdom, need to be lessened hereby. That there may be different laws, even in any of the parts of either kingdom if need be, notwithstanding the Union. That for want of a Union, even the Protestant and English interest of Ireland may, as it formerly hath done, in time degenerate, be estrayed, and rebel. That as Wales is an example of the good effects of a Union, so will Ireland be to Scotland, New England, and the other of his Majesty's out-territories. That all his Majesty's territories being united are naturally as strong and rich as the kingdom of France. That rather than not unite Ireland, 'twere better to dispeople and abandon the land and houses thereof, all movables, with the people, being brought away. The cause why the same hath not been hitherto done hath been indeed the vain feares of many, and the interest of but a very few, and these of the worst members of both kingdoms. That this Union cannot be thought a private project or intended for the particular or present advantage of any man. If it be an ​evil thing to unite Ireland with England, it seems a good thing to colonize even England itself into many small kingdomkins as heretofore, and now in America and Africa, though nominally under one monarch. That this Union must be first transacted in the Parliament of England before it can be stirred elsewhere, and to be reckoned amongst the fundamentals of settlement and common peace. That a Union would ipso facto put an end to several dangerous and new questions depending between the rights of England and Ireland, to the disquiet of many of both nations, and which none dare determine. That poor and decaying persons of England always went for Ireland, and that the rich of Ireland always spent their estates in England. That the price of land hath fallen in England, even since the prohibition of Irish cattle, but will more probably rise upon the Union. That this Union is a probable means to get the real sovereignty of the seas, and to undermine the Hollanders trade at sea, and both without war and bloodshed. That if either nation did or should lose by the Union, yet even the loser, in justice, equity, honour and conscience, ought to promote and accept it from the other. That the late usurper and his party did hope to strengthen themselves by it.'
He also recognised the growth of a set of Imperial questions, created by the rise of the colonies and dependencies, for which the established constitution hardly as yet seemed to provide any adequate answer; and in order to solve them he proposed 'a grand National Council consisting of six hundred persons (being the greatest number that can hear one another speak), propounded not to be a Parliament nor to make laws, but to give his Majesty advice and information only, concerning husbandry, buildings, manufacture, money, navigation, foreign commerce, American colonies, and the natural recolte and consumption of the people. This Council,' he said, 'might consist of two hundred persons to be chosen by his Majesty as the very best landed men in England, and who receive the greatest yearly rent out of their lands, over ​and above legal charges and incumbrances particularly lying upon the same, viz. jointure, dowers, annuities, pensions, rent charges and extents upon statutes, recognizances and judgments; as also mortgages, children's portions, &c.; with liberty to any person who thinks himself unduly excluded out of the said two hundred to apply to his Majesty for remedy, and that his Majesty may every seven years thereof renew and alter his said election, according to the changes which shall happen in the landed estates of those who were first chosen. All the freeholders of England (of which certain lists are to be made and determined at the general assizes of each county) may choose one hundred persons out of themselves (whereas there are now chosen but ninety-three for the House of Commons) to make up the aforementioned 200 to be 300, and consequently half of the whole assembly of 600. "Whereas there are now about 9,600 parishes, whereof some are enormously greater than others, it is humbly propounded to cut and divide so many of the said 9,600 parishes as may make the even number of 12,000 precincts or districts, and that in each district all the males of above twenty-one years old may meet upon a certain day to choose a certain person who may represent them as to the ends above mentioned, and that forty of the said 12,000 may meet at 300 convenient places (suppose seven days after their election) to elect 300 members for the Grand Council to make up 600 for the whole as aforesaid. The rules, orders, and methods of debate to be the same in this assembly, as in the present House of Commons.'
'Of all the Men in England of 21 years old,' he saw that 'although they have all Right and Capacity to be made Members of either House of Parliament, yet scarce one-fifth part of them have power to elect Members for the House of Commons; that 70,000 Persons, called London, send but eight Members, while 7 other persons send two, and some counties of equal Bigness and Wealth send ten times as many as others.' This also had to be altered. There were also a great number of other urgent administrative and financial questions, but the immediate 'Work for the ​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.'
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. p$^r$ 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 ​mixed with those Acts as should mend the condition of all men.'
A few days later he wrote to Southwell: 'I have been at Windsor, where I had private and ample conference with the King, who told me expressly and voluntarily that he would neither break the Act of Navigation in England, nor the Settlement of Ireland; that hee would never persecute for conscience, nor raise his revenue, but as the wealth of his subjects increased. I also conversed with some Grandees, who do seem to go close hal'd, and not quartering according to the best advantage of that wind, which so blew from the King's gracious mouth. For my part I find the storme so great, that I cannot lay my side to it, but am forced to spoon away before it, without carrying a knot of saile, and yet believe that all things may do pretty well, if God be not very angry with us.'
During one of these interviews the King, in confidence, gave Sir William copies of two papers found in the late King's private chest, explaining the reasons which had induced Charles, and also the Duchess of York, to adopt the Roman Catholic faith. On another occasion he visited the King in his camp at Hounslow. There he found assembled a formidable force, which had at once become an object of suspicion. Sir William would, however, appear to have formed a favourable opinion of the sincerity of the King's professions that what he desired in England was a measure, intended no doubt primarily to benefit the Roman Catholics, but to be made feasible by the inclusion of the Nonconformists. He was, however, unfavourably impressed by the atmosphere of the Royal Court, and could gain no clear view as to what plan the King had to secure toleration in Ireland, if the government passed into the hands of the Roman Catholic majority.
'To leave our mimicks and ridicules,' he wrote to Southwell, 'what do you say to our lands in Ireland; to the ​army, the Judges, Privy Council, and Parliament, which are like shortly to be there? Pray write me a word in earnest concerning the matter. How can we talk of being facetious, till we have burnt a candle upon these funest and lugubrious points?' 'If the Irish,' he proceeded, 'be now to the British as 8 to 1, and if they should be all armed as an army and militia, and the English disarm'd, and if the Irish should be the predominant party in all Corporations, may not the Kingdome be delivered up to the French? And that it would be, depends upon the motives on each side to do the same; which I leave to the consideration of our superiors, whom God direct.'
Apparently with the royal sanction, he drew up some propositions on the civil administration of Ireland for submission to the Lord Deputy, for as such Tyrconnel was already regarded. They covered the points with which the reader is already familiar: the satisfaction of the leading Irish Roman Catholics by large grants from the Crown estates in England; the interchange of population by the encouragement of emigration from England to Ireland and from Ireland to England; the protection of the Roman Catholic minority in England and the Protestant minority in Ireland; complete liberty of conscience in both countries; and a statutory Union with an alteration of the representation and of the basis of taxation; and many other reforms in Church and State directly affecting both the prosperity of the people and that of the Royal Exchequer, which Sir William was never weary of insisting could be shown to be identical interests. He believed it would be possible by these means to turn the Irish into loyal subjects in nine years. Renewing apparently the set of proposals which he had made in the latter years of Charles, he undertook to carry out several of his own plans, if ​appointed Surveyor-General of the kingdom, and placed at the head of a statistical office, to combine the functions now discharged by the Ordnance Survey and the Census, and he once more set out the advantages which would thereby accrue to the Revenue and the nation.
His plans were the occasion of a squib, in which he was described as enumerating the heads of an agreement with the King for a reform to be introduced into every public department, and concluding by demanding that all necessary powers were indeed to be lodged in the King and his Ministers, but that the partners 'by an under hand writing were to convey them all to Sir William Petty, and to make him President.' 'Dear Cousin,' Southwell wrote to him from Kings-Weston, 'I have read yours of the fourth and have read the papers enclosed, which are either for transplanting or propagation. The things are mighty, and call unto my mind that when Paul reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come, Felix trembled. You know Columbus made the first offer to us of his golden world and was rejected; that the Sybil's books, though never so true, were undervalued; and Mr. Newton's demonstrations will hardly be understood. The markett rule goes far in everything else. Tantum valet quantum vendi potest. Soe altho' I do not suspect you can be mistaken in what you assert, since you enumerate so many solid as well as bitter objections, yet the dullness of the worlde is such, the opposers soe many, your fellow-labourers so few, and your age so advanced, that I reckon the work insuperable.
'However, I am glad that your thoughts are all written down for posterity, as favoured by accidents it may cultivate what the present age neglects; and in the meantime since you purpose to entertaine the King on these subjects, lett me advertise you what his goode brother once said at the Councill Board "that he thought you one of the best Commissioners of the Navy that ever was, that you had vast knowledge in many things; but," said he, "the man will not be contented to be excellent but is still ayming at impossible ​things." You know I am in possession of saying any thing to you that comes into my head, but this I say for your service: that being already advanced in his Majesty's opinion for things that he comprehends, you doe not growe lesse by going beyond his reason.'
Sir William, however, remained unconvinced. 'Standing upon mine own integrity,' he tells his friend, 'I will (1) except against several of your doctrines.(2) I will plead not guilty to some of the faults you suspect me of.(3) Others I can excuse and attenuate.(4) I will shew how my practice doth and hath complied with many of your documents.(5) I will heartily call peccavi upon most of the other points.'
But Sir William had soon to recognise that rougher hands than those of the economist and the statesman were wanted by the King for the task in hand. As might have been anticipated, ideas of administrative reform and religious toleration found no supporters in Tyrconnel and his military and ecclesiastical coadjutors. The mask was thrown off and the party of moderation rudely brushed aside, notwithstanding the advice of the Pope, Innocent XI., who took a truer measure than his English advisers of the strength of the Roman Catholic party, and dreaded the supremacy of France in Europe, which an alliance between James and Louis XIV. would have secured. It was now hardly concealed that the expulsion of the Protestants was the object of the new Irish Administration. Surrounded by Jesuits, influenced by the Queen, and probably failing in health, the King abandoned the English in Ireland to the vengeance of his importunate and overbearing Deputy. Louis XIV. had given up the Huguenots to the tender mercies of Madame de Maintenon and his confessor. The example was attractive, but James forgot that the circumstances were not the same.
Sir William had now begun reluctantly to realise how extreme was the danger, though he still obstinately hoped something from the good intentions of the King. Caution and a careful observation of the times were, he thought, for ​the moment the best policy. If necessary, though now an old man, he would try to begin life over again and seek to restore his fortunes. But for the first time in his life he began to lose hope about the prospect in Ireland, where all seemed in utter jeopardy.
'Let us have patience,' he wrote to Southwell in October, 'till our browne necks returne into fashion; nor venture upon any necklaces that will strangle us, and that we cannot unty when we please.' 'I am sorry the Rocks whereupon I have formerly split, must be shaken down by a general earthquake. The posts which supported us were rotten and painted; you must not wonder that they should moulder away.... For, briefe, I am beginning the world again, and endeavour instead of quarrelling with the King's power, to make him exert all he hath for the good of his subjects.' In the course of the next month he writes: 'I tell you again, that I heard nothing from the King contrary to what he was before graciously pleased to tell me, concerning the settlement; but say as I formerly said that others go very close hal'd upon that wind. "When I told you I would begin the world anew, I meant that I would take a new flight, and not any more from Irish grounds. I behave myself towards great men as cautiously as I can, and repent of my former methods.... I have matters under my hands; and do study how to proceed humbly with them.... The King told me last week that my Essays were answering in France; and I am told by several others that the mightiest hammers there are battering my poor anvill &c. In all these cases I hear an old voyce, "Tu ne cede malis, sed contra audentior ito."' 'I do not wonder,' he wrote to Southwell in the same month, 'at your apprehensions, because I take them to be very like my owne. I cannot tell what to say that may sweeten them. I find no man doubts but that the Chief Government of Ireland, the Benches, the Officers, and soldiers also of the Army, the Commissioners and Collectors of the Revenue, the Sheriffs and Justices of the Peace, the Magistrates of Corporations, and the ​officers of the Courts and Christ Church itself, to say nothing of the college of Dublin, will shortly be all in one way. Whether toleration be intended to Dissenters, I know not; but find some bitterly against it, altho' the King hath most expressly told myself the contrary, with as good arguments as can be used for that purpose. It is manifest that a Parliament will be called there. It is said that a New Warrant will be forthwith brought against the Charter of Dublin, and consequently against many more, to make all things fit for "the great work." Some also say that Poynings' Law shall be dispens'd with, and bills directly pass'd as here. I hear that 2 or 3 of the new form'd Irish regiments shall be brought hither; and that 3 English regiments shall in lieu of them be carried from hence thither. We hear that many of the most considerable persons of Ireland will come away with my Lord Clarendon; and that there are thousands coming away already; the violences in Ireland of several sorts being so many and unpunished; the consideration whereof doth make poor people even of London weep. Dear Cousen, when I first treated with a great man, things were not near this rapidity; but I saw an Eddy in that Tide (tho' indeed strong enough), wherewith with pains one might rowe; and I had prepared oars for that purpose, that is to say, innocent and beneficiall designs for the good of mankind, which I had contrived should have been driven on by the same current that was likely to drive on worser things for myself. I yet stand fair with many, but fear as I told you in my last, that my cakes will never be baked.'
In January 1687 Rochester was deprived of the office of Lord High Treasurer, and Clarendon of the Lord-Lieutenancy of Ireland. Tyrconnel became both Lord Deputy and Commander-in-Chief, with powers practically unlimited. The English Parliament had been prorogued in November 1686, and had not since met. James decided not only to introduce religious toleration and freedom of worship, but also to abolish tests, and to carry out all these steps at once by virtue of the royal prerogative, ' making no doubt,' as he said ​in the royal proclamation which announced his policy, 'of the concurrence of the two Houses of Parliament, when we shall think it convenient for them to meet.' Meanwhile the dispensing power would be exercised to relieve all persons coming within the penalties of the Acts. In Scotland a bolder policy still was adopted. There the royal prerogative was claimed as sufficient to deal finally with all such questions. In Ireland Tyrconnel was given free powers to pack the Parliament which was about to be summoned, and secure a favourable verdict as a preliminary to still larger measures.
In the expressions of the fateful Declaration of Indulgence issued by the King the echo of some of Sir William's economic ideas may perhaps be detected. The Declaration states the King's unalterable resolution to grant freedom of conscience for ever to all his subjects, rendering merit, and not a compliance with the Test Act, the condition of the tenure of office; experience had shown the impossibility of constraining conscience, and that people ought not to be forced in matters of mere religion; and liberty of conscience would add to the wealth and prosperity of the nation, and give to it what Nature designed it to possess—the commerce of the world.
In July 1687 the English Parliament was dissolved, and it was determined to spare no effort to bring together a more subservient assembly to carry out the royal wishes. The words of the royal Declaration were fair, and if the questions involved had affected England only, it is possible that the result might have been different from what it proved to be. But events in Ireland decided the issue in England. It soon became clear that there, whatever the private views and wishes of the King might be, Tyrconnel was the real ruler, and that the King was powerless to protect the lives and property of his Protestant subjects from the vengeance of their hereditary enemies. Nor could it escape attention that, even in England, Roman Catholics were everywhere being promoted ​to places of trust and emolument, from the highest to the lowest, in numbers altogether out of proportion to their position in the State, and that a huge army was being collected in the neighbourhood of London, at a moment when there was no reasonable apprehension of a foreign war, and therefore with every appearance of being either intended to overawe the country, or of being used to co-operate with France in a fresh attack upon Holland—which, if successful, would be followed by the suppression of Protestant liberties in England. Meanwhile the country was full of refugees flying from persecution in France, and the conviction slowly forced itself on the public mind that, whatever might have been the case in 1678, a conspiracy against the liberties of the nation was now on foot, and that the King was conniving at it, if not himself the actual instigator.
* ↑ 'Notes of a Conversation between the King and Sir John Knatchbull,' April 1688, Adversaria Miscellanea of Sir John Perceval, Brit. Mus. Ad. Papers, 27, 989.
* ↑ August 22, 1685.
* ↑ August 29, 1685.
* ↑ April 1, 1686.
* ↑ Burnet, History of his Own Times, iii. 72.
* ↑ September 8, 1685.
* ↑ (1) Speculum Hiberniæ: or, a Review of what has been lately Said and Suggested concerning the Titles of Estates in Ireland; of the Civil Wars there between the Years 1641 and 1653; and of His Majesty's Restoration; the Court of Claims, &c, 1686. (2) The Elements of Ireland and of its Religion, Trade, and Policy, 1687. (3) Another View of the same Matter, by Way of Dialogue between A. and B. (4) Another more True and Exact Narrative of the Settlement and Sale of Ireland. Nelligan MS., British Museum. See Preface. Amongst the Petty MSS. are several papers which appear to be the rough drafts of the above.
* ↑ June 2, 1686.
* ↑ June 5, 1686.
* ↑ June 9, 1686.
* ↑ Petty MSS. Notes on Religious Toleration.
* ↑ 'Ten tooles for making the Crown and State of England more powerful than any other now in Europe.' Petty MSS.
* ↑ 'Heads of a Treatise proposing a union between England and Ireland.' Petty MSS.
* ↑ An Opinion of what is Possible to be Done, 1685. Petty MSS.
* ↑ To Southwell, July 13, 1686.
* ↑ September 30, 1686.
* ↑ Copies are amongst the Petty MSS. See Clarke, Life of James II., p. 9, Orig. Mem.; Evelyn's Diary, October 2, 1685; and Macaulay's Hist., ii. 44 (ed. 1856), on the general subject.
* ↑ May 12, 1686.
* ↑ September 19, 1686.
* ↑ A great number of papers, mostly in a very fragmentary condition, exist on these topics amongst the Petty MSS. The most important are: 'The Scope and Designe of the Papers delivered to the Earl of Tyrconnel, 12th May, 1686, in Order to an Accommodation;' 'Papers concerning Sir William Petty's Project of getting Himself Appointed Surveyor General and Accomptant General of all his Majesty's Dominions.'
* ↑ Petty MSS.
* ↑ August 13, 1686.
* ↑ December 13, 1686.
* ↑ October 26, 1686.
* ↑ November 6, 1686.
* ↑ The Essays on Political Arithmetick, Second Series.
* ↑ November 1686.
* ↑ January 18, 1687.
* ↑ See the text of the two Declarations of April 4 and April 27, as given in Cardwell's Documentary Annals of the Reformed Church of England, ii. 359-66.