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

CHAPTER III
DR. PETTY AND HENRY CROMWELL
1658-1660
Dr. Petty's work was now over, with the exception of the distribution of the 'dubious lands.' The survey was complete, and, in the statutory acceptation of the term, all were technically 'satisfied.' But considering the nature of the operation, the number of the claimants, and all the circumstances of the case, it can hardly be a matter of surprise that many were very far from being contented. From the very outset, the soldiers had been anything but unanimous in approving the plan of paying them with Irish land; and, partly owing to their discontent, and partly through pecuniary distress, they had commenced selling their debentures at cheap rates to the officers, who eagerly welcomed the opportunity of becoming large landed proprietors. Many also of the officers, and some of the most influential, were discontented with the results of the allotment in their own particular cases. Some impugned the ways of Providence, others blamed Dr. Petty. Discontent was especially prevalent among the Munster regiments, the lot of which had partly fallen in the inhospitable regions of Kerry. At an early stage in the distribution, a struggle had begun between the Committees respectively representing these regiments and those whose lot had fallen in Leinster and Ulster, as to the assignment of certain properties. The leader on the Munster side amongst ​the officers was Sir Hierome Sankey. He is described by Wood as having been educated at Cambridge; 'but being more given to manly exercises than logic and philosophy, he was observed by his contemporaries to be a boisterous fellow at cudgelling and football playing,—though a candidate for holy orders—and more fitt in all respects to be a rude soldier than a scholar or man of polite parts. In the beginning of the rebellion, he threw off his gown, and took up arms for the Parliament; and soon after became a captain, a Presbyterian, an Independent, a preacher, and I know not what besides,' says Wood, who goes on to relate that, when the war ceased and the King's cause declined, Sir Hierome obtained a fellowship at All Souls College from the committee of visitors. He was proctor in 1649, and officiated as such when Fairfax was made a Doctor of Civil Law, but 'retained his military employment, and went in the character of a commander to Ireland.' There he served with great distinction, and was amongst the earliest grantees of forfeited lands, as upon a Parliamentary order of October 22, 1652, the Commissioners for the affairs of Ireland ordered a survey to be made of the manor of Kilmainham in Leinster in his favour. He next declared himself an Anabaptist, and trusting partly to his own pushing temperament, and partly to the favour which he enjoyed with the extreme fanatics of the army owing to his new profession of faith, he attempted to obtain an order for rejecting three thousand acres which had fallen to him by lot, and for enabling him to elect arbitrarily the same quantity elsewhere, 'a thing,' says Dr. Petty, 'never before heard of.' This demand the Commissioners refused, and Sir Hierome determined to have his revenge, especially on Dr. Petty, whom he considered mainly responsible for the refusal.
Other circumstances besides these militated to bring Sir Hierome into collision with Dr. Petty and to embitter the quarrel. Not only was Sir Hierome an Anabaptist, but ​he appears to have belonged to a peculiar section of that body, which professed itself able to cure illness by the laying on of hands, and was persuaded that the fumes of their own bodily humours were the emanations of God's spirit. On these claims Dr. Petty was constantly pouring a boundless ridicule from the point of view of medical science. His 'Reflections' are full of grotesque anecdotes of the spiritual claims and antics of Sir Hierome and his coadjutors. Thus he relates how a Mr. Wadman, being in a fit of melancholy, owing to the death of his wife, was visited by Sir Hierome, who, taking notice of some odd expressions let fall by the patient, came to the conclusion that Wadman was possessed: 'that is, to speak in the language of Sir Hierome's order, enchanted.' Sir Hierome thereupon undertook to cast out the devil. At the end of every period of his conjurations, he would ask Mr. Wadman 'how he did,' to which the invariable reply was, 'All one.' 'At length, Sir Hierome being weary of his vain exorcisms, was fain to say that Wadman's devil was of that sort which required fasting as well as prayer to expell it. Whereupon the spectators, observing how plentifully Sir Hierome had eaten and tippled that evening, did easily conceive the cause why the devil did not stir.' Sir Hierome claimed earlier in life to have successfully exorcised a celebrated walking spirit named 'Tuggin,' 'between whom and him there were great bickerings;' but that struggle, Dr. Petty maliciously reminded his adversary, was when he was aspiring to holy orders in the Established Church, and he told him that he might consequently be more correctly described as a 'curate adventurer' than a 'knight adventurer.' For these jibes and jeers Dr. Petty had to pay. All through the later stages of the distribution of the army lands, Dr. Petty describes himself, alluding possibly to the early prowess in manly sports of Sir Hierome—as 'having been like a restless football, kickt up and down by the dirty feet of a discontented multitude,' and as 'having been tyed all day long to the stake, to be baited for the most part by irrational creatures.... ​'His adversaries were persons of extraordinary pertinacity, sometimes raising up one, sometimes another evil report, sometimes asserting one kind of crime, sometimes another; sometimes accusing him before the Council, sometimes causing him to be convened before the general and chief officers; then setting up a court in the Green Chamber at Dublin, under the pretence of deciding controversies between soldier and soldier; and sometimes designing to trouble him at law, wherein they knew he had noe experience or dexterity to defend himself.'
After the dissolution of the second Parliament called by the Protector, in 1658, the struggle between him and the Anabaptists continued, and the favour shown to Dr. Petty by Henry Cromwell was a sufficient reason for his being the mark of the attacks of the religious fanatics. He was censured by the old surveyors, the protégés of Worsley, many of whom he had had to dismiss as incompetent, the evidence against them being only too clear. Then 'another more dreadful clamour arose,' that he had employed drunken surveyors; and that through their drunkenness unprofitable land, especially in Kerry, had been set out as profitable land to the detriment of the soldiery, and to his own advantage. His foes declared him to be 'a Socinian, a Jesuit, and an atheist.' He, on the other hand, considered them as 'hypocrites, proud Pharisees and Ananiases, following Christ for loaves.' They accused him of having profited by his position as Commissioner to rob the army, to plunder the adventurers, and to defraud the State. He charged them with having wished to do so, and of having only failed through his own opposition.
Where open attack had failed, flattery, it was thought, might succeed, and his enemies now offered, as a pretended mark of distinction, to give him the command of a troop of horse, 'believing that being no soldier, he should soon fall into some misfortune, for which they would disgrace ​or punish him at a court martial of their own packing.' But the wary Doctor, knowing full well what was intended, refused the insidious honour and declined to be tempted with the prospect of enjoying military rank. A more agreeable distinction, however, awaited him, for at this moment, 'even,' as he says, 'when the cry of his adversaries was loudest,' he received the appointment at a salary of 400l. a year of Additional Clerk to the Council, and Private Secretary to the Lord Deputy, which title Henry Cromwell now at length assumed. The honour was evidently intended as a rebuke to his assailants.
'The access, however, of these new and more honourable trusts,' he relates, 'did but quench his fires with oyle, and provoked his ambitious adversaries to think of hewing down the tree uppon a twigg whereof he stood; so as by multiplying their surmises and clamours hee became the Robin Goodfellow and Oberon of the country; for as heretofore domestics in the country did sett on foot the opinion of Robin Goodfellow and the fairies, that when themselves had stolen junkets, they might accuse Robin Goodfellow of itt; and when themselves had been revelling at unreasonable hours of the night, they might say the fairies danced; and when by wrapping themselves in white sheets, they might go any-whither without opposition, upon the accompt of there being ghosts and walking spirits; in the same manner several of the Agents of the Army, when they could not give a good accompt of themselves to those that entrusted them, to say that Dr. Petty was the cause of the miscarriage was a ready and credible excuse.' ​And so on throughout the whole chapter. Whatever went wrong was the fault of Dr. Petty; for whatever went right small thanks were due to him: the disappointed accused him of being the cause of their disappointment; and the envious affected to believe he had been corrupted by those to whom the best lands had fallen.
As the surveyors themselves could not be proved to have been all either dishonest, incompetent, or drunkards, he was accused, notwithstanding the precautions he had taken, of having maliciously made them return unprofitable as profitable land, to increase his own gains, and when it was pointed out that special precautions had been taken to prevent this, his methods, it was said, were employed 'to obscure his gaines,' by puzzling and confounding the surveyors, and so making them amenable to his purposes. To some he was 'a juggler; to others he was 'Judas Iscariot;' to all the discontented alike he was the common enemy, to be denounced and hunted down as best they might, by force or by fraud, according to the circumstances of the hour.
The Anabaptists now commenced an organised attack on the Protector in England, and their influence made itself felt in Ireland in a general sense of trouble and unrest. 'It is the worms or vipers lying in the gutts of the Commonwealth,' Henry Cromwell wrote home to Lord Fauconberg, 'which have caused the frettings and gnawings you mention; and this I rather believe, because of the five hundred maggots which you say are now again busily crawling out of the excrements of Mr. Freak's corrupted church.' 'I never lived a more miserable life than now,' Dr. Petty wrote to Robert Boyle. But, supported as he was by Henry Cromwell, he could have continued to defy his enemies, if at this critical moment the death of the Protector had not altered the whole character of the political situation, and threatened to expose him to far more serious dangers than any which he had hitherto had to fear.
​'How hard it is,' Henry Cromwell wrote, on the arrival of the news of the illness of his father, to Secretary Thurloe, 'to reflect upon the consequences of his Highness' death, and yet cheerfully to kiss the rod! If wee may speak as men, if no settlement be made in his lifetime, can we be secure from the lusts of ambitious men? Nay, if he would declare his successor, where is that person of wisdom, courage, conduct, and, which is equivalent to all, reputation at home and abroad, which we see necessary to preserve our peace? Would not goode men feare one another and the worlde them? Would not the sons of Zeruiah bee to strong for us, and the wheell be turned upon us, even though the most wise and powerful single person could be chosen out? '
All the pent-up passions and jealousies, which had been kept under restraint by the stern determination of the deceased Protector to maintain the framework of a regular government, were now let loose. The pure Parliamentarians or Commonwealth men, most of whom had been in retirement since the dispersion of the Long Parliament, came forth from their hiding-places, believing that the future lay with them, and that the hour of real liberty was at length at hand. A struggle at once commenced between them and the adherents of the dead Protector; and both eagerly courted the army, in which Sankey and his Anabaptist allies were powerfully represented. The Fifth Monarchy men believed that the second advent of Christ was not far distant, and justified themselves by visions and by the ominous signs of the times. The Royalists, with a keen eye for the quarrels of their adversaries, believed the return of Charles II. to be a more probable event; and whether belonging to the Cavalier or Presbyterian section of the party, determined to miss no opportunity of embarrassing the Government. 'Great endeavours being used by some, upon the death of Oliver Protector, for a change of Government,' Dr. Petty writes with reference to this period, 'it was thought convenient to begin the ruin of that family, with pulling out the smaller pins of that frame wee were in.' One of those 'pins' the Doctor ​knew himself to be; and he noted the probability of the assembling of a very factious Parliament. Signs of coming trouble were soon apparent.
At the latter end of 1658, an anonymous pamphlet had been issued in Dublin, during the Doctor's absence in London, whither, as already seen, he had gone to attend the Committee of the Adventurers; and copies were sent to Secretary Thurloe and others. This pamphlet began by reciting how he 'had the opportunity of the Lord Deputy and Ladye's ear, as well as being his physician, and as complying with the then predominant party.' It compared Henry Cromwell to Henry VIII. and Dr. Petty to Cardinal Wolsey; and concluded with a long series of general charges of dishonesty and malversation. 'A simple and malicious paper, which truly I sett nothing by,' Thurloe wrote to Henry Cromwell. The latter at once referred it to a body of forty leading officers to examine, and these officers appointed a committee on the matter, which recommended the preparation of a reply by Dr. Petty and his colleagues on the Committee of Distribution, in the shape of an authentic book and record to show in detail what had been done with the army's security. An order to this effect was issued by the Irish Council on December 20, 1658, and it proceeded to appoint another committee, on which Sir Hierome himself, Gookin and King had places, to consider the matter.
The pamphlet had been inspired by, if it was not the actual work of Sir Hierome himself. The grievance specially put forward related to the liberties of the city of Limerick, the charge made being one to which Dr. Petty's connection with the family of the Protector gave a special colour; for these lands, then as now reputed amongst the best in Ireland, had been claimed by the Council as lying within the city, and had been principally allotted to the gentlemen of the Life ​Guard and the officers of the artillery train. A portion had been elected by Dr. Petty, with the consent of the Council, as part of his salary as Commissioner of Distributions, at the Act rates. Sir Hierome and his supporters contended that the Limerick lands ought to belong to one Colonel Wentworth, under the ordinary system of boxing, as forming part of the county which had been allotted to the soldiers. The old grievance in regard to the decision of the Council to pay part only of the actual value of the army claims, reserving the balance to help to clear off the debts of the Commonwealth and to pay the expenses of the survey, was also again brought forward, to impart an additional sting to an already sufficiently embittered contest.
Dr. Petty, considering the character of the attacks made upon him, and that it was generally put about that he was shortly to be arrested, 'and as in consequence there was nor table nor tavern in Dublin unprovided of a theame to discourse uppon for days together,' determined to carry the war into the enemy's camp. He therefore drew up his reply to show that, if accounts were to be strictly gone into, the State was still his debtor. A memorial to this effect he placed before the committee of officers, with facts and figures in support, as he had nothing to keep back and everything to gain by publicity. The committee referred it to Mr. Jeoffreys, a member of their own body, who appears to have been a professional accountant. His report being favourable to Dr. Petty, four of the committee, Mr. Roberts, Mr. King, Mr. Jeoffreys, and Vincent Gookin, drew up a report favourable to him; but the officers of the committee refused to sign it, because it pointed to the Doctor's having more land, which was against the intention of the army. Then, Sir Hierome alone dissenting, they drew up a counter report to that effect, and without making any charges of dishonesty or corruption. To the counter report the Doctor drew up ​an answer, and the dissentient officers again replied, when suddenly at this point the controversy was transferred by the action of Sir Hierome himself from Dublin to Westminster.
On January 27, 1659, the Parliament summoned by Richard Cromwell had met, and Ireland sent members to it. It had been the object of the late Protector to rally to himself the greatest possible number of members of the conservative classes of society, but as the majority of these were Royalists or Presbyterians, the choice was limited. Following the same line of policy, Thurloe now determined to try to strengthen their forces by the election 'of five or six good argumentative speakers.' Amongst others the name of Dr. Petty recommended itself to the managers, with those of Mr. William Temple, Mr. W. Domville, of Lincoln's Inn, Vincent Gookin, Sir A. Morgan, and Admiral Penn. Dr. Petty was accordingly returned as member for West Looe in Cornwall, and also for Kinsale. Vincent Gookin was returned for Youghal.
The following letter from Vincent Gookin to the Lord Deputy contains an interesting account of the humours of an Irish Election in 1659: —
Vincent Gookin to the Lord Deputy.
'May it please your Excellency. Having your Excellencyes free leave to attend this Parliament, or chuse another in my place, I pitcht upon Doctor Petty upon these grounds. 1st, hee is a person of excellent parts. 2ly, noe person I thinke in the 2 nations can doe more to the settlement of the army and adventurers than hee. 3ly, the good the army will certainly receive by his management of their affayres in the House, will convince them that they canot harme him without injuring themselves, and possibly that they doe ill if they love him not. 4thly, hee is (I humbly conceive) fit for such worke, and will goe through with it, which is too hard for such as I am and many others noe wiser than myselfe, to ​deale with. 5ly, his abillity and honesty, joyned with the good will and honesty of the other two Parliament men chosen for this county and the citty of Corke, will contribute much to the good of these places and make us love him who, I conceive, deserves it.
'When I came to Corke, I found my Lord Broghill had engaged some of the wisest of Corke Corporation, without the consent of the brethren and the freemen of the Citty, to chuse Lieut.-Col. ffoulkes; and that Bandon and Kinsale had in their owne courts chosen mee. Those of Corke and Youghall, on my desire to keepe themselves free, till they had consulted with the other townes about their members, bemoaned the losse of their liberty, but however those that were bound gave those that were not, encouragment to keepe their liberty, till they heard more from mee. From Corke I went to my Lord Broghill, desired his assistance, that Corke might be persuaded to chuse Doctor Petty, and Kinsale to chuse Pen. The last hee consented; to the first hee refused; alleadging it could not be done without dishonouring him, though I made noe question but to get Lieut.-Col. ffoulkes his consent to it, which if Lieut.-Col. ffoulkes should grant, his Lordship sayd hee would take very ill from him. Thereupon I gave up thinking to doe any thing in Corke, and returned to Kinsale and Bandon, propounded Doctor Petty to them, shewing them that their election of mee oblidged them to mee, and their chusing Doctor Petty, at my request oblidged him too; to which upon the arguments used by mee and their confidence in mee, they consented; provided if Corke and Youghall would chuse mee I would serve them, to which purpose they wrote a letter to those of Corke and Youghall, which I delivered them, and in open court told them that in performance of my engagment, I would serve them if they thought fit to chuse mee; but withall advized them to consider of their engagement, and that I desired it not from them, unless they thought fit; and untill that time I never told them or any of them, or any other, that I had any purpose to propound my selfe to heir election.
'This was Tuesday last in the morning. It was the ​Thursday before, that I was with my Lord Broghill, who in meane time wrote about 2 dozen of letters to Corke to engage them for ffoulkes, and had appointed particular agents to consult with every free man in the citty, which they did at the law offices and other such like eminent places. All this while I was not thought of, but when I came to be thus opposed, such a distraction grew that grieved mee. His Lordship upon this alarme came soe frighted to Corke, that hee prevented mee in shewing him how I intended his Lordship noe harme in it; and that his speaking but one word to the Kinsale and Bandon people, to have quieted mee of my engagment to stand for Corke and Youghall, had absolutely removed mee out of his way, who was as much afrayd of going to the Parliament as his Lordship was of my ellection. His Lordship as soone as hee came to Corke, and the solemnityes of his coming performed, went to the Court and there rayled upon mee and magnified his owne services. Wheather his Lordship did himselfe any good in it or mee hurt, others more indifferent to judge will ere long informe your Lordship.
'Upon the coming of the Bandon and Kinsale people to Corke, I desired them for quietness sake to free me from my engagment, which they, (unspeakably kind to mee in everything) granted, and thereupon I signified soe much to the citty: all which notwithstanding, I assure your Lordship that in the towne hall at the election of Lieut. Col. ffoulkes, his Lordship had with him but one alderman upon the bench and one in the crowd, and not above 30 of 400 freeholders in the citty at the election, but his Lordships owne people cryed up Lieut. Col. ffoulkes. And I doe profess to your Lordship that I did not in all that time by myselfe or any other in the least measure interpose in the election, or speake to one person on my behalfe, though his Lordship doubting mee, sent to their owne lodgings, for more than 100 of the freeholders, man by man, and engaged some: others refused. Thus much I have presumed to aquaint your Excellency, because I know his Lordship will endeavour to prejudice mee. There are many particular passages in the carrying on this business, by which when I have the honour to waite on your ​Excellency, I shall make it apeare that I designed the election of Doctor Petty, without offering in the least to prejudice his Lordships honour, or thuart his purpose, unless against Dr. Petty, which I confess I should have done, and did, and doe hope I have not done amisse in it. I know my Lord I have not bin in my Lord Broghill's favour these many yeares. Hee now tels the people but what I knew before: that hee is my enemy. I beseech your Lordship to suspend your judgment of this difference till you heare mee speake for my selfe, who am
'My Lord 'Your Lordships obedient and faythfull servant 'Vin. Gookin.
' Kinsale, Jan. 21, 1659.'
Having been elected for two places, Dr. Petty had to choose between them, and selected West Looe. Meanwhile, Sir Hierome had been elected for Woodstock, and at once sounded the note of attack.
Dr. Petty went to Westminster armed with a letter from the Lord Deputy to Secretary Thurloe. 'The bearer,' Henry Cromwell wrote, 'hath been my Secretary and Clerk of the Council, and is one whom I have known to be an honest and ingenious man. He is like to fall into some trouble from some who envy him. I desire you to be acquainted with him, and to assist him whenever he shall reasonably desire it. Great endeavours have been used to beget prejudices against him, but when you shall speak with him, he will appear otherwise.'
On March 24, 1659, Sir Hierome in his place in the House had already impeached Dr. Petty. 'I open,' he said, 'the highest charge against a member of this House that ever ​was; such news has not been of a long time: a high breach of trust. It is against a great person—the charge consists of several articles: (1) bribery; (2) imposing money and lands. He is both cook, caterer, and is Commissioner and Surveyor; has had the disposing of two million acres of lands. He is a man of great parts, and has greatly wronged them. His name is Dr. Petty.' He then proceeded to develop his charges.
A debate ensued, in the course of which the good service the Doctor had rendered to the State, and the vexatious proceedings to which he had already been exposed in Ireland, without any malpractices having been proved against him, were urged on his behalf by Sir A. Morgan and Mr. Annesley. Finally it was ordered, 'that William Petty, Doctor of Physic, a member of this House, be appointed to attend this House, on this day month, to answer the charge.'
On March 26 accordingly, Dr. Petty received a summons 'to attend the House' on April 21, together with a copy of certain articles brought into the House against him.' They were seven in number, and in substance contained a repetition of those against which he had been defending himself in Dublin, to which was added a mass of vague charges of dishonesty and corruption. The last article contained the sting of the whole matter: 'That he, the said Doctor, together with his fellow Commissioners, have totally disposed of the remaining part of the Army's security contrary to law, the debt still remaining, and chargeable on the State.'
Henry Cromwell watched the proceedings from Ireland with the deepest interest. 'On Friday,' Dr. Thomas Clarges wrote to him, 'Sir Hierome Sankey brought a charge into the House, of bribery and breach of trust against Dr. Petty, to which he set his hand; and, amongst other expressions, he told us he knew so well the danger of bringing a charge o that nature against a member of Parliament, that he would not have done it, but in confidence to make it good. Many of the Long Robe were against the receiving of it till it should ​have been digested into particulars, for the charge was general; but at last it was resolved he should be summoned to attend the House that day month; and I believe Sir Hierome finds the sense of the House so much inclined to particularizing his charges, that he is gone to Ireland, to enable him to do it; and yesterday he began his journey.... The speech Sir Hierome made before he declared his charge made the business seem very great; but when the thing itself was read, it made but little impression. Mr. Annesly told us the Doctor had been used to things of this nature, but never yet upon any examination could anything be fastened upon him, and he doubted not but he would acquit himself of this.'
Henry Cromwell, whom Dr. Petty describes as 'passionately affected with the hardships used towards him,' expressed his views on the subject to Secretary Thurloe by letter. 'I have heretofore told you,' he wrote, 'my thoughts of Dr. Petty, and I am still of the same opinion; and if Sir Hierome Sankey run him not down with number and noise of adventurers and such like concerned persons, I believe the Parliament will find him as I have represented him. He has curiously deluded me these four years, if he be a knave. I am sure the junto of them, who are most busie, are not men of the quietest temper. I doe not expect you will have leisure or see cause to appeare much for him. Wherefore this is only to let you understand my present thoughts of him. The activenesse of Robert Reynolds, and others, in this businesse, shows that Petty is not the only marke aimed at; but God's will be done in all things.'
On the day appointed, Thursday, April 21, Dr. Petty appeared in his place and Sir Hierome attempted to make good his charges. The rashness with which in the first instance they had been advanced, was evident from the prosecutor being now obliged to drop the most important of the original set of articles he had exhibited, six in number, and also three of the seven instances of misdoing which he ​had specified in Parliament, and he was driven by the demand of the House to condescend from mere generalities to some kind of particulars.
After he had spoken amid signs of much impatience, Dr. Petty replied in a speech of studied moderation. Having first commented on the vagueness of the charges, and the entire absence of anything approaching to specific counts in the huge indictment and the total lack of evidence, he described the difficulty of the task he had had to perform, the grasping character of many of the men he had had to satisfy, and the impossibility of not making some enemies in so vast an undertaking. He then insisted that the lands he had got had become his, either as direct payment for his work, or as purchases legitimately made by the permission of the Council, after the other claimants had been satisfied; and he again asserted that, if a strict account were to be taken, the State would be found to be still his debtor, and that he had nothing to conceal.
'I never,' he said, 'was surveyor by office, but undertaker by contract, and rather a contriver of the way and method how many surveyors should work, than a surveyor myself.... I never meddled with leases or debentures till this surveyorship, such as it was, was at an end; and then, and when the distribution also was over, I got an express and legal leave to buy more debentures than I did.... I confess, Sir,' he went on, 'there is a singularity in the modes of one or two of my satisfactions, but this singularity is a prejudice to no man but myself; a convenience to some; and an advantage to the State. The practices I have used as Commissioner and Surveyor,' he continued, 'are such as I can glory in; that is to say to have admeasured 22 Counties in thirteen months' time, with the chaine and instrument; to have done this by the ministry of about one thousand hands, without any suit of law, either with my superiors, or with ​them; to have maintained this survey stiff and staunch against the impugnation of some thousand diligent fault finders; to have freed myself and my sureties by the consent and mediation of forty-five officers of the Army; a greater number, Mr. Speaker, than usually voucheth any Act called the Army's; to have assigned satisfaction for above twenty thousand debentures, as that admitted of no dropping and changing afterwards; and so as a slight copy out of our book is accepted in Courts of Justice as good evidence, merely by virtue of the natural justice and validity whereupon it stands; to have done this under the eye of the chief authority, without ever receiving any check or reproofe for what was done; or without being bid so much as to take heed, or do so no more; and, which is more than all, Mr. Speaker, that God gave me courage to oppose the greatest persons, though always with due respect to their condition, merely to obtain strictness of rule; although those worthy persons have afterwards accompted our severity their security, and have thanked us for it. The truth of it is, Mr. Speaker, this kind of severity to those that could not bear it but made us enemies; whereas corrupt partiality would have made us a kind of friends; and this is not the course of corrupt and wicked ministers.'
The House of Commons seems to have been inclined to regard Sir Hierome and his charges with considerable impatience. Possibly they had heard of Mr. Wadman and of 'Tuggin.' The accounts of the debate suggest the reflection that Parliamentary human nature in the days of the Commonwealth was much as it is now. Members begin rising to order and asking Mr. Speaker: 'I wonder you, Sir, so much forget yourself as to hearken to private quarrels, and neglect the public.' Then, 'the House fell a talking with one another.' Then somebody moves that 'the gentleman bring his charge in writing,' and so on. Eventually the House, 'after that they had tryed by interrupting and downright jeering Sir Hierome to stop his mouth, did in order to be rid of him order that he should put his charges into writing, and that ​the complaints he made of the retention by Dr. Petty of certain maps and plotts, which he asserted ought to have been deposited with the others, with the Surveyor General, should be referred to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, to deal with according to law.'
These maps were the 'originalls,' or first editions, of the maps of the forfeited lands with which, it has been seen, Dr. Petty was himself dissatisfied, and corrected editions of which he deposited in the Surveyor-General's office against the distribution; and also the rough sketches of the smaller 'plott' maps of the allotments as set out to each claimant. All these he claimed to be his own private property; but he offered to part with them at reasonable rates, if his adversaries thought they could be of the smallest practical use to them, or to anybody else.
The day following Dr. Petty's speech Parliament was dissolved. The danger for the moment was over, and he at once made for Ireland. 'Dr. Petty is all at large,' Lord Fauconberg wrote in cypher to Henry Cromwell, who probably feared he might be forcibly detained. He was gone to meet General Fleetwood and confer with him before returning to Ireland. On his way thither he wrote to Henry Cromwell:—
'May it please your Excellency.—Sir Hierome beeing now a very great man and one of ye Committee of Safety, did in a manner command mee to stay here, declaring his pleasure to have mee presented another way, &c. Neverthelesse when nothing else hind'red I came from London without his leave. Your Excellency will have fresher newes by the post than any I can write. "Wee overtooke a Troop sent into Wales for what new purpose I know not. Gr. Henry Pierce and Lieut.Col. Stephens are here at Neston. Majr. Aston upon the way. People take the late transactions very patiently. I hope I shall ​be permitted to proceed with my Vindicacion at Dublin, if this be a time for any particular busines lesse then the preservacion of the whole.
'I remain 'May it please your Excellency 'Your Excellency's most obedient and faithful servant 'Wm. Petty.
'Sir Ant. Morgan thinks of retiring to Tame Park this summer, but is at present at Chelsey, 'Neston, 5° May 59.'
Dr. Petty brought with him to Dublin a message from General Fleetwood, urging the Lord Deputy to come over at once for consultation on the perilous situation of their affairs. Henry Cromwell, however, thought it was impossible to desert the helm of Government in Ireland, though conscious that they both might at any moment be swept away by the rising storm, and he resolved to send over Dr. Petty again to state his views.
In May the restored Rump Parliament met, and on the 26th of the month the Republican party obtained the resignation of Richard Cromwell. They also passed a resolution calling on Henry Cromwell to come over to London at once to report. Dr. Petty had meanwhile left for England, the bearer of a confidential letter to Richard Cromwell, containing the Lord Deputy's views on the situation, and of the following letter to General Fleetwood, evidently written under a great sense of discouragement:—
Henry Cromwell to General Fleetwood.
'I received yours of the 7th instant, whereby and by divers other letters, I take notice of the votes in Parliament concerning my coming to England. That news has so many odd circumstances, and such animadversions are made upon it, as I think it much concerns me to know the meaning with all the ​speed I can. To which purpose I have sent the bearer, Dr. Petty, unto you, as one whom I can best trust, now my nearest concernments are at stake. Wherefore I desire you to show your kindness to me in being free and plain with him, as to such advice as you think concerns my preservation, (for I am well contented to aim at nothing else), and especially how I shall behave myself in reference to the summonses for my coming over, when I receive them. I have made so good use of my time, as I have not money to bring me. Pray give the bearer access to you upon my account; he does not use to be tedious or impertinent. It concerns me to have one that I can trust, to have such an access to you. I hope that you will not look upon him, as to me, under the character and representation that Sir Hierome Sankey and some others may give of him; but rather as one, that hath been faithful and affectionate unto me, and I may say unto yourself also; and one who I think, notwithstanding all that is said, is a very honest man. I shall not trouble you with much more. He can best acquaint you with what concerns myself, upon which single account I have gotten him to come for England. As for the public differences, I never perceive him forward or busy in any.
'Dear brother, these are times of tryall, both as to our own hearts and our friends.'
When Dr. Petty arrived in London, he found the Republican reaction at full height. A general onslaught had commenced on the Cromwellian party, which was driven from place and power. Henry Cromwell was recalled from Ireland, and Ludlow, with two other Parliamentary Commissioners, was sent over to replace him. Dr. Petty was dismissed from all his appointments as a matter of course. The Parliament was overawed by the officers of the army, and Sankey became one of the most prominent and violent of their mouthpieces in the meetings at Wallingford House. Through his friends in ​Parliament he at once recommenced his attack on Dr. Petty; but with no great success, as, although the tribunal to which he now appealed was far more favourable to him, he only succeeded in getting the whole matter once more referred back to the Parliamentary Commissioners for Ireland. He next appears as one of the military junto which called together the Committee of Public Safety, and helped Lambert to drive out the Rump. Then, believing himself to be at last master of the situation, he immediately threatened to detain Dr. Petty in London by force; but Dr. Petty availed himself of the general confusion to escape to Dublin, which, of the two cities, was then the safer place to abide in.
Sankey soon after left London to command the regiments from Ireland in Lambert's army in the North of England. Thence, after vainly attempting to get Dr. Petty sent over a prisoner to England, he plied him with threatening messages, assuring him that the army would support the Brigade's proposals and his own complaint, and that he would show no quarter. These threats were, however, nullified by the series of events which, beginning with the reinstatement of the Rump by Monk, the overthrow of Lambert and the recall of the ejected members of the Long Parliament, ended in the restoration of the King, which had for sometime past been generally recognised as the only way out of the existing confusion.
In another field, however, Sir Hierome, during the brief supremacy of the Rump, was able to aim a successful blow at his antagonist. On August 9, 1659, it is recorded in the books of Brasenose College that Dr. Petty was deprived of his Fellowship. His long absences in Ireland, and, still more, his acquisition of landed property, were solid grounds for urging that he was now disqualified; and it is perhaps not too much to surmise that the watchful eye of the militant Fellow of All Souls took care that, in an age singularly lax on these matters, the disqualification in question should be observed, at least at Brasenose.
After the fall of Lambert, Dr. Petty, though freed from all immediate fear of Sir Hierome and his Anabaptist allies, ​determined to appeal to the tribunal of public opinion; and published a short pamphlet entitled 'A Brief of the Proceedings between Sir Hierome Sankey and the Author,' and also the little book already quoted in the course of this narrative, entitled 'Reflections on Certain Persons and Things in Ireland.' In these works he unveils, from their very commencement, the whole of the doings of Sir Hierome and his adviser Worsley. His leading adversaries, he points out, were a corrupt clique of Anabaptists, hostile to the Cromwell family for refusing to be governed by them, and to himself because of his views on religion and his perhaps imprudent satires. 'Jews, Christians and Mahomedans,' he says, 'notwithstanding their vast differences, do not make so much noise and squabble as the subdivided sectarians do, their animosities being so much the greater, by how much their differences are smaller. Upon which grounds some with too much truth, as well as too much looseness, have pronounced that gathering of churches may be termed listing of soldiers.'... 'melancholy, jealous, discontented and active spirits,' he goes on, 'who find fault with the administration of the Survey, as they do with the Sacraments, and with the distributing of land as well as dividing the word; carrying them as fiercely to pull down Dr. Petty as the Protector or the Priests,' 'and to be esteemed as worms and maggots in the guts of the Commonwealth.'
In regard to the general charges of bribery and corruption advanced by Sir Hierome in Parliament and brought before the Irish Commissioners, he dwells with great satisfaction on their discrepancies. He also points out that those which had survived to be brought forward in Parliament had not a shred of evidence to support them, and were not in the report which had been made in Ireland by the Court of Officers appointed to examine the matter. He then urges that no suspicion had ever been suggested against him in his offices of Clerk to the Council and Private Secretary to the Lord Deputy, offices in which his opportunities were enormous and ​the chances of detection slight; that General Fleetwood, the predecessor of Henry Cromwell, had as steadily defended his reputation as Henry Cromwell himself; that the world was asked to believe that he had been guilty of corruption in matters where detection was almost certain, and had not been guilty of it where detection was improbable; and that he had succeeded not only in deceiving his colleague, Sir Thomas Herbert, Clerk to the Council, but also his colleagues on the Commission.
In regard to the charge of arbitrarily withholding lands from the army, which was the principal count, his reply was the simple and obvious one: that the decision to withhold the lands in question from the general distribution was a decision of the Council, and not his own; and was made in conformity with law; and that he personally had no kind of responsibility for it. As to his having chosen his own satisfaction from these lands, he again asserts his own right to be paid somehow for the immense work he had done, and that the decision to pay him in land and in this manner was also an act of the Council done in conformity with the Statute, and one highly convenient to the State, at a moment when there was an absolute dearth of ready money in the Treasury, while land was going a-begging. At that time indeed men bought as much land for ten shillings in real money as at a later date yielded the same sum annually above the quit rent. As to his having subsequently bought debentures and bought them under market rates, which Sir Hierome had mentioned to prejudice him in the eyes of the House, he points out that, in the first place, it did not lie with either Sir Hierome or Worsley to complain, because they had themselves dealt largely in purchases of land from the distressed soldiers at very low rates, contrary to the express provisions of the Act of 1653; while he had himself not entered the market till after those prohibitions were no longer operative, and as a rule had dealt with the debenture brokers, and not with the original allottees of land, so as to place himself beyond the ​suspicion of bringing pressure to bear on the distressed soldiery individually, as long as the latter were still themselves the holders of land debentures. He concludes with an elaborate calculation to show that, without ever meddling with the surveys at all, he might have acquired a far larger fortune by simply following the example of others and investing his own small savings in Irish land debentures at the current market rates. As to the criticisms which had been made that he was unduly satirical in his treatment of some of the claimants, he admits it; but pleads that he was 'forced to restrain the growing impertinences of some, with very short answers, and to nip the unreasonableness of others, perhaps with a jest, when serious answers would not suffice. It came to pass in consequence that persons so dealt with would think themselves extreamly injured and abused, especially when the same jest was used and repeated upon them by others afterwards.' 'Myself, in such their heats and mistakes,' he says, 'was rendered as an insulting and insolent fellow, and one not having due respect to the officers and others who had business with me. And this most frequently happened from those who, trusting to the sharpness of their own wits, would first attaque me with jeers, but being replied upon beyond their expectations, and deservedly laught at by the standers-by, would grow angry, and reek their revenge at other weapons, like gamesters; who—out of the high opinion they have that fortune is bound to favour them—venture to play, but when they find it otherwise, snatch up their stakes, and betake themselves to scurrility and violence. Moreover, when I had to do at this sport with many together at once, all those who were not themselves toucht, would encourage this jocularity by their complaisant laughing, on my side; but yet when they happened to receive a shot themselves, would seem no less enraged than he whom alone they intended as a sacrifice to mirth and laughter.' His conduct in this respect he acknowledges may have been imprudent. 'For what they say about my satire I accept it,' he says, addressing the imaginary correspondent to whom the 'Reflections' are a reply; 'but those versipelles, ​Sankey and Worsley, have shrouded themselves under all parties, and have done scurvy acts to advance every rising interest. I could not therefore hit these vermin without beating the bushes wherein they skulked.' And he then roundly accuses both Worsley and Sankey, interspersing his charges with a good deal of rather Rabelaisian wit, of having attempted to induce him to become a party to several doubtful transactions to their own advantage, in regard to lands at Clontubride bridge and Lismalin; 'indeed,' he says, 'the whole body of future proprietors were always forward with bribes to tempt me.'
But, although confessing the dangers he had brought on himself by the imprudent use of his wit, the passion was nevertheless still strong within him, and before he gets to the end of his 'Reflections' he announces how, in addition to a graver work containing the history of the survey, he will write 'another piece of quite a contrary nature; being indeed a Satyre, which though it contain little of seriousness, yet doth it allow nothing of untruth.' ''Tis a gallery,' he announces, 'wherein you will see the Pictures of my chief adversaries hanged up in their proper colours; 'tis intended for the honest recreation of my ingenious friends.... To prepare myself for which work I will read over Don Quixote once more; that having as good a subject of Sir Hierome as Michael Cervantes had, something may be done not unworthy a represention in Bartholemew Fair.' Meanwhile, he says, he looks forward to returning to his too long neglected medical studies and the other pursuits which he had been tempted into leaving, in order to embark on the stormy seas of practical affairs.
It was now safe to remain in London, for Monk had occupied Westminster and Sankey had disappeared. The anxious period which preceded the Restoration accordingly found Dr. Petty in the society of his old scientific friends, many of whom had now settled in the capital. On March 10, Pepys notes in his 'Diary' that Dr. Petty was one of ​a party at the Coffee House, 'with a great confluence of gentlemen, where was admirable discourse till nine at night.' The discourse just then was no doubt as much political as scientific, for the future of the State was the absorbing topic of thought and discussion, and Monk's intentions were as yet doubtful.
There was at the time a club called the 'Rota,' which met at Miles's Coffee House, in New Palace Yard, under the auspices of Harrington. 'In 1659,' says Anthony Wood, 'they had every night a meeting, ... and their discourses about government and of ordering of a Commonwealth, were the most ingenious and smart that ever were heard; for the arguments in the Parliament House were but flat to those. This gang had a ballotting box and ballotted how things should be carried by way of tentamen, which being not known or used in England before, upon this account the room was very full. Besides our author (Harrington) and H. Nevill, who were the prime men of this club, were Cyriac Skinner, a merchant of London, an ingenious young gentleman and scholar to John Milton, ... Major J. Wildman, Charles Wolseley of Staffordshire, Roger Coke, &c. ... Dr. William Petty was a Rota man, and would sometimes trouble Harrington in his club. The doctrine was very taking, and the more so, because, as to human foresight, there was no possibility of the King's return.... The model of it, the design, was that the third part of the Senate, or House, should rota out by ballot every year, so that every ninth year the said Senate would be wholly altered. No magistrate was to continue above three years; and all to be chosen by ballot, than which choice nothing could be invented more fair and impartial, as 'twas then thought, though opposed by many for several reasons.'
England at the time was not merely divided between the partisans of Royalty and those of a Republic. There was a further question at issue, one which went down to the very roots of the question of Government: was the will of the people to be collected from the votes of the elected representatives in ​the House of Commons solely, and was all executive authority to be held in strict subjection to that House; or was the scheme of Government to be that 'of a single person and two Houses of Parliament,' as established by the 'Instrument of Government;' in other words, was the Government in theory to be strictly democratic, or was it to be fixed on bases in some degree independent of the popular will as reflected in the House of Commons, and to represent elements anterior to it in point of time, or considered superior to it in point of authority or knowledge? The Royalists and the Cromwellians both answered the question, in favour of the latter alternative. Their differences began when they had to decide who the single person and what the composition of 'the other House of Parliament' was to be. Between them was the blood of Charles I., and there was thus an ineradicable difference in the camp of those who agreed in principle. But neither were the pure Republicans nor Commonwealth men in any but the most difficult of positions, for they were not the majority of the nation, but only an energetic minority, in some respects in advance of their times, though not in all. In their hearts they had to acknowledge that if the voice of the people was consulted in a really free Parliament, as they professed to desire, the first popular demand would be one for their own expulsion from the Government, whatever else might follow. They were therefore constantly occupied with devices for staving off the day of the dissolution of the Rump. In substance their claim was that a majority in an already discredited assembly was privileged to overrule the real opinion of the country, to which they were unwilling to appeal; and meanwhile they were occupied with plans for substituting in the place of a real appeal—whenever the inevitable moment at length came—some artificial scheme of their own arrangement, which, while keeping their promises to the ear, would enable them to elude the true verdict of the nation, and renew their own tenure of power.
Meanwhile the situation of the Cromwellian party grew desperate. 'Will not the loins of an imposing Anabaptist or Independent be as heavy as the loins of an imposing prelate ​or presbyter? ' Henry Cromwell asked Fleetwood. 'Were they not placed,' he asked his brother in the secret letter of which Dr. Petty had been the bearer, 'between two almost equal dangers, on one side the Cavaliers, on the other a combination of pragmatical men?' The answer to these questions was unfortunately only too clear. 'It may be the best way,' Thurloe had bitterly observed, a short time before the death of the Protector, 'to fancy ourselves in the condition of Israel in the wilderness.... Truly I should rejoice to be in this condition, if these gentlemen had as sure a guide as the Israelites.' But that guide was not now forthcoming.
Dr. Petty had served the Cromwell family, not the Commonwealth. Himself, up to a certain point, a political disciple of Hobbes, he had recognised in the Protector and in Henry Cromwell men who could govern; but he had seen their efforts thwarted and finally destroyed by the wranglings of the fanatics, who, having got the control of the army, had made all government impossible since the month of September 1658. They had singled him out as one of the special objects of their animosity, and their success would have meant his ruin. The violence of the sects was odious to him. In theology his views were large and liberal, and his mind was that of a disciple, not of Calvin, but of Bacon; though the theologian and the philosopher nearly always touched each other in the scientific men of the seventeenth century. With reference to the problem of government, it may be clearly inferred from his subsequent writings that he desired to see the executive authority placed in the hands of a single person, whether King or Protector; and he wished radically to reform the composition of the House of Commons, and 'to set up two Grand Committees as might equally represent the Empire, one to be chosen by the King, the other by the people.' But what he dreaded most was anarchy, and by the end of 1659 England was fast drifting into it.
​If General Lambert had been able to prove himself the possessor of abilities equal to his ambition, Dr. Petty would probably have not unwillingly seen him succeed to the position of Protector, for Lambert was himself the friend of science and a patron of learning. Even if Bradshaw, a very different character, had been able to grasp the Presidency of the Council with the stubborn obstinacy from which Cromwell had evidently more than once apprehended possible danger to himself, Dr. Petty might perhaps have considered the administration at least placed in safe hands; but Bradshaw had just died, despairing of the prospect, amid the quarrels of his own friends and the violence of the rival generals, whose appeals to brute force it was as usual sought to justify as a particular call of Divine Providence. He had sat at the head of the Council of State when, in April 1653, Harrison and Lambert announced the dissolution of the Long Parliament, and his own dismissal. 'Sirs,' he had said on that memorable occasion to the intruding officers, 'we have heard what you did at the House in the morning, and before many hours all England will hear of it. But, Sirs, you are mistaken to think that the Parliament is dissolved; for no power under Heaven can dissolve them but themselves. Therefore take you notice of that.' Since then six weary years had gone by: years spent in vain efforts to find a permanent basis of administration and government. Now at length Bradshaw had seen the desire of his eyes. The legitimate Parliament was restored and he sat once more in the chair of the reinstated Council of State. And all for what? Merely to see a vulgar repetition in October 1659 of the scenes enacted in April 1653. The struggle was evidently over. Weak and attenuated with illness, yet 'animated by his ardent zeal and constant affection for the common cause,' the old President with difficulty made his way to Whitehall, for the approaches were interrupted. He found Colonel Sydenham invoking the finger of the Almighty as visible in the recent attack of the soldiery on Parliament. 'I am now going to my God,' Bradshaw fiercely retorted, 'and I have not patience to hear His ​great Name so openly blasphemed!' With these words he withdrew. A few days after he was no more. The splendid obsequies decreed to him were the funeral of the Commonwealth, just as those of the Protector had marked the end of the Dictatorship. Nobody now remained except Monk, and Monk had already mentally decreed the return of the exiled King as the only measure which could prevent another civil war, in which there would have been not two, but four contending parties, as well as a rebellion in Ireland.
'I,' said Dr. Petty in his own defence, 'finding the Lord Henry Cromwell to be a person of much honour and integrity to his trust as also of a firm faith and zeal to God and to his church, and withall to have translated me from a stranger into his bosom, thinking me worthy of the nearest relation to himself, and who when all tricks and devices were used to surprize me by foul play, would still be careful I might have fair play; I did (as in justice and gratitude as I was bound) serve him faithfully and industriously. I was his Secretary without one penny of reward. I neglected my own private interest to promote his, and consequently I preferred his interest before any man's, and I served his friends before his enemies. Moreover, because he should not be jealous of me, I became as a stranger to other Grandees, though without the least distaste intended to them. When he was shaken, I was content to fall. I did not lessen him to his enemies. To magnify myself I never accused him to excuse myself. Moreover, though I never promised to live and die with him, which is the common phrase, yet I did stay to see his then interest, which I had espoused, dead and buried, esteeming that then and when a convenient time for mourning was over, that if I should marry another interest, and be as fixed unto it as I had been to his, I should do no more than I always in his prosperity told him I would do, if I saw occasion.' Therefore, if at the Restoration, in the dedication of some experiments in navigation to the King, Dr. Petty spoke of the change as under ​the circumstances 'a restitution of the best Government and the immortal nature of right,' and rejoiced 'that good patriots were endeavouring to restore the courses of the Church and State into their ancient channels,' his language was not that of political sycophancy, but represented the sober and mature conviction of the majority of the nation that what was above all things necessary was some kind of settled government, and that anything was preferable to the confusion which had reigned since the death of Cromwell, and the rapid alternations between the rule of second-rate soldiers, the agitation of religious fanatics, and the vacillations of a divided and incompetent Parliament. The maggots had eaten out the guts of the Commonwealth, as Henry Cromwell and Dr. Petty had foreseen. The noble lines in which Milton in after-years lamented the fall of the Republic, the injustice of man, and the inequality of fate, were the dirge of an ideal existing in his own mind, rather than of the reality of existing things. By 1660 the magnates of the Commonwealth were sleeping the sleep of death in Henry VII.'s chapel, from which their corpses were soon to be rudely torn. They had left no political successors, and the days were over when it could be said of the Puritan party, that giants were to be seen rising out of the earth.
The founders of great religions, even in the bygone eras of the world's history, have never themselves been the founders of great States. From the nature of the case it is almost impossible it should be otherwise, because they draw their ideas from a sphere excluding the compromises, the inequalities, and even the injustices, which, in secular affairs, have too often to be accepted as the conditions of the existence of government. Their task is that of destruction—often a necessary task. The same fatality has constantly pursued those who have transported religious ideas into subsequent and often widely different periods, and sought to make them the exclusive basis of political institutions and of civil society. This fatality had now destroyed the Commonwealth. It is true that amongst the party there were men who, either guided by the political instinct of their race, or ​animated by examples drawn from the history of ancient Rome rather than from the passions of the Hebrew prophets, understood the limitations which must qualify religious maxims when applied to human affairs. But without the support of the army they were powerless, and the army, since the retirement of Fairfax and the death of Cromwell, had become the prey of enthusiasts, whose views on government, doubtless sincere, were as impossible as those which animated the fanatics of Jerusalem in the last days of the kingdom of Judah. Of the purely political ideas which had inspired the Republican party some took refuge in America, where in New England they found a soil ready to receive them, and likely to produce, as Dr. Petty with true political prescience foresaw, some great movement at a future time, which might astonish the world. Others lay hid in the ground waiting the seed time of a later age in England. Fear of the political and religious supremacy of Rome, which was the dominant public sentiment of the generation which had fought in the Civil War, and in which Cromwell had found the force which alone rendered the triumph of the Parliament over the King possible, had not indeed ceased to exist, and, as events were before long to prove, could again easily be worked into a fierce activity; but at least for the time it was no longer the mainspring of public action. Since the peace of Westphalia a truce was understood to exist, and with the recognition of the practical independence of Protestant Germany, religious freedom was felt to have been saved. France, for the time, had become a tolerant Power, though a change was near at hand. In England an everincreasing number of the new generation shared neither the prejudices of the Cavaliers nor the fanaticism of the Puritans. Above all they were weary of perpetual strife. They were statesmen, jurists, and philosophers, resembling the 'parti politique' which in France had endeavoured at the close of the preceding century, though unsuccessfully, to build up the edifice of civil and political liberty against the encroachments of the Crown and the Papacy, and to prevent the country being rent asunder by theological animosities. To this order ​of men Dr. Petty belonged by training and by temperament. They were Protestants, but rather by political opinion than through theological conviction, and more by reason of what they denied than of what they affirmed. The prospect to them of the supremacy of the Puritans was as distasteful as that of the supremacy of Laud. In the new reign that was opening many deceptions no doubt awaited them. The forces of intolerance were not yet spent; and religious hatred, after a short interval, was again to furnish the keynote to the history of the century in Europe. The final battle was only adjourned. Another change of dynasty was to be necessary in order to convince the forces of militant Roman Catholicism that the verdict of the reign of Elizabeth was not to be reversed; to compel the Church of England to see that passive obedience and the divine right of kings were doctrines invented by and for the benefit of civil rulers and not of Churches; and to make the Puritans acknowledge that they were not the majority of the nation, and must consent to eschew any claim to domination over the intellectual freedom of their countrymen. Meanwhile the mass of the people, never disposed at any time to take long views of public affairs, and always inclined to deal with the immediate question of the hour without looking much beyond it, eagerly welcomed the restored King, and attributing to him qualities which he neither possessed nor claimed to possess, shut their eyes, in the intoxication of the hour, to whatever dangers might lie beyond, in what they deemed a dim and distant future.
* ↑ Down Survey, ch. x.
* ↑ Wood, Fasti Oxonienses, Part II. pp. 119, 148, 156, Ed. 1817; see also A Contemporary History of Affairs in Ireland, ed. by Mr. John L. Gilbert for the Irish Archæological Society. Preface xxiv. and p. 130.
* ↑ Hardinge, p. 5.
* ↑ Reflections, p. 69.
* ↑ Down Survey, p. 81.
* ↑ Reflections, p. 139.
* ↑ Ibid. pp. 101, 102.
* ↑ Ibid. p.....
* ↑ Ibid. p. 20.
* ↑ Down Survey, p. 257.
* ↑ Ibid. chaps, ix. and x. and Sir Thomas Larcom's Note, p. 329, who says that Dr. Petty's answers were perfectly satisfactory.
* ↑ Reflections, p. 137.
* ↑ Down Survey, p. 257.
* ↑ Ibid. p. 209.
* ↑ The following is a specimen of Dr. Petty's Latin style as Clerk to the Council. 'License to authorize the publication of a Latin treatise on Death, by John Stearne, M.D., at Dublin in 1659. 'Hauriat vitalem auram elegans de Morte Dissertatio, quâ doctissimus Stearnius noster non modo famam suam Morti, sed etiam universam Naturam ruinæ surripuit: siquidem in eâ nihil bonos mores vitiaturum, nihil in imperium nunc florens insidiarum, nec argutias sacræ Fidei infestas video. Guil. Petty, cler. Concilii. Datum Dublinii, et Camerâ Concilii, ult. Januarii 1658.' Thanatologia, seu De Morte Dissertatio... Authore Johanne Stearne Medicinæ Doctore, 12 Dublin, 1659. I am indebted to W.J.P. Gilbert for this document.
* ↑ Down Survey, ch. xiv. pp. 209, 210; Reflections, p. 113.
* ↑ Down Survey, ch. ix. p. 80; ch. x. pp. 102-103. Brief Account, p. xvii.
* ↑ Freak was one of the leading preachers amongst the Fifth Monarchy men.
* ↑ H. Cromwell to Viscount Fauconberg, February 10, 1657; Thurloe, vi. p. 789; Boyle's Works, v. 298.
* ↑ H. Cromwell to Thurloe, September 3, 1658. Thurloe, vii. p. 376.
* ↑ Down Survey, pp. 258, 271.
* ↑ He took no salary for his duties as Private Secretary to Henry Cromwell and Additional Clerk to the Privy Council from this date, and gave up private practice as a doctor. Reflections, p. 126, and Will.
* ↑ Thurloe, vii. p. 282.
* ↑ Down Survey, ch. xvi. p. 258.
* ↑ Ibid. ch. xvii. pp. 264-269.
* ↑ Down Survey, ch. xvii. pp. 281, 285; Prendergast, p. 111.
* ↑ Ibid. pp. 274, 275, 276, where the documents are printed. It appears that Dr. Petty had been compelled to sell part of his debt to a Mrs. Carey, whose name appears at page 275, probably to raise ready money.
* ↑ Dr. Clarges to Henry Cromwell December 8, 1658. Thurloe, vii. 553.
* ↑ Lansdowne MSS., Brit. Museum, 822, f. 23. The letter is a proof of the singular independence of character of Vincent Gookin, as Lord Broghill was at this moment strongly supporting the Protector.
* ↑ June 1659. See Ward, Lives of the Professors of Gresham College, 1740, p. 220, who says the original is from a collection of letters 'now in the hands of Henry Cromwell's grandson, W. Cromwell of Gray's Inn, Esqre.' The date given is June 11, 1659, but it would appear to be of a slightly earlier date in that year.
* ↑ Commons Journals, March 24, 1659. Thurloe, vii. p. 658.
* ↑ Thurloe, vii. p. 639.
* ↑ Reflections, p. 50.
* ↑ Thurloe, vii. p. 651.
* ↑ Reflections, p. 68.
* ↑ See Burton's Diary, iv. p. 469; Reflections, p. 95. Dr. Petty's speech, reported by himself, and Sir Hierome's reply, are to be found at p. 292 of Sir Thomas Larcom's edition of the Down Survey.
* ↑ Down Survey, ch. xxiii. p. 292.
* ↑ Reflections, pp. 72, 95; Down Survey, p. 300.
* ↑ See note at the end of the last chapter as to the maps. See also Reflections, pp. 36, 37. Compare Mr. Hardinge's remarks in the volume of the Transactions to which reference has already been made. He thinks Dr. Petty on the whole ought not to have been allowed to retain the maps.
* ↑ October 12, 1658. Thurloe, vii. p. 437. See, for the letter to Richard Cromwell, Thurloe, vii. p. 400.
* ↑ Lansdowne MS., Brit. Mus., 823, f. 36.
* ↑ H. Cromwell to Fleetwood, June, 1659; Thurloe vii. p. 684. In the Mercurius Politicus, June 16 to 23, 1659, the arrival of Dr. Petty and Col. Edmund Temple as 'the bearer of letters' is mentioned.
* ↑ At this point the history of the Down Survey terminates.
* ↑ Reflections, pp. 92, 93.
* ↑ Ibid. p. 119. The Brief was published in Dublin in 1659; the Reflections in 1660. Wood (Ath. Oxon.) says they were also published in London.
* ↑ Reflections, pp. 28, 29, 39, 136.
* ↑ See the statement to this effect in his will.
* ↑ Reflections, pp. 24-36.
* ↑ Reflections, pp. 27, 117, 174.
* ↑ Ibid. p. 131.
* ↑ Ibid. pp. 61, 154.
* ↑ Diary, vol. i. p. 16.
* ↑ Athenæ Oxonienses, ed. 1817, vol. iii. p. 1119; Ward, Lives of the Professors of Gresham College, p. 221. Compare Milton's Ready and Easy Way to Establish a Free Commonwealth, where the 'rota' plan is discussed.
* ↑ Henry Cromwell to Fleetwood, October 20, 1658; Thurloe, vii. p. 454.
* ↑ Henry Cromwell to Richard Cromwell, September 18, 1658; Thurloe, vii. p. 400.
* ↑ Thurloe to Henry Cromwell, July 27, 1658; Thurloe, vii. p. 295.
* ↑ Ludlow's Memoirs, i. 357.
* ↑ Ludlow's Memoirs, ii. 141.
* ↑ Reflections, pp. 119-120. 'To live and die with him' were the words used in the Address of Parliament to the Earl of Essex, appointing him general-in-chief in 1642.
* ↑ Political Arithmetic, v. 266-269.