Sir William Petty (1623-1687) / by T. Percy C. Kirkpatrick.

  • Percy Kirkpatrick
Date:
[June, 1932]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Sir William Petty (1623-1687) / by T. Percy C. Kirkpatrick. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    really the old “ grosse surveys” more expeditiously carried out and quite without maps. Maps were, however, essential and Petty came forward with a proposal to survey the three pro¬ vinces, and to put this survey down on a map. This, in con¬ sequence known as the Down Survey, Petty offered to complete in thirteen months from an appointed day, “ if the Lord give seasonable weather and due provision be made against Tories, and that my instruments be not forced to stand still for want of bounders.” For this work he was to be paid at the rate of £6 per thousand acres or a gross sum of thirty thousand pounds out of which he was to pay the expenses. After much squabbling with the Surveyor-General, whom Petty accused of gross incompetency, an agreement was entered into on the lines of Petty’s proposals, and finally adopted on behalf of the Government on December 25, 1654. It wrould not be possible to give here even the merest outline of Petty’s activities in connection with the survey, nor indeed is it necessary since the interesting story has been told over and over again. He engaged men in Ireland to make some of the necessary instruments, others he bought in London from where he got also “ a magazine of royall paper, mouth-glew, colours, pencills, etc.” There was some difficulty in providing the men who were to do the actual, field-work, for he needed “ persons such as were able to endure travail, ill lodginge and dyett, as alsoe heates and cold, alsoe men of activitie, that could leap hedge and ditch, and could alsoe ruffle with the severall rude persons in the country, from whom they might expect to be often crossed and opposed. ’ ’ Overseers were appointed to check the field-work, and he got good and willing service by paying the men regularly according to the work which they did. In all, he says, ‘ ‘ the quantitie of line which was measured by the chaine and needle beinge reduced into English miles, was enough to have encompassed the world neere five times round.” The survey was practically finished by the end of March, 1656, but the final discharge of Petty from his obligations was delayed till December, 1657, owing largely to difficulties put in his way by Worsley, who had remained Surveyor-General. No sooner was the Down Survey finished, indeed before Petty had got his final discharge therefrom, than he was engaged in an¬ other and more difficult undertaking. On July 10, 1656, a com¬ mittee of three, Vincent Gookin, Miles Symner and Petty, was ap¬ pointed to distribute the lands which had already been surveyed. The distribution was to be made by ballot or lot, a plan which appealed to the fanatical and religious sentiments of those who were to be satisfied. The army claimants had signed a paper in which they had declared “ that they had rather take a lott upon a barren mountain as a portion from the Lord, than a portion in the most fruitful valley, upon their own choice.” They, however, took every means in their power to ensure that the Lord would not send them “ a lott upon a barren mountain,” and
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