Petty to Aubrey, la July) 1681 (Aubrey MS. i_) fol. ioI', Bodleian Library)) referrin_ to his corrections of the Southwell MS. of the PoEtical Aritkmetick. C£ pp. 236--238. __._ _._. _ = ,_ ' . _.f _' . • -+., + ."_, .q. , _-d_ " ."-;"" ' 'rk"'.--,"":',!_':'_'"":-:" :-_'.'": One of Petty)s corrections of the Southwe]l MS. of the Political Aritl*mettJ_ (now Addl. MS. ahla8) British Museum, fol. a6"). Cf. pp. 292--293. ToS_e 7"u_ W_tI. I TO M. J. H. ! H.P. b PREFACE. HEdividedwritingsinto ofthreeSir classes.William ThePetty firstmayrelatesbe roughlyto his activities as surveyor of forfeited lands in Ireland under the Protectorate ; its present interest is chiefly biographical. The second includes his papers on medicine, and on certain mathe- matical, physical and mechanical subjects. These are now forgotten. The third class comprises his economic and statistical writings. The merit of these has been freely recognized. No writer on the history of political economy who touches the seventeenth century at all has failed to praise them; but the scarcity of the scattered pamphlets in which they were published has prevented them from be- coming as generally known as they deserve to be. The present edition of Petty's Economic Writings is designed to meet this difficulty. It has not been undertaken without warrant. Critics as diverse as McCulloch, Roscher and Ingrain have noted the need of a collected edition of Petty's economic pamphlets, and it appears that his descendants have twice considered its publication. But the project of the Earl of Kerry was interrupted by his untimely death 1, I al August, 1836. See Thomas More's Memosr,, vii. 152, x67. viii Preface. and Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice, who had contemplated supplementing his "Life of Petty" by an edition of Petty's works, . generously surrendered his intention upon learning that a similar undertaking was already under way. The editor has endeavoured to include all of Petty's published writings which bear upon economic or statistical subjects. The "Observations upon the Bills of Mortality of London," though they probably were not written by Petty, are also reprinted--not less on account of their intrinsic merits than because of their close connection with his ac- knowledged works. The text selected for reproduction is, in each case, that of the best published edition, and the original paging is indicated in the margin. By good fortune authentic manuscripts of several of the works are still pre- served, and their readings, given in the foot-notes, make a number of passages clear which, as heretofore printed, were confusing or absurd. One considerable tract, the "Treatise of Ireland," and a few fragments, are added from manuscripts hitherto unpublished. The notes are confined, for the most part, to the economic or biographical aspects of the passages commented upon, and no attempt has been made to elucidate purely historical questions. Thus when Petty asserts that in the Irish Court of Claims after the Restoration all claimants were fully heard, the editor does not enter upon a discussion upon that disputed point. In the introductory sections, likewise, he has not used the opportunity to sketch the general history of political economy apropos of Petty and Graunt, but has confined himself to such remarks as are thought to bear directly upon them and their writings. On the other hand Preface. ix the history of the London bills of mortality has been entered into at some length, as no place seemed more appropriate to that purpose than a reprint of the writings which first indicated the importance of the bills. In preparing this book, the editor has received help from a number of persons, to all of whom he would express his appreciation of their kindnesses. It gives him especial pleasure to acknowledge the gracious permission of the Marquis of Lansdowne to consult the Petty papers at Bo- wood--though it became impossible for him to make use of that privilege--and to thank Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice for repeated suggestions. He has received valued assistance from J. Eliot Hodgkin, Esq., of Richmond-on-Thames, from the Rev. Dr William Cunningham of Trinity College, Cam- bridge, from Professor F. York Powell of Oxford, from Professor V. John of Innsbruck, from his colleagues H. Morse Stephens and Waiter F. Willcox of Cornell, and from his sister. None of these however should be held responsible for such errors as may be found in the book. Various officials of the British Museum, the Record Office, the Royal Society, the Bodleian Library, the libraries of Cambridge University and of Brasenose College, Oxford, of the Royal Irish Academy, the King's-Inns, and Trinity College, Dublin, of the Institute of France, the Universities of Leipzig and of Pennsylvania, and of Harvard and Cornell Universities have allowed the editor the use of sundry books and manuscripts. For privileges of this character he is under especial obligation to Professor Michael Foster, Secretary of the Royal Society, and to the Rev. Llewellyn J. M. Bebb, Librarian of Perry's college. He cannot omit to mention, x Preface. likewise, the services of the proof-readers who have made comparisons with manuscripts and original editions to which he has no present access. Last but by no means least, he wishes to acknowledge both the generosity of the Syndics of the University Press in providing for the publication of a book whose editor might have looked in vain for assistance at home, and the untiring patience of their Secretary, Mr Richard T. Wright, who must have been sorely tried by its slow passage through the press. C. H. H. CORNELL UNIVERSITY. 24 A._ril, 1899. CONTENTS OF VOLUME I. PAGES ]NTRODUCTION xiii-xci PETTY'S LIFE . xiii-xxxiii GRAUNT'S LIFE . xxxiv-xxxviii THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE _* OBSERVATIONS UPON THE BILLS OF MORTALITY" xxxix-liv PETT¥'S LETTERS AND OTHER MANUSCRIPTS lv-lix PETTY'S ECONOMIC WRITINGS Ix--lxxiv GRAUNT AND THE SCIENCE OF STATISTICS . ]xxv--lxxix ON THE BILLS OF MORTALITY lXXX-XCi A TREATISE OF TAXES AND CONTRIBUTIONS. London, t662 1-97 VERBUM SAPIENTI, [1664.] London, x69i 99-x2o THE POLITICAL ANATOMY OF IRELAND. [1672. ] London, x69I tzx-231 POLITICAL ARITHMETICK. [I676. ] London, x69o ':'33-313 INTRODUCTION. PETTY'S LIFE. WILLIAM PETTY 1 was born on Monday, 26 May, 1623, at the house of his father, a poor clothier of Romsey in Hampshire. According to the detailed account of his childhood which he gave to Aubrey, his chief amusement consisted in "looking on the artificers, e.g. smyths, the watchmaker, carpenters, joiners, etc. *'' until he "could have worked at any of their trades." "At twelve years of age he had acquired a competent smattering of Latin," and before his sixteenth year he was well advanced in Greek, mathematics and navigation. It was, perhaps, in his fourteenth year that Petty x The earliest printed notice of Petty's life is in Wood's Atheme Oxonienses (x691). It is based upon memoranda by Petty procured for Wood by John Aubrey (cf. post, p. xl), and upon Petty's published writings. His autobio- graphical will was first published in the Tracts relatinK chiefly to Ireland (1769; see Bibliography, no. ¢7) and various letters by and about him were printed in Boyle's Works (17q4) and in the Capel Correspondence(i77o). In 1813 Aubrey's Lives were included in the " Bodleian Letters" edited by Walker and Bliss, and soon thereafter the printing of Evdyn's and of Pepys's diaries brought further facts to light. In 185x Petty's History of the Dewn Survey was edited for the Irish Archmologieal Society. Finally, in 1895, appeared Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice's Z:_ of Sir Wilham Petty, chiefly from Private Documents hztherto unpublished (London : John Murray), a record of Petty's acts and thoughts which leaves little to be desired in point of completeness and authenticity. Of the private documents used by Lord E. Fitzmaurice, the most important appear to be the letters exehanged between Petty and Sir Robert Southwell (pp. lvi--lvli). In preparing the above account of Petty, which is confined to those phases of his life that may have suggested, or may serve to explain parts of his writings, I have drawn upon the L_ without reserve, and have cited other authorities, in general, only in case the citation given is not to be found in the L_. Aubrey, BrkfLives, eel.by A. Clark (Oxford, x898), Ix. i4o. This is far preferable to the x813ed. H.P. ¢ xiv Introduction. was overtaken by an accident which gave him opportunity to turn his precocity to good account. After some ten months' service as cabin boy on an English merchantman, he had the misfortune to break his leg. Hereupon the crew set him ashore on the French coast, not far from Caen. The unhappy lad, thus left to shift for himself, recounted his misfortunes in Latin so excellent that the Jesuit fathers of that city not only cared for him but straightway admitted him a pupil of their college 1. Here he prosecuted his former studies and incidentally learned the French language as well. Meanwhile he supported himself in part by teaching navigation to a French officer and English to a gentleman who desired to visit England--Latin serving, apparently, as the medium of communi- cation in both cases--and in part by traffic in "pittiful brass things with eool'd glasse in them instead of diamonds and rubies." Upon his return to England he appears to have spent some months in the Royal Navy, but in I643, "when the civil war betwixt the King and Parliament grew hot," he joined the army of English refugees in the Netherlands and "vigorously followed his studies, especially that of medicine," at Utrecht, Leyden ° and Amsterdam.