PETTY

PETTY, SIR WILLIAM, a distinguished political economist, was the eldest son of Anthony Petty, a clothier at Rumsey, in Hampshire, where he was born on the 16th of May 1623. After receiving the rudiments of his education at the grammar-school of Rumsey, he removed to the university of Caen, in Normandy, where he perfected himself in Latin and French, acquired enough of Greek "to serve his turn," studied the arts, and extended his knowledge of the mathematics. On his return from France, he was appointed to some post in the navy, which

he soon gave up, and took to the study of medicine. With this design he, in 1643, visited Leyden, Utrecht, and Paris, where he studied anatomy, and read Vesalius with Hobbes, whom he in turn assisted by drawing optical diagrams for the philosopher. Having from his earliest years displayed a decided taste for mechanical invention, Petty, on the 6th of March 1647, patented a sort of copying machine, by means of which "any man, even at the first sight and handling, may write two resembling copies of the same thing at once, as serviceably and as fast as by the ordinary way." But this machine having been found not to promote expedition in writing, Petty did not reap much profit by his invention. His next production was a pamphlet entitled Advice to Mr Hartlib for the Advancement of Learning, containing some sensible remarks on national education. In 1648 he went to Oxford, where he gave private instructions in anatomy, became assistant to Dr Clayton, the professor of anatomy, and also practised physic with considerable success. Here he acquired such reputation, that the philosophical meetings which led to the institution of the Royal Society were for the most part held at his lodgings; and, by a parliamentary recommendation, he obtained a fellowship in Brazen-nose College, and was created doctor of physic on the 7th of March 1649. In June 1650, he was admitted a member of the College of Physicians. In 1651 he was appointed professor of anatomy, and soon afterwards professor of music at Gresham College; and in 1652, he went to Ireland as physician to the army in that country, where he served under three successive lords-lieutenant, namely, Lambert, Fleetwood, and Henry Cromwell.

In 1654 Dr Petty was appointed to survey the Irish forfeited lands adjudged to the soldiers after the suppression of the rebellion of 1641. In 1655 Henry Cromwell assumed the lord-lieutenancy of Ireland, and soon afterwards appointed Petty his secretary; in 1657 the viceroy further appointed him clerk of the council, and got him elected to serve as burgess for West Love, in Cornwall, in Richard Cromwell's Parliament, which assembled on the 27th of January 1658. But this last honour speedily involved him in trouble. On the 28th of March following he was impeached of high crimes and misdemeanours in the execution of his office, and obliged to proceed to England. His case was taken up in the House of Commons, but as the Parliament was suddenly dissolved, it never came to an issue. He was removed, however, in the following June from all his employments. He defended himself from the charges of bribery, fraud, &c., which were urged against him, by ingeniously arguing that he might have acquired as large a fortune by other means as by having to do with the Irish lands. At the Restoration he was graciously received by Charles II., and, having resigned his professorship at Gresham College, was appointed one of the commissioners of the Court of Claims. In April 1661 he received the honour of knighthood, with the grant of a new patent constituting him surveyor-general of Ireland; and he was at the same time chosen a member of the Irish Parliament. Being one of the founders of the Royal Society, he was elected a member of the first council; and although he had left off the practice of physic, his name appears in the list of fellows of the College of Physicians in 1663.

About this time he invented a double-bottomed ship, which was to sail against both wind and tide, though we are not told by what means; and in 1665 he communicated to the Royal Society, along with a model of his invention, a Discourse about the Building of Ships.

In 1666 Sir William Petty drew up his treatise, entitled Verbum Sapienti, containing an account of the wealth and expenditure of England. In 1667 he married Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Hardresse Waller, and widow of Sir Maurice Fenton. This matrimonial connection, however, did not for a moment distract his attention from his favourite pursuit of money-making; for immediately afterwards he established iron-works and a pitchard-fishery, opened lead mines, and commenced a trade in timber at Kerry, all of which turned to good account. To vary his pursuits, he also composed a piece of Latin poetry, which he subsequently published under the title of Colloquium Davidis cum Anima sua! In 1680 he gave to the world his Polician Discovered, intended to expose the sinister practices of the French; and afterwards wrote several essays on Political Arithmetic, of very great ability. Lord Macaulay remarks of them that "Sir William Petty created the science of political arithmetic, the humble but indispensable handmaid of political philosophy." (Hist. of England.) He assisted at the formation of the Dublin Philosophical Society, and in November 1684 was chosen president of that association. On this occasion he drew up a Catalogue of Cheap and Simple Experiments, which was soon afterwards followed by his Suppellex Philosophica, containing a description of forty instruments which he deemed necessary to carry forward the design of the institution. He died in London, on the 16th of December 1687, in the sixty-fifth year of his age. His will is perhaps the most curious and characteristic composition of the kind in our language, illustrating at once the habits of thinking and feeling peculiar to the man, and the mode in which he realized the enormous fortune which he left to his descendants.

A few particulars of the personal history of Sir William Petty may be gleaned from Aubrey, who appears to have lived with him on terms of intimacy. He possessed strong, shrewd, natural good sense, flavoured with a tincture of humour, and had a most convenient way of shaking himself rid of the trammels of party when it suited his interest to do so, changing sides with a facility that is altogether edifying. His qualifications were indeed various and peculiar. As a specimen of his fondness for drollery, we are told that, on one occasion, he proposed to fight Sir Jerome Sankey, who had challenged him, in a dark cellar with carpenter's axes; but the soldier knight did not deem it prudent to acquiesce. He would also preach extempore, which Aubrey says he did "incomparably," and that, too, in almost any style, "either in the Presbyterian way, Independent, Capuchin friar, or Jesuit." He had "an admirable inventive head, and practical parts," which he turned to good account, as far as his own interest was concerned; and, like his friend Hobbes, he boasted that he had read but little since he was twenty-five, declaring that "had he read as much as some men have, he had not known so much as he does, nor should have made such discoveries and improvements." He told Aubrey that he had "hewed out his fortune for himself;" and he even managed to obtain a patent

Petworth of nobility as Earl of Kilmore, which, however, he suppressed, to avoid envy. The variety of pursuits in which he was engaged shows that he had talents capable of achieving anything to which he chose to apply them; and it is certainly not a little remarkable, that a man of such an active and enterprising disposition should have found time to write so much as he did in the course of his busy life.

The following is a list of the works which appeared in his lifetime:—Advice to Mr Samuel Hartlib, 1618, in 4to; A Brief of Proceedings between Sir Jerome Sander and the Author, 1659, in folio; Reflections on Some Persons and Things in Ireland, 1660, in 8vo; A Treatise of Taxes and Contributions, 1662, in 4to, republished in 1690, with two other pieces; Apparatus to the History of the Common Practice of Dyeing, 1667; A Discourse concerning Duplicate Proportion, 1674, in 12mo; Colloquium Davidis cum Anima sua, 1679, in folio; The Politician Discovered, 1681, in 4to; An Essay on Political Arithmetic, 1682, in 8vo; Observations upon the Dublin Bills of Mortality, in 1681, 1683, in 8vo; "Some Experiments relating to Land-carrage," Phil. Trans., No. 161; "Queries on Mineral Waters," Ibid., No. 165; "A Catalogue of Experiments," Ibid., No. 167; Maps of Ireland, being an actual Survey of the whole Kingdom, 1684, in folio; An Essay concerning the Multiplication of Mankind, 1686, in 8vo; "A further Assertion concerning the Magnitude of London," Phil. Trans., No. 185; Two Essays in Political Arithmetic, 1687, in 8vo; Five Essays in Political Arithmetic, English and French, 1687, in 8vo; Observations upon London and Rome, 1687, in 8vo. His posthumous productions are:—Political Arithmetic, 1690, in 8vo, and 1775, with a Life prefixed, and a Letter never before printed; The Political Anatomy of Ireland, to which is added Verbum Sapientie, 1691, 1719; A Treatise of Naval Philosophy, in three parts, printed at the end of an Account of Several New Inventions, 1691, in 12mo; "What a Complete Treatise of Navigation should contain," Phil. Trans., No. 198, drawn up in 1685. In Birch's History of the Royal Society are contained, "A Discourse of making Cloth and Sheep's Wool," including the History of the Clothing Trade, and also that of Dyeing; and Sappellus Philosophus, already mentioned. Many of Sir William Petty's manuscripts are to be found in the British Museum. (J. B.—B.)