Page:PettyWilliam1899EconomicWritingsVol2.djvu/288

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The Army of 1649.
593

above Estimate, Which is a Presage Men have already made concerning that Matter.

Moreover, if the Value of the Cattle, Corn, Merchandize, Shippings, and Money of Ireland be about 7 Millions, and that 4 Millions and ½ thereof doth belong to Brittish Protestants, I see no Reason why the Trade, Commerce and Negotiation of Ireland, when 9 Fourteenth Parts of the Stock is carry'd away, should not fall from 14 to 5 also, and become less than ½ of what it is at present: And by this Rule any Diminution of the English Great or Small, may be computed in the Effect thereof upon the Commonwealth.

We have told that one English Workman at a Medium is Equivalent to 3 Irish Workmen: So we may say that one English Soldier in the Heat of the Warr between June 1649 and June 1652, did prove equivalent to 3 Irish Soldiers. For I have heard from the Muster-Rolls that at the End of the Warr A° 1652 and 1653, the English Army in Pay was about 17000; unto which Number it moldred away from 23000 at the Landing of Cromwel: And I have heard that about the same Time 34000 Irish Soldiers and Soldierlike Persons, did go beyond-Sea; and if half that Number did stay behind, the whole Irish Forces were 51000, or triple to the 17000 English aforementioned. And that the said English, in the said 3 Years, did make an Absolute Conquest of the whole Irish Nation, and all their Adherents, is most manifest. I further add, that the Irish Nation in that Time, that is to say, of Men between 16 and 60 Years old, was 12 Times the Number of the said English Army. All which is said rather to give a just Value to the English, than to disparage the Irish, who have fought against other Nations at even hands.

To strengthen then my Assertion, that the English Army was but 17000: I further say that every Soldier, who served never so little a while between the 6th of June 1649, and the 26th of September 1653, had a distinct Debentur stated for his Service: Upon which it appears how many of them dyed in that Time, besides those that went off upon other Occasions. Now the whole Number of such Debenturs being but 33000,