Page:Life of Sir William Petty 1623 – 1687.djvu/275

our court,' Sir William told his friend, Sir Peter Pett, who was now one of the Commissioners of the Navy, 'hath been so great, that I am afraid the tone of its stomach is broken by overfasting.'^[1] These quiet times, however, did not last long, and cases began to come in. He wisely determined, as he wrote to Southwell, to be 'pestilent cautious' at starting, but unfortunately he was not able to hold firmly by this resolve. 'The plebs of lawyers' soon began, as he put it, to find out that the Admiralty Court 'had a shorter and sounder way of justice than its neighbours;' for, as he triumphantly told Sir Peter Pett, 'we stumble not at straws but leap over blocks.'^[2] Troubles naturally soon began, for his enemies were on the look-out, and he soon gave them opportunities. A corpse was washed up somewhere on the coast, and the Court of Admiralty claiming the right to act as a coroner, a jury was impanelled, a verdict found, and the corpse buried; whereupon certain 'cunning fellows' indicted the judge and his officers for holding 'an unlawful assembly.' Then there was a quarrel about the right of the Court of Admiralty to interfere with the building of a bridge over the Liffey near Dublin. Next, a Dutch prize was brought into Youghal by the French, and adjudged to the captors by Sir William. France was very unpopular at the moment, for Louis XIV. was still in full career against the liberties of Holland; and the decision of the Court was consequently fiercely criticised. It unfortunately turned out that the decision was very doubtful in point of law. 'I see the good gentleman meaning well,' was the opinion of Mr. Bedford, one of the leading civilians of Doctors' Commons; 'but he hath not been versed in the practical matters of Admiralty proceedings; and I fear the matter will be complayned of both by the French and the Dutch.' Mr. Bedford would probably have been still more horrified if he had seen a serio-comic letter from Sir William to Sir Peter Pett, in the style of the historical arguments founded on

1. To Sir Peter Pett, 1679. There are several letters at the Bodleian Library on the subject.
2. To Sir Peter Pett, March 19, 1679. At the Bodleian Library among the Rawlinson MSS., and at Longleat, some memoranda exist, by Sir W. Petty, on 'Admiralty Jurisdiction.'