Page:Petty 1660 Reflections.djvu/107

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of us in the minds of the Army, viz. to perswade them that my instruments were ignorant, Drunkards, careless, and interested to wrong the Army; That the work would never be done, but especially that I had cousened them all in the Contract they had made with me, and (which was most intolerable) that in stead of my thanks and good endeavours to serve the Army, I laughed at their folly and easiness to be over-reached by me, and that I boasted of my power to abuse even the L. Deputy and Council in the same manner.

Secondly, The infinite difficulty and indeed impossibility of making certain and regular distinctions between profitable and unprofitable Lands, and the defect of the very Law in this particular was a very operative cause of the Clamours I endured; for by occasion hereof, men that had Lots intrinsecally good, would call them unprofitable, in case such their Lots yielded much less profit then their Neighbours; and if themselves (for example) had one hundred acres of Land yielding but two shillings per acre, they would term them unprofitable, if the rest of their Lot (being perhaps one thousand acres) were