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made irregularly, and no "accompt of what was then done ever did appeare as a light unto what was further to be done;" others had been satisfied to their full allowance, who, nevertheless, left "many scraps of baronies, the which were imperfectly sett downe." The court of claims had been sitting and adjudicating. Commissioners for stating new debentures, and for making compositions, "were at this time all and every of them acting respectively." The committee of six officers, appointed on the 20th of May, 1656 (see p. 85), had failed also to compose the differences arising among the officers.
Such was "the ragged condition the affaire was in by reason of the preceding irregular, and indeed somewhat obscure, actings, anno 1653 and 1655, and other uncertainties of debt and credit, as also of the clashing interests," when Dr. Petty 's new labours began.
He first restored the whole army, by calculation, to the state it was in 1654, when they cast their lots; then ascertained what lands were disposable, in pursuance of all Acts of Parliament and ensuing orders of council, separating those, which for any cause it was necessary to reserve, from the remainder which were disposable, obtaining the immediate authority of the council on doubtful points, and the concurrence of the army by adjustments among themselves, when such would afford satisfaction and facility.
The several steps of all these proceedings are fully and methodically related in the paper addressed to the council, pp. 191–5, in three great heads,—the debt, the credit, and the books of account.
Somewhat later, proceeding with the concurrence of the army, expressed through its agents, the commissioners submit certain doubts to the council on the 23rd of January, 1657, in three heads,—as to preference in setting out the few remaining lands, as to setting out the dubious lands, and as to the letters of possession to be given with the lands,—in which paper, among other things, they state that "there are not now neer lands enough left to satisfy all that appeares, much less all that may," praying "orders as to Kildare, hoping for a just account of such as received lands in 1653," and calculating upon a surplusage of the adventurers' lands in Louth, of which a moiety, it will be remembered, was set aside with their moiety of the "ten counties," towards the satisfaction of their claim of £360,000, which it will be necessary again to advert to, and to which reference is also made at p. 68, where the committee of officers pray that their share of Louth may be set out to them at once, rather than wait till the ten counties were adjusted between them and the adventurers. The queries are answered at length in three orders of the council, dated the 4th of February, and 6th and 9th of April; the latter containing a form of conveyance.
The adjustment and equalization of rates and values, referred to in this and other chapters, are succinctly described by Dr. Petty in his Political Anatomy (p. 341, Dublin edition): "Now as to the value of these lands, they were, anno 1642, rated to and by the adventurers as followeth, viz.: in Leinster at 12s. an acre, in Munster, 9s., in Connaught at 6s., and in Ulster at 4s., and to pay one farthing per acre quitt rent to the King out of each shilling's worth of land so rated, viz.; 3d. or 12 farthings for one acre in Leinster, rated at 12s.; 2¼d. an acre for lands in Munster, rated at 9s., &c. Wood, bog, and mountain, to be cast in over and above."
