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that no satisfaction appears to have been made to Dr. Petty for his service in the employment of setting out lands, whereas the permission to purchase debentures, in the fourteenth chapter, page 223, though only "untill they would do for him what might answer the end aforementioned," viz., full payment for those services, was itself no inconsiderable boon.
The majority of the seven signed the report, but three objected, and were ordered by the council to put their objections in writing, which was enforced, after another application from Dr. Petty, that a "full and fair tryal" be accorded him.
At length the dissentients delivered their objections, in nine distinct articles, to which Dr. Petty replied in full detail. First, showing that their articles do not bear upon the subjects of the report which they objected to, and are, therefore, not such as they were called on to draw up, and were required to present. But they were in fact nine distinct charges, and he answered each of them in the most ample and complete manner, with a seriousness and exactness proportioned to the importance of the subject, accompanying the whole with a schedule setting forth the several statements, more especially in relation to the third article, as exact matter of account.
In regard to the figures in this schedule, and to these calculations, the Doctor might well apprehend they "would be to strangers troublesome and obscure;" and they certainly are not less so at this day, complicated with the price of debentures at different periods, the "enhanced and depressed" rates of lands, and the "quota pars," besides introducing subjects not elsewhere adverted to, as Mrs. Carey, the lots of regiments in Kerry, and others. Yet few would probably have been found to dissent from the six inferences he draws, or come to any other conclusion than, as he expresses it in his fourth, "that the way of his satisfaction was neither contrary to law or equity, only it was singular and extraordinary," "that he did not choose that way, but was forced on it," and that from these circumstances it was peculiarly liable to jealousy.
It may, perhaps, be regretted that he should have dealt in lands at all, while he was himself a commissioner for distributing them. Such would now be the feeling of a public officer, and such was his own feeling, having long "forbore out of tenderness to deale in land or debentures, till the whole army was satisfied." But it does not appear that he sought the office, and it would have been unreasonable that he should on that account have altogether abstained from purchasing land, or from obtaining that mode of payment, when it seemed possible even that means might fail, from the number of unknown claims of other kinds which were coming in; so many, that he states it was doubtful whether there would be enough land to satisfy them all. And it is to be remembered, that although the Act prohibited all persons employed in connexion with it, from dealing in land without the special consent of the council, it allowed public salaries and public debts to be paid wholly or in part in land, and that such was the general practice. The names of his immediate coadjutors, Gookin, King, Symner, Worsley, nay, every name which appears in this history, appears also in the books of distribution as a possessor of land. His having forborne so long, appears the only peculiarity in that respect, except, indeed, the peculiar knowledge and ability which he brought to bear upon the subject, when once he had entered upon it.
