Page:William Petty - Economic Writings (1899) vol 1.djvu/308

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210
The Political Anatomy of IRELAND.

lived in Ireland as the Europians do in America, or as several Nations do now upon the same Continent; so as an English-man was not punishable for killing an Irish-man, and they were governed by different Laws; the Irish by the Brehan-Law, and the English there by the Laws of England.

Registers of Burials, Births and Marriages, are not yet kept in Ireland, though of late begun in Dublin, but imperfectly[1].

English in Ireland, growing poor and discontented, degenerate into Irish; & vice versa; Irish, growing into Wealth and Favour, reconcile to the English.

Eleven Irish Miles make 14 English, according to the proportion of the Irish Perch of 21 feet, to the English of 16½. |113|

The admeasurement of Land in Ireland, hath hitherto been made with a Circumferencer, with a Needle of 313 long, as the most convenient Proportion; but 'twill be henceforth better done by the help of some old Geometrical Theoremes, joyn'd with this new property of a Circle, demonstrated by Dr. R. Wood[2].


The DIAGRAM[3].

ALtho the Protestants of Ireland, be to Papists, as three to eight; yet, because the former live in Cities and Towns, and the Scots live all in and about five of the 32 Counties of Ireland; It seems, in other open Counties, and without the Corporations, that the Irish and Papists are twenty to one.||


  1. See the Note to the Observations upon the Dublin Bills.
  2. Robert Wood was born at Pepper Harrow near Godalming, Surrey, about 1622. He was educated at Eton and at New Inn Hall, Oxford, and became B.A. of Merton College in 1647. He was a parliamentary fellow of Lincoln, a 'retainer' of Henry Cromwell in Ireland and a frequenter of the Rota club. It is therefore probable that Petty and he had been long acquainted. He became mathematical master at Christ's Hospital School, and subsequently accountant general of revenue in Ireland, and contributed several papers to the Philos. Trans. Wood, Athenæ Oxon., ii. 780; Burroughs, Register, 508; Foster, Alumni Oxon.; Fitzmaurice, 264. Since Petty failed to give the promised diagram "it is not known what particular quality of the circle is here referred to as demonstrated by" Wood.—General Larcom in Petty's Hist. of the Down Survey, 323.
  3. In S half a page is left blank, apparently for the insertion of the diagram.