William Petty

“ Worsley to recommend to the committee an arrangement by which he (Worsley) should himself become the "examinator-general" with a salary, with a totally new agreement for the work, in which of course he was not serious, and which he describes as lost only by a jocular remark. He appears in this, as throughout the narrative, to have felt so strongly his immeasurable superiority to those about him, that he used them, and boasts of using them, as mere tools; always, however, to accomplish a good end. ”

“ In truth it is difficult to imagine a work more full of perplexity and uncertainty than to locate 32,000 officers, soldiers, and followers, with adventurers, settlers, and creditors of every kind and class, having different and uncertain claims on lands of different and uncertain value, in detached parcels sprinkled over two-thirds of the surface of Ireland. ”

“ So extraordinary and systematic a partition of a country has no analogy, even in the planting of a modern colony, and perhaps it is not profane to remark here, in reference to the importance of a map for such a division, that a French writer on the subject of maps in the Memorial Topographique et Militaire, thinks there are indications of such a document in the partition of the Holy Land, by Joshua. The council also, very properly, had care of the claims of the soldiers formerly disbanded, and others, in conformity with the Act, requiring consideration and report on those subjects. ”

“ The barony maps being on such a scale as shall keep them on a single sheet of paper, is similar to the practice of the recent Ordnance Survey, in which the County Index Maps were, in like manner, made on such scales as should bring each within a single sheet, for the obvious reason that if they were on such an uniform scale as should make any of them extend over more than one sheet, an index to the index would become neessary, and if the scale of the largest county were adopted for all, the smaller counties would be insignificantly small. ”

“ And to the end it may be the better ascertained what woods are to be cast in, and what are to be reserved according to the intent of the "Act for the Satisfaction of the Adventurers and Souldiers," you are carefully to distinguish the woods growing upon barren mountaines, or which are not fitt for timber, from all other woods; and the woods so reserved by the said Act you are to survey by themselves, and to make particular returns of them. ”

“ Amid this tumult of claims and divisions it is refreshing to read the appeal of the Lord Deputy on behalf of the poor Waldenses: "meeting in the Castle hall with severall officers of the army, they together did resolve" to subscribe, "some a month's pay, others three weeks, and some one week's pay." It affords a glimpse at the outer world, in the midst of a narrative devoted to a single object, and that object, one which, however important and however curious, cannot even at this day be dwelt upon without constant pain. ”

“ It will be hard for any particular person to pass a grant even for what he shall receive, without the true knowledge of the quantity, quality, and bounds of the same, which the present survey cannot aford. ”

“ For the better ascertaining of what land is judged to be bog and barren mountains, you are faithfully to describe the nature, quality, and bounds of all such kind of lands, and especially to make some eminent mark where the same runns and bounds with other land, arable, meadow, or profitable pasture land. ”

“ Adventurers and soldiers may purchase houses in cities and walled towns.And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, that the commissioners of Parliament aforesaid, shall, and are hereby authorized to admit the said adventurers, officers, and soldiers, to purchase any of the forfeited houses or messuages in any city or walled town within any of the ten counties aforementioned, for their security and habitation, paying for the same after the rate of six year's purchase, to be paid in ready money, as they are or shall be found by survey to be of present value to be let. ”

“ Petty emerged more fully at last, as all the objections produced no effect upon the council, and gave rise to the very satisfactory replies of the Doctor, after which he again addressed the council, urging his claim to an early settlement, stating the circumstances under which he entered upon the work, and the difficulties he had to encounter: by want of abstracts of the lands to be surveyed, and, by their imperfection, preventing his distributing his force to the best advantage. ”

“ THE history of the Down Survey is the history of the most remarkable work of a very distinguished man, and forms an essential portion of his biography. It is also the closing act of one and the opening of another eventful chapter in the local history of Ireland, and this account of it by the author contains many authentic papers not before printed. They exhibit the obstructions and difficulties which beset the work in its progress, and the ingenuity, perseverance, and ability, with which they were overcome. ”

“ This may give the narrative a peculiar value to those who are conversant with the more modern survey, but it will show to all, the importance, nay, necessity, of clearly scanning a work as a whole before entering upon it, and that similar circumstances will perhaps, in all ages, produce similar measures, though each be perfectly independent of the other. ”

“ And you are to cause such gross surveys of each particular honor, barony, manor, lands, or tenements, and of the quantity and number of acres of meadow, arrable, and profitable pasture, by estimation (together with the woods, bogs, and barren mountains) , to each of them respectively (or to any two or more of them adjoyning or lying together) belonging, to be taken and returned in writing under the hands of such persons as aforesaid, to the surveyors-general, and a duplicate thereof to the register for the said lands, with all possible expedition. ”

“ And, "that the measuring of as much land-line, by the chain and needle, as would have near four times begirt the whole earth in its greatest circle, and to have such an admeasurement remain upon record, and that to have performed such a service (being useful to all mankind) for a victorious army, the first that ever totally subdued Ireland, would have been as great an honour as any other atchievement I could make in so much time ”

“ The said under-surveyors shall have power to keep courts of survey, and to call before them such persons as they conceive best know the forfeited lands to be admeasured by them, or the lands not forfeited lying amongst them, or abutting upon them, and to examine them concerning the meets, bounds, rights, title, rents, valuations, of any of the said lands and premises; and for the more full discoveries of the same, to examine upon oath all persons, other then such as have interest or title to the lands in question, whom they presume can inform them in the premises. ”

“ Petty's first connexion with the survey, it is not necessary to follow the acrimony with which he comments upon the undertakings or performances of his predecessors; but the faults to which he adverts, and which he proposed to remedy, were, that the payment was excessive, that there was no mode of examining the work, and no security for its correctness. ”

“ My employments have made me many enemyes, nor have I had the opportunity to make scarce any friends. The adventurers for lands in Ireland have, with much artifice, been wrought into an opinion that I am their enemy, which I am not. ”

“ Worsley was then working, and defines the course he had to follow. It provides, in three preliminary recommendations, for ascertaining the lands to be surveyed, and defines in six articles the kind of survey required; by which it is clear that a survey by estates is what the Committee considered necessary, no territorial boundaries being required; and that barren land was not to be surveyed unless lying within profitable land, and then only for the sake of being excluded from it, such land, whether so situate or beyond the mearing of the estate, having to be "cast in." ”

“ This information being all classified and arranged in proper descriptive books, forms a large collection of documents, which, being preserved with the records of the Survey, may be at any time referred to or published; and as there is scarcely any more fertile source of confusion than uncertainty of nomenclature, it may be hoped that, as the boundaries of the Ordnance Survey are recognised by several Acts of Parliament, the names now engraved on the authorized maps of that Survey may also become generally adopted in all legal and authentic papers. ”

“ Such are the lights and shadows of every great work.
The survey itself is well known, but a personal narrative of the author must always command an interest peculiar to itself. Sir William, then Dr. Petty, came to Ireland in 1652, as Physician to the Forces, and to the household and family of the Lieut.-General, and his reason for undertaking a labour so remote from the ordinary pursuits, and even from the usual studies of his profession, as a general survey of the country, may naturally be sought for. ”

“ You are, by the like waies and meanes, to inquire of and find out the true yearly value of the premisses, and of every of them, as the same were lett for, or worth to be lett, in the year 1640, or at any time before; and also what part of the premisses are chargeable with any pious and charitable use or uses; and also to inquire of and survey, or cause to bee surveyed, the buildings, houses, edifices, timber, woods, open quarries, or mines, upon the premisses, and to make true and particular returns of the same in your bookes of survey. ”

“ When those unvouched lands shall appeare to bee obscure members of unforfeited lands never named in the civill survey, it was safer to presume that such omitted denominations were rather forfeited and concealed then otherwise, and it was better to pay for the measure of them then wholly to want the knowledge and cognizance of any case wherein the State may have a right of a thousand times more value then that litle charge of the measure. ”

“ Persons employed herein not to be purchasers.Provided always and be it hereby declared, that no surveyor-general, register, under-surveyor, or any other person imployed in the execution of this service, his or their childe or children, during the time of their imployment, or any in trust for him or them, shall be admitted directly or indirectly to be a purchaser of any part of the lands to be surveyed, upon pain that the purchase be void unless that they do first acquaint the commissioners of Parliament with their desires, and obtain license from them for the same. ”