Jean-Pierre Pétion

“ Petty describes as 'passionately affected with the hardships used towards him,' [33] expressed his views on the subject to Secretary Thurloe by letter. 'I have heretofore told you,' he wrote, 'my thoughts of Dr. Petty, and I am still of the same opinion; and if Sir Hierome Sankey run him not down with number and noise of adventurers and such like concerned persons, I believe the Parliament will find him as I have represented him. He has curiously deluded me these four years, if he be a knave. I am sure the junto of them, who are most busie, are not men of the quietest temper. ”

“ I have said little of the man himself. By his death in 1893 the world lost not only a fine painter, but one of the most honest, loyal, and generous of mankind. When writing Pettie's biography a year or two ago, I asked a well-known artist, who had been his life-long friend, for any recollection that would lend "atmosphere" to my memoir. He gave me several reminiscences, telling tale after tale of Pettie's cheeriness, loyalty, and unselfishness, and he ended: "Have you ever seen John Pettie's portrait of himself in the Aberdeen Gallery? ”

“ It is the scarab that figures in "She." It is a heavy ring, and bears the words, "Suten se Ra" ("Royal Son of the Sun") .
A grand piece of oak carving, dated 1664, surrounds the fireplace in the dining room. Here is an admirable portrait of the novelist by John Pettie, R.A. On either side of the window are paintings of two of the Hamiltons—ancestors of Mrs. Haggard—who were loyal to their King, Charles II. A story is told of the faithful Cavalier who hangs in the dining-room. No stauncher Royalist breathed, and he rode from London to Norwich in great glee with the news of the Restoration. ”

“ Sir William's hands appear at this time to have been full of business of all kinds. He was again urging upon the English Government the adoption of a plan for the improvement of the Irish revenue, a subject rarely out of his thoughts. To do justice to his plan it was absolutely necessary for him to be upon the spot, and he was therefore reluctant to leave England. Under these circumstances Lady Petty, who had become the mother of a second son, Henry, born October 22, 1675, undertook to remain in Ireland, and to supply her husband's place. ”

“ The first was laid down at Dublin in 1662. She distinguished herself by beating all the boats in the harbour, and subsequently outsailed the Holyhead packet, the swiftest vessel that the King had there. Hereupon Petty brought her to England [41] where, probably through the intervention of his friend Pepys, the attention of the Duke of York, then Lord High Admiral, and eventually the notice of the King himself was turned to the novel craft. Charles II. appears to have combined wonder at Petty's energy with quizzical amusement at his numerous projects. ”

“ The history of the Down Survey is but one chapter in the life of Sir William Petty, but, with his many subsequent works and papers, some still unpublished, it places him among the most remarkable and distinguished men of that stirring age. His enemies are forgotten, and he has passed away, but his works live after him. ”

“ Another pleasant thing he said of Christopher Pett, commending him that he will not alter his moulds of his ships upon any man's advice; "as," says he, "Commissioner Taylor I fear do of his New London, that he makes it differ, in hopes of mending the Old London, built by him." "For," says he, "he finds that God hath put him into the right, and so will keep in it while he is in." "And," says the King, "I am sure it must be God put him in, for no art of his owne ever could have done it;" for it seems he cannot give a good account of what he do as an artist. ”

“ Aubrey says 'that they read Vesalius together, [7] and that the younger student traced the optical schemes for the elder, for he had a very fine hand in those days for drawing, which draughts Mr. Hobbes did much commend.' [8]
Through Hobbes, Petty became acquainted in Paris with several of the most brilliant of the English refugees, such as the Marquis of Newcastle and Sir Charles Cavendish, and also with Father Marsin Mersen, the mathematician. ”

“ They tell me that he goes into the country next week, and that the young ladies come up this week before the old lady. Here I hear how two men last night, justling for the wall about the New Exchange, did kill one another, each thrusting the other through; one of them of the King's Chappell, one Cave, and the other a retayner of my Lord Generall Middleton's. Thence to White Hall; where, in the Duke's chamber, the King came and stayed an hour or two laughing at Sir W. Petty, who was there about his boat; and at Gresham College in general; at which poor Petty was, I perceive, at some loss ”

“ Petty's reason for assigning these advantages to labor applied in the production of non-perishable goods is political. He believes in a strong government. He wishes to strengthen the hands of England against her foreign neighbors and set her above possible attack. ”

“ The Essays in Political Arithmetick, together with the Quantulumcunque, form the third group of Petty's writings. They are almost altogether taken up with attempts to calculate the population of various cities. Like the Political Arithmetick itself, they have a public purpose. They explain to James II., who, at least in Petty's fancy, was willing, if only he could afford it, to cut loose from the dependence upon France inaugurated by his brother, that his own capital of London was a greater city than Paris, and, indeed, the greatest in the world. ”

“ Charles Petty was abroad in 1686. 'I am glad,' Sir William wrote to his godfather, 'that wee agree that the main end of travelling is to learn frugality, circumspection, discreet jealousy, and generall prudence; with such Behaviours as will adapt us for conversation with all mankind — without laying much weight upon Languages, University Arts and Sciences—and Interest in the famous men of other nations. ”

“ The seventeenth century was less careful of the individual's rights than the nineteenth. In the second place the economics of Petty's proposal are altogether sound. People are wealth. They are, indeed, the chief component of the national capital. The people of Ireland are capital badly situated. Their efficiency will be increased by transplanting them, just as the efficiency of a factory might be by removing it to a better site. The idea is inconsiderate; but, granting Petty's premises, it is by no means absurd. ”

“ His tracts on the Low Countries and on Irish trade deal with subjects treated fully by Petty. When two very intelligent men are both reviewing the same ground, it is probable that we shall find remarks in one easily paralleled by the other. The smallness of the Irish trade, Temple tells us, is due to revolutions, political intrigue, bad government and absenteeism. [8] All this is familiar, but we look in vain for the peculiarities of Petty. There is no use made of statistical information; there are no attempts to interpret the facts in any but the ordinary way of intelligent observation. ”

“ Not only can each specific condemnation of some restriction upon trade be offset by a specific commendation of some other restriction, but, what is far more important, it is clear also that to represent Petty as an advocate of laissez-faire on principle is altogether to misrepresent him. ”

“ After the dissolution of the second Parliament called by the Protector, in 1658, the struggle between him and the Anabaptists continued, and the favour shown to Dr. Petty by Henry Cromwell was a sufficient reason for his being the mark of the attacks of the religious fanatics. He was censured by the old surveyors, the protégés of Worsley, many of whom he had had to dismiss as incompetent, the evidence against them being only too clear. ”

“ His reputation has principally survived as a political economist; and he may fairly claim to take a leading place among the founders of the science of the origin of wealth, though in his hands what he termed political arithmetic was a practical art, rather than a theoretical science. ‘The art itself is very ancient,’ says Sir William Davenant, ‘but the application of it to the particular objects of trade and revenue is what Sir William Petty first began’ (Davenant, Works, i. 128–129) . Petty wrote principally for immediate practical objects, and in order to influence the opinion of his time. ”

“ In the field of his peculiar interests Petty sought the same quantitative precision which he demanded of his scientific colleagues. Now in economic investigation, as writers on the method of political economy never weary of iterating, the experimental method is in general precluded by the nature of the materials. The far seeing minister of an autocratic Czar may sometimes make industrial experiments on a gigantic scale and even isolate them from the disturbing influences of parliaments and newspapers, but he is not at all likely to utilize them for purposes of economic speculation. ”

“ Petty's predilection for a statistical method is due, I fancy, to the influence of Bacon, which was predominant among his scientific associates in the inchoate Royal Society. Like all Baconians, he believed in the usefulness of observations, and, by implication, in the uniformity of nature, and looked forward with confidence to the time when a precise knowledge of the external world should lay firm foundations for invention, and thus introduce the rule of man. ”

“ The economic method which Petty chiefly pursued, taken in combination with the limited extent of his materials, of necessity confined him to the discussion of a few out of the many questions that must have thronged upon his active mind. In no other field of economic interest were so many figures available as in that of taxation, and the fiscal changes of the Restoration, chancing to come just at the time when he first had leisure to return to his studies, gave to his economic inquiries a direction from which he never wholly departed. ”

“ He gone I to dinner, and then to the office, where busy all the afternoon. At night walked in the garden with my wife, and so I home to supper and to bed. Sir W. Pen is gone down to Sheernesse to-day to see things made ready against the fleete shall come in again, which makes Pett mad, and calls him dissembling knave, and that himself takes all the pains and is blamed, while he do nothing but hinder business and takes all the honour of it to himself, and tells me plainly he will fling, up his commission rather than bear it. ”

“ But, Lord! it is pretty to see how Pett hugs this business, and how he favours my Lord Bruncker; who to my knowledge hates him, and has said more to his disadvantage, in my presence, to the King and Duke of York than any man in England, and so let them thrive one with another by cheating one another, for that is all I observe among them. Thence home late, and find my wife hath dined, and she and Mrs. Hewer going to a play. Here was Creed, and he and I to Devonshire House, to a burial of a kinsman of Sir R. Viner’s ”

“ The dash and vigour of Pettie's finer work were characteristic not only of the painter, but of the man; and yet he was the least assertive and self-confident of craftsmen. An indefatigable worker, he felt the conviction he constantly proclaimed, that his only merit, his only hope of success, lay in his capacity for hard and unremitting toil. In his best years his work exhibited a glow and transparency of colour which have seldom been surpassed ”

“ It was a great painter who could catch and throw upon his canvas the poignant emotion of an "instant made eternity."
The greatness of Pettie's art owes much to his strong personality. His art was the immediate response to his own vigorous nature, and rarely has an artist's temperament been more absolutely reflected in subject as well as style. A painting of action was to Pettie, vigorous and robust, as natural a fulfilment of his own spirit as was an exquisite dreamy nocturne to Whistler, the fragile man of nerves and sentiment. ”

“ Petty, has been my Secretary and Clerk of the Council, and is one whom I have known to be an honest and ingenious man. Great endeavours have been made to beget prejudice against him." [10] Sankey had now risen into a position of much importance as a member of the army faction who were now governing the country. In July the subject was revived in the Rump Parliament, and Petty was kept under surveillance to await his trial. The case was suddenly referred to the Commissioners for Ireland, and nothing more was heard of it. ”

“ As a government official Petty could not legally take a share in this land jobbery, but be soon managed to overcome this difficulty. His salary as land commissioner was in arrears. The government compensated him by assigning him 6,000 acres of land, and gave him permission to buy £2,000 worth of debentures. Such notorious advantages could hardly pass unmarked, especially as Petty's official pluralism and his influence with Henry Cromwell made him all the more open to attack.
One must give him the credit of possessing conspicuous energy. ”

“ I say when this Cat Sir Hierome, had burnt his paw, by reaching the Apes Chestnuts out of the hot Embers, Worsly out of pity resumes his primitive trade to plaister him, wherein also others joyn, that they might by some means or other fave themselves from being publickly laught at, and to perswade the world that they could not be outwitted by Doctor Petty: the latter of which, they indeed needed not to have troubled themselves withall, Doctor Petty having been alwaies forward to do them right, as to the point of their wits ”