Life of Sir William Petty 1623 - 1687/Chapter IV

by Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice

 

CHAPTER IV

DR. PETTY AND THE ROYAL SOCIETY

1660-1667

 

Meetings at Gresham College—Dr. Petty and the King—Knighthood—The ship 'Experiment'—Launch of the 'Experiment'—Sir William Petty and Mr. Pepys—The 'Scale of Creatures'—Dr. Petty and the Churches—Unitarianism in the seventeenth century—Concerning the Plagues of London—Mechanical experiments—Design of a steam-vessel.

It has already been seen that the formation of a permanent 'society of men,' as careful to advance arts as the Jesuits to propagate religion, was a favourite idea with Dr. Petty. Such an association it was now determined to found.

Most of the members of the Philosophical Society of Oxford had by 1658 removed to London; but they continued their meetings, the trysting-place being fixed at Gresham College; and there, on November 28, 1660, a decision of momentous consequence for the future of scientific research was adopted.

In the Journal of the Royal Society the first official record is:

'Memorandum that, November 28, 1660, these persons following, according to the usual custom of most of them, mett together at Gresham College, to hear Mr. Wren's lecture, viz., the Lord Brouncker, Mr. Boyle, Mr. Bruce, Sir Robert Moray, Sir Paule Neill, Dr. Wilkins, Dr. Goddard, Dr. Petty, Mr. Ball, Mr. Rooke, Mr. Wren, Mr. Hill. And after the lecture was ended they did, according to the usual manner, withdrawe for mutual converse. When, amongst other matters that were discoursed of, something was offered about a designe of founding a College for the promoting of Physico-Mathematical Experimentall Learning; and because they had these frequent occasions of meeting with one another, it was proposed that some course might be thought of to improve their meeting to a more regular way of debating things, and, according to the manner in other countries, where there were voluntary associations of men in academies for the advancement of various parts of learning, soe they might do something answerable here for the promoting of experimentall philosophy. In order to which it was agreed that this company would continue their weekly meetings on Wednesday, at 3 o'clock, of the term time, at Mr. Rooke's chamber at Gresham College; in the vacation at Mr. Ball's chamber in the Temple.'^[1]

They then proceeded to draw up a list of persons 'willing and fit to join,' fixed a subscription, and appointed officers.

On December 19, 1659, it is entered in the Journal Books that Dr. Petty and Mr. Wren were 'desired to consider the philosophy of shipping, and bring in their thoughts to the company about it;' on January 2, 1660, that Dr. Petty was 'desired to bring in diagrams of what he discoursed to the company this day; and likewise the history of the building of ships;' on January 23, that Dr. Petty was asked 'to deliver in his thoughts concerning the trade of clothing,' which he accordingly did in a paper read on November 26, 1661.^[2]

Besides reading papers, Dr. Petty, though not one of the officers, was on several occasions appointed his deputy by the President, Lord Brouncker; and he was specially entrusted, on at least one occasion, with the unwelcome duty of collecting the subscriptions, which appear too often to have been in arrear.

The King affected the company of scientific men, and was well pleased to appear as the patron of their learned inquiries. He professed a particular interest in medical chemistry and the art of navigation:^[3] the special subjects of Dr. Petty's own investigations. 'I was since my last with the King,' the Doctor wrote to John Petty; 'he seemed earnest enough to speak with me. I began with a small prologue; among other things telling him that I never accepted of any trust out of desire or designe to do him harm; nor had I ever broken any to do him service. But the King seeming little to mind apologies, as needless, replied: "But, Doctor, why have you left off your inquiries into the mechanics of shipping?" In brief, he held me half an hour before the forty Lords, upon the philosophy of shipping, loadstones, guns, &c, feathering of arrows, vegetation of plants, the history of trades, &c, about all of which I discoursed intrépide and I hope not contemptibly. In fine we parted faire, and not without clear signes of future good acceptances. Since I began this letter, the Marquis of Ormonde met me and told me he had express orders to bring me to the King, saying that the King's head and mine lay directly one way.'^[4]

It is possible that Dr. Petty had made the acquaintance of the Marquis, now Duke of Ormonde, when with Hobbes in Paris, The wish he shared with Vincent Gookin, to protect the 'ancient Protestants,' had made him do what he could to protect the Duke's interest in Ireland during the Commonwealth,^[5] and he was probably able to do so in connection with the claims of the Countess of Ormonde, who succeeded in continuing possessed of her own property though that of the Duke had been confiscated.^[6] 'I have a little interest in my Lord of Ormonde,' Dr. Petty wrote to John Petty, 'inasmuch as he was pleased voluntarily to say that he had espoused me for his friend, and would make me the King's servant, &c.'^[7] 'I am making a projection for the King,' he writes a few days after, 'and am of the famous Club of all the Vertuosi, and am operative amongst them: and thus by little and little my life will crumble away.'^[8]

Aubrey describes the King 'as mightily pleased with his discourse.'^[9] 'I think,' Dr. Petty himself writes after the King had accorded him a second interview, 'that super totam materiam I am in a state of grace, to say no more. I am afraid I shall not be able to lay aside that natural severity and regularity with which I am too much troubled to live in these times, but I will endeavour at it.... I hear knights swarm. I know not what to do with myself. I think I could be a knight also.'^[10]

Dr. Petty, however, notwithstanding the marks of royal favour which he had received, found his interests gravely jeopardised by the new turn of events. It was one thing to be able to satisfy the fancies of the easy-going King and to win the goodwill of the Duke of Ormonde: it was quite another to deal with the exasperated enmities of the champions of the Church and State in Parliament, who, more royalist than the King, more zealous for the Book of Common Prayer than the Primate or the Chancellor, regarded the adherents of the deceased Protector, the Commonwealth men and the Anabaptists, as all equally objectionable, and drew no subtle distinctions.

Immediately before the Restoration Dr. Petty had received a promise of favourable treatment in a royal letter of January 2, 1660; but the King was now finding great difficulty in maintaining his promises, when they happened to clash with the views of the party now in the ascendant.^[11] After the complete victory of the Church and Cavaliers at the election of 1661, a general onslaught both on the old Republican party and the adherents of the Protector, and even on the Presbyterians, had begun. The dead bodies of Cromwell, Ireton, and Bradshaw, had just been dragged from their graves in the Abbey and hung at Tyburn, and the question was whether the easy-going King would be able to protect the property of anybody who had been connected with the late Protector.

The position of Dr. Petty was peculiar. He belonged to neither of the two great parties which had made the Restoration; he was not a Cavalier, he was not a Presbyterian. Neither on the one hand was he a soldier,' nor was he an 'adventurer;' but he held Irish land on a title practically founded upon theirs. A weaker man would only have seen the risk of losing all, and might have welcomed a compromise. With characteristic boldness, and undeterred by the tumult around him, Sir William determined to contend for what he held; and also to claim to be paid in full for the debt which he considered was still due to him for the work performed in connection with the distribution of the adventurers' lands. He saw that he was being attacked from the most opposite quarters. 'They say,' he writes to his cousin John, 'that I must be sequestered in Ireland as an Anabaptist; so that sometimes I must be of no religion and sometimes of all successively: viz. of that which pro tempore is esteemed worst.'^[12] Under the circumstances, to fight was the best course open, and on January 28, 1661, he memorialised the Privy Council for the payment of his still outstanding claims for the survey and distribution of the adventurers' lands.

The party which, with a firm hold on the House of Commons, continued from this date, with the briefest of intervals, to dominate the administration of the country till the Revolution, was Protestant against the Church of Rome, and Catholic against the Puritans. It was far less liberal than the King himself; and the broad latitudinarian views of Sir William Petty, if distasteful to the theologians of the Sankey type, were equally so to the upholders of a system of government based on the narrow orthodoxy of the Caroline divines in spiritual affairs and the doctrines of Clarendon in matters of State. At this moment a discovery was made which it was hoped by them might at once have deprived Sir William of the royal favour. In consequence of having been the friend and secretary of Henry Cromwell, Dr. Petty had become a trustee in some of the family arrangements of the Cromwell family, and held a power of attorney to act for Henry Cromwell and his wife. 'The Lord Henry Cromwell,' he had said in his reply to Sir Hierome Sankey, 'was so careful of me, as that no clamour, whisper, or other trinckling, in eight months time of my absence could induce him to sacrifice me to secret rage and malice. In gratitude and acknowledgment whereof, who hath adhered to him more closely than I have done?'^[13] In these sentiments the Restoration made no difference. There were indeed persons base enough to advise Sir William to disown his obligations to the fallen family, but he firmly declined, and determined to exert himself to save what he could out of the wreck to which the property of the Protector's family was exposed. He now had the gratification of being told, both by the King and the Chancellor, that instead of viewing his conduct with disapproval, they esteemed him the more for it.^[14]

Sir William's knowledge of shipbuilding had obtained for him the good-will of the Duke of York as well as that of the King. The Duke was Lord High Admiral and 'a most navarchal prince,' in Sir William's opinion. The two royal brothers now received with no unfriendly ear a suggestion that the little Club which met at Gresham College should be given a permanent constitution. With this object a charter of incorporation passed the great seal on July 15, 1662. Amongst the names of the original members is that of Dr. Petty, and he was knighted on the occasion. 'I have the sword,' he tells John Petty, 'wherewith 'twas done. My Lord Chancellor the same day expressed great kindness to me as having these many years heard of me. The Duke of Ormonde tells me that these are but the beginning of what is intended.'^[15] Sir William's two right-hand men soon after received appointments. John Petty was made Surveyor-General of Ireland, nominally as Sir William's deputy, with Thomas Taylor as his deputy and principal assistant. 'Meddle with no debentures,' Sir William wrote to him, 'and stop your ears when the Sirens sing.'^[16]

It was at this time that Sir William first became acquainted with Sir Robert Southwell, Clerk to the Privy Council. Southwell, like Sir William, was largely interested in Ireland, and was an 'ancient Protestant,' his family having migrated thither in the earlier part of the century. He was amongst the most confidential servants of the King, though belonging to the Anglo-Irish connection which the English aristocracy always viewed with ill-concealed jealousy. He had been employed on more than one important diplomatic mission during the reign, and in 1665 was sent as envoy extraordinary to Lisbon, on the occasion of the negotiation of the royal marriage, when he was knighted.

A grant of land was made to the Royal Society in Ireland, and Sir William was requested by his colleagues to prepare an estimate of the value of the grant. But Sir William found that in the general confusion of the times, and amid the apprehensions of further changes, it was next to impossible to realise the gift. Protestant might contend with Catholic; the English 'usurper' might fight with the native 'Tory;' but all were ready with absolute unanimity to join in resisting a suggestion so odious as that of the endowment of research.^[17]

The new society decided to fix the annual meeting on St. Andrew's Day. Aubrey relates that he remembers saying at one of these recurring festivals: 'Methinks it was not so well that we should pitch upon the Patron of Scotland's day. We should rather have taken St. George or St. Isidore' (a philosopher canonised), 'and that Sir William replied: "I would rather have had it on St. Thomas's Day; for he would not believe till he had seen and put his fingers into the holes, according to the motto 'Nullius in verba.'"'^[18]

The best means of combating the plague was naturally a subject of special interest to Sir William and the members of the Society. He has left a memorandum on the subject, written apparently in connection with some idea of his own employment as Physician-General. He was also much occupied with an attempt which had originated with Sir William Spragge, to fix an engine with propelling power in a ship, and with devising a new rigging.^[19] But the subject which claimed his special devotion was naval architecture, and more particularly the construction of a sluice-boat, or 'double bottomed ship,' for the easier navigation of the Irish Channel.

On November 27, 1665, after communicating to the Royal Society a paper on the 'History of Clothing,' Sir William read his general views on the subject of 'Shipping.' His mature opinions were finally set out in a 'Treatise or Discourse about the Building of Shippes, presented in MS. to the Royal Society;' which 'William, Lord Brouncker, President of the Council pertaining to that Society, took away,' says Aubrey, 'and kept in his possession till 1682, after saying it was too great an arcanum of State to be commonly perused.'^[20]

The 'sluice-boat,' or 'double bottom,' to quote the names by which the experiment is described, was, correctly speaking, a ship with two keels joined together by transverse connections, and resembled the vessel known as the 'Calais-Douvres,' which in recent years was successfully used for the improved navigation of the English Channel, until superseded by still more perfect designs. On November 12 and November 19, 1662, Sir William addressed two communications to the Royal Society, concerning 'a double bottomed cylyndrical vessel;' and Captain Graunt was desired to inform the Doctor that 'the society was well pleased with the idea, and that the members of the society in Ireland be appointed a committee on the matter.'^[21] Evelyn says of this invention: 'The vessel was flat-bottomed; of exceeding use to put into shallow parts, and ride over small depths of water. It consisted of two distinct keeles, crampt together with huge timbers; so as a violent stream ran between them. It bore a monstrous broad saile.'^[22]

The first trials were disappointing, but Sir William was not to be beaten: and having made a few alterations he again started 'The Experiment,' as the ship was called, on a trial sail. 'It is,' says Pepys, 'about thirty ton in burden, and carries thirty men with good accommodation (as much more as any ship of her burden), and so as any vessel of this figure shall carry more men with better accommodation by half than any other ship. This also carries ten guns of five tons weight.'^[23]

The Committee of the Royal Society, consisting of Lord Massereene, Sir Peter Pett, Sir A. Morgan and others, 'could not think of a better expedient to call together all such who were conversant with boats and the water, than on a holy-day to propose a match, and to make a free offering of a flag of silk charged with a gilded harp and a wreath of laurel above, and a scroll beneath with this inscription, "Prœmium Regalis Societatis Velociori," and this to be given to any boat that should outsail Sir William Petty's vessel, in such a course as should be set. The contest, in which three prime boats with the best sailors of the harbour of Dublin entered, ended in the triumph of Sir William's vessel, whose crew 'took down the premium and bore it at the main-top as "Admiral of the Cylynders."'

The fame of the double-bottomed vessel now was great, and was still further increased on her winning a wager of fifty pounds in a sailing match between Dublin and Holyhead with the packetboat; 'the best ship or vessel the King had there,' according to Pepys.^[24] In coming back from Holyhead they started together. Sir William's vessel arrived first, at five at night; the packet not till eight next morning; the crew not thinking that the other could have lived in such a sea.' The success which attended these trips naturally made Sir William anxious that his invention should be known in England, and brought to the notice of the King. In the attempt to obtain Royal patronage for his undertaking, it is not unlikely that he was aided by the interest of Pepys, who filled an important post at the Navy Board, and had easy access to the Duke of York. In October 1663, a vessel built on the new model was despatched from Dublin. Sir William gave his crew and their families an entertainment on the night of embarkation, to encourage them.

'Having sent their wives and children in Ringsend coaches, he provided them a banquet of burnt wines and stewed prunes, apple pyes, gingerbread, white sopps and milke, with apples and nutts in abundance; and all this besides meat, tongues, and other more solid food for the men themselves; and soon, after much crying and laughing and hopeing and fearing, he got them all to part very quietly one from another, intimating to the women that if they succeeded, there was a fleet to be built of double bottomed vessels, whereof every one of their husbands would be a captain; and in time it was not unlikely that they themselves would be ladyes; unto which they simperingly said, wiping their eyes, that more unlikely things had come to pass. Two of the crew, none of the worst, are volunteers. The substance of the speech which Sir William made to them was: "That he himself was no seaman, nor could tell what other vessell they might encounter with at Dublin, were able to doe: but the intention was to send them with a vessel to His Majesty, which though full of ugly faults and eyesores, being built for a fresh-water Lough and to be carried eight miles on land, was to outsayle any other vessel whatever; and to endure all the hazards of the troublesome passage from hence to London. Wherefore, he advised them, if they did not believe he should answer these ends, they should not venture their lives to make them and him ridiculous; for, said he, the seamen and carpenters will have noe mercy upon you; nor will the Court, with the Port, spare you; the players will make scenes of your double bodies, the citizens will make pageants of your vessel upon my Lord Mayor's day; but the comfort is that the King will be your judge."'^[25]

Lord Massereene endeavoured to hinder the sailing of the vessel for England. He had originally advanced money towards her construction, when she was intended for his Lough, and a long dispute began between Sir William and him as to the property in her. Sir William, however, ended by making good his claim to the ownership. The vessel accordingly started for England, and crossing the Channel arrived without mishap. Sir William soon succeeded in interesting the King in the experiment. Pepys gives an account of what followed. On February 1, 1664, he writes in his diary:—

'In the Duke's chamber: the King came and stayed an hour or two, laughing at Sir William Petty, who was then about his boat, and at Gresham College in general; at which poor Petty was I perceived at some loss; but did argue discreetly, and from the unreasonable follies of the King's objections and other bystanders, with great discretion; and offered to take odds against the King's best boates; but the King would not lay, but cried him down with words only. Gresham College he mightily laughed at for spending time in weighing of such things, and doing nothing else since they sat. He told him he would have to return to Ireland in his own ship, which he called a fantastical, bottomless, double bottomed machine.'^[26] His Majesty, however, was ultimately persuaded, having had his joke at the expense of the philosophers, to allow the sun of his royal countenance to shine on the project; for Evelyn records that on December 22, 1664, at the launching of a ship of two bottoms, invented by Sir William Petty, the King being present, gave it the name of 'The Experiment.'^[27] Shortly after, the prospering fortunes of the new vessel, which appears to have been one of those built on Sir William's plans, were being celebrated in orthodox fashion by a dinner. 'At noon, February 18, 1665,' says Pepys, 'at the Royal Oak Farm in Lombard Street; where Sir William Petty and the owners of the double-bottomed boat, the "Experiment," did entertain my Lord Brouncker, Sir Robert Murray, myself, and others, with marrow bones and a chine of beef, of the victuals they

 

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have made for this ship; and excellent company and a good discourse; but above all, I do value Sir William Petty.' The pleasant prospect was, however, soon to be overclouded, and dire disaster was impending, for in the following year the ship perished in the Irish Channel, in a great storm, which, in the words of Anthony Wood, 'overwhelmed a great fleet the same night; so that the ancient fabric of ships had no reason to triumph upon that new model, when, of seventy sail that were in the same storm, there was not one escaped to bring the news.'^[28]

Notwithstanding this disaster, Sir William still continued to believe in the correctness of the principles on which the vessel was constructed, and only awaited a favourable opportunity to apply them again in practice. 'Honoured friends,' he wrote in a circular to the subscribers for the ship, 'I wish I were able to repair what all of our friends have suffered.... 'Tis my unhappiness to believe that this designe will not dye, and therefore I should be glad to receive somewhat for a fourth adventure, which I can with the same confidence as upon the third proceeding. I am not much discouraged, and am less ashamed at anything that has happened. I have willingly deceived nobody, nor have I been much deceived myself. The greatest do not always hitt their marks. This adversitie will try and steady the resolution.'^[29]

The controversy which raged around the double-bottomed ship kept Sir William in London and the neighbourhood. Evelyn relates how about this time he was at the Durdans, in Surrey, where he found Sir William and Dr. Wilkins and Mr Hooke, 'contriving chariots, new rigging for ships, and a wheele for one to run races in,^[30] and other mechanical inventions,' and perhaps, he says, 'three such persons together were not to be found elsewhere in Europe for facts and learning.'^[31] Sir William's name also frequently occurs amongst those present at the gatherings—so faithfully recorded by Pepys—at the coffee-house, where the leaders in science, literature, and politics, used to assemble and discuss the topics of the day. The celebrated Diary depicts him the centre of a brilliant group, kept constantly alive by his discourse, enriched as it was by a varied experience of life, and seasoned by the flavour of paradox and the satirical gifts which, in the practical affairs of life, had already been the cause of trouble to him, and were to be so again; but in these meetings struck no rankling wound, where they only played round the genial souls of Pepys and his chosen friends, instead of hurtling down in an iron hail on the obnoxious head of Sir Hierome Sankey and his Anabaptist allies.

'January 11, 1664.—To the coffee-house, whither came Sir William Petty and Captain Graunt, and we fell to talke of musique, the universal character, art of memory, prayers, counterfeiting of hands, and other most excellent discourses to my great content, having not been in so good a company a great while.^[32]

'January 27, 1664.—At the coffee-house, where I sat with Sir S. Ascue and Sir William Petty, who in discourse is methinks one of the most rational men that ever I heard speak with a tongue, having all his notions the most distinct and clear, and among other things saying that in all his life these three books were the most esteemed and generally cried up for within the world: "Religio Medici," "Osborne's Advice to a Son," and "Hudibras;" did say that in these—in the two first principally—the wit lies; and confirming some pretty sayings—which are generally like paradoxes—by some argument smartly and pleasantly urged, which takes with people who do not trouble themselves to examine the force of an argument which pleases them in the delivery, upon a subject which they like—whereas by many particular instances of mine, and others out of "Osborne," he did really find fault and weaken the strength of many of Osborne's arguments; so as that in downright disputation they would not bear weight; at least, so far, but that they might be weakened and better found in their rooms to confirm what is there said. He showed finely whence it happens that good writers are not admired by the present age; because there are but few in every age that do mind anything that is abstruse and curious; and so longer before anybody, do put the true praise, and set it on foot in the world: the generality of mankind pleasing themselves in the easy delights of the world: as eating, drinking, dancing, hunting, fencing, which we all see the meanest men do the best; those that profess it. A gentleman never dances so well as the dancing master, and an ordinary fiddler makes better musique for a shilling than a gentleman will do after spending forty, and so in all the delights of the world almost.'^[33]

'April 2nd, 1664.—At noon to the Coffee House, where excellent discourse with Sir William Petty, who proposed it as a thing truly questionable, whether there really be any difference between waking and dreaming; that it is hard not only to tell how we know when we do a thing really or in a dream; but also to know what the difference is between one and the other.'^[34]

'22nd March, 1665.—With Creed to the Change, and to my house; but it being washing day, took him, (I being invited) to Mr. Houblons, the merchant, where Sir William Petty and abundance of most ingenious men: owners and freighters of the "Experiment," now going with her two bodies to sea. Most excellent discourse. Among others, Sir William Petty did tell me that, in good earnest, he hath in his Will left such parts of his estate to him that could invent such and such things; as, among others, that could truly discover the way of milk coming into the breasts of a woman; and he that could invent proper characters to express to another the mixture of relishes and tastes. And says, that to him that invents gold, he gives nothing for the philosophers' stone; for, says he, they that find out that, will be able to pay themselves. But, says he, by this means it is better than to give a lecture; for here my executors, that must part with this, will be sure to be well convinced of the invention before they do part with their money.'^[35]

Sir William, devoted as he no doubt mainly was to science, and especially to mechanical science, would, however, have been no true child of the seventeenth century, if he had not also dabbled in theology, and he unfortunately regarded it as one of his strong points. His studies frequently wandered off into the realm of metaphysical inquiry, and the transition thence to the realm of religious speculation was easy.^[36] To think, meant with him as a rule to write also, on whatever subject happened to be occupying his mind at the moment; and theology had a fatal attraction for his pen. He was for a long time engaged on a treatise, entitled 'The Scale of Creatures.' 'The discourse,' he tells Sir Robert Southwell, 'was not vulgar, nor easy to be answered by the libertine scepticks; of whom the proudest cannot be certain but that there are powers above him, which can destroy him, as they do with the viler animals. 'Tis hard to say where this scale ends, either upwards or downwards, but it is certain that the proud coxcomb man is not the top of it: wherefore let us be sober and modest, and conforme to the general practise of good men, and the laws of our age and countrey, and carefully study the laws of nature, which are the laws of God.'^[37] ...

The object of his work is alluded to more fully in another letter to Sir Robert: —

'I am glad,' he says, 'Lord Chief Justice Hayle hath undertaken the work you mention [on the Origination of Mankind], but Galen, De Usu Partium, will not do it:   1. the point is to prove that the most admired piece in the world, which Galen takes to bee man, was made by designe and pre-conceived idea, which his Maker had of him before his production.   2. What shall we say to the flaws and many infirmities in ye said piece, man; and ye difficulty of helping either your soare throat or your father's dropsy?   3. The question is whether man was designed to performe the things which he performeth, or whether he performeth by the same necessity of his fabrick and constitution, wherewith fire burneth. My medium or organ of the "Scale of Creatures" doth not wholly remove these difficulties; but it doth sufficiently humble Man, and check the insolent scepticisms, which do now pester the world; and is a good caution against the slighting religion and the practise of good men; and as for the other grand point, men take too much pains to prove it; for it is necessary that there should be a First and Universale Cause of all things, by whose designe and according to whose idea all other things must be made, and we may feele the blessings of the incomprehensible Being, altho' we do not see it; as blind men may be comforted by the warmth of the fire. Abyssus abyssum invocat. Wherefore let us returne to wish well unto and do well for one another. I hope when our case of clay is broaken by Naturale Death, wee shall no longer peep thro' its creaks and cranyes, but then looke round about us freely, and see clearly the things which wee now do but grope after....'^[38]

But Sir William had not got far in this opus magnum before he began to realise that his theology might raise up even more enemies against him than his transactions in Irish land, although the Court of High Commission no longer existed and the Inquisition had no jurisdiction in England. 'The "Scale of Creatures" goes on,' he tells Southwell, 'but will produce only more mischief against mee. There will be many things in it the world cannot bear, and for which I shall suffer. But suppose all were transcendently well, what shall I get by it but more envy?'^[39] So reflection after a time brought discretion, and 'The Scale,' even if completed, was never published. The only relic of it is a syllabus of what 'The Scale' was intended to contain. The work itself is not extant.

The mental opposition which existed between Sir William and the extreme Calvinists has already been noticed. Of him it might have been said, as of Algernon Sidney, that 'he seemed to be a Christian, but in a particular form of his own. He thought it was to be like a divine philosophy in the mind.'^[40] Such views were as odious to the Church of Rome as to the Church of Geneva, and for the whole ecclesiastical system of Rome, Sir William, as a follower of Hobbes, had a rooted aversion, which recent events had tended to strengthen. He had seen that the true origin of the troubles in Ireland lay in the constant attempts of the Church of Rome to use the leaders of the Irish people as the instruments of their own designs; and he was of opinion that the cause of all the civil strife, not in Ireland only but in Europe, for more than a century, had been the aggressions of that Church on the power of the State, and the religious persecutions on account of opinion with which it had devastated Southern Europe like a pestilence, 'punishing believers heterodox from the authorized way, in public and open places, before great multitudes of ignorant people with loss of life, liberty, and limbs.'^[41] Recent events had tended to accentuate these feelings. At the very time when he was in London negotiating with Thurloe, in 1658, the latter had received a despatch from Maynard, the English Consul at Oporto, with an account of the death by burning as heretics—of which Maynard had been an ocular witness—of a motley band of unsound theologians, Jews, and English sailors, who had been seized on different pretexts by the officers of the Inquisition and sentenced to be executed at a 'Grand assize' held there.^[42] George Penn also, brother of his friend Admiral Penn, had died just after the Restoration under circumstances which had strongly moved public indignation. Early in life George Penn had married a Roman Catholic lady in Antwerp, and subsequently settled in Spain, as a merchant, at Seville and Malaga. He carefully avoided all cause of religious offence, but his property was too tempting a bait. He was suddenly seized in 1643 in his house by the familiars of the Holy Office, and dragged away: his marriage was declared void; his wife was carried off, and forcibly married to a Roman Catholic; he was himself plunged into a dungeon and called upon to recant his religion and confess unheard-of crimes. On his refusal he was almost tortured to death. At length mind and body gave way, and he promised to sign all that was dictated to him. On these conditions his life was spared as a signal instance of the mercy of the Church. But his property was confiscated and handed over to ecclesiastical uses. Then he was dragged to the Cathedral of Seville in order publicly to recant his errors, and be a central figure in one of those ghastly scenes in which the gloomy and cruel character of the Spanish people rejoiced as 'acts of faith' specially agreeable to God. But on leaving the Cathedral he was again seized, and plunged into a debtors' prison. Fortunately for himself, broken and disfigured as he was, he had been recognised by some English residents who had been attracted to the Cathedral. They communicated with the English Government. Still more fortunately, Admiral Penn was at this moment on his station in the Channel (1647), and happened to seize a ship suspected of communicating with the rebel forces in the South of Ireland. On board this ship was a Spanish noble, Juan da Urbino, on his way to Flanders. The rough Admiral stripped him naked, and treated him with every indignity, announcing his intention to keep him in his hold till his brother was released. The slow pulse of the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs was now probably quickened, and George Penn was released and sent to England. Separation was demanded, but as war soon after broke out, the claim remained in abeyance. At the Restoration Charles appointed George Penn Envoy to the Court of Spain, as a striking means of reinstating him in public opinion after the gross indignities of which he had been the object.^[43] But he was physically a ruined man. The rack and the lash, the loss of wife, home, and property, had done their work; and he died in England leaving an uncertain pecuniary claim against the Spanish Government to his family.

In the world of theology a furious bigotry still held an almost undisputed sway. The idea that the choice lay not necessarily between blank negation on the one hand and either Puritanism or the Church on the other, that science and religion had relations, that there was a possible connection between the religions and philosophies of the ancient world and Christianity, and that Christianity itself must have existed before the New Testament had been written, were ideas which it was barely possible to hold anywhere, without danger to the property and person of those who asserted them. Such ideas also had no hold on the popular mind, which delighted in definite dogma. The hope indeed of the scientific men and philosophers of the seventeenth century, especially of the school of Cambridge Platonists, which Sir William's old Oxford ally, Dr. Wilkins, had joined, was that the future of religion lay with a rational and unsectarian form of Christianity; and many of the founders of the Royal Society looked forward to establishing religion on a basis of evidence and reason. But these views, though boasting distinguished adherents in England, amongst the masses made no converts, and were equally distasteful to the Protestant and the Romanist theologians. Those who held them were denounced as Socinians, and it is conceivable that, under less favourable circumstances, the fate of Dr. Petty might have been that of his brother-physician, Michael Servetus, who only escaped from the clutches of the Roman Catholic authorities of Vienne to fall into those of Calvin and be burnt at Geneva. 'Being a votary,' he acknowledges, 'neither to any one particular sect or superstition (as a member of Christ's universal Church) nor to any one faith or party, as obedient to my present visible governors, (it being alleged against me that I had termed such who were otherwise, to be as worms and maggots in the guts of the Commonwealth) I was counted as an enemy even to all the Sects and Factions.'^[44]

NOTES TO CHAPTER IV

I

Concerning ye Plagues of London

1. London within ye bills hath 696^th people in 108^th houses.

2. In pestilentiall yeares, (which are one in 20), there dye ¹⁄₆th of ye people of ye plague and ¹⁄₅th of all diseases.

3. The remedies against spreading of ye plague are shutting up suspected houses and pest-houses within a ½ mile of ye citty.

4. In a circle about ye center of London of 35 miles semidiameter, or a dayes journey, there live as many people and are as many houses as in London.

5. Six heads may bee caryd a days journey for 20^sh.

6. A family may bee lodged 3 months in ye country for 4^sh, so as ye charge of carying out and lodging a family at a medium will be 5^sh.

7. In ye greatest plague wee feare, scarce 20^th families will bee infected; and in this new method but 10^th, ye charge whereof will bee 50^th pounds.

8. The People which ye next plague of London will sweep away will be probably 120^th, which at 7£ per head is a losse of 8,400^ths, the half whereof is 4,200^ths.

9. So as 50 is ventured to save 4,200, or about one for 84.

10. There was never a Plague in ye campagne of England by which ¹⁄₆th of ye people dyed.

11. Poore people who live close dye most of ye plague.

12. The Plague is about 3 monthes rising and as much falling, which cold weather hastens.

13. Killing dogs, making great fires in ye street, nor the use of medicaments are considered sure, for which everyone by common directions may bee theire owne Physicians.

14. In ye circle of 70 miles diameter, choose 10 large wide roomey disjoyned houses with water and garden to each, the Inhabitants to remove at 7 dayes notice.

15. Convenient wagons or coaches to bee prepared to carry away ye suspected.

16. A method to furnish ye pesthouses with medicines for theire mony.

17. Bookes of devotion for every house.

Proposalls.—When 100 per week dy, the Plague is begun. If there dye fewer than 120^ths, out of ye bills, of all diseases within a yeare after, then W. P. is [to] have 20^sh per head for all lesse and to pay 10^sh per head for all above it.

Every family removed being to provide 10£ for ye charge of going and coming, and of 4 monthes rent. Or a gratuity of —— with W. P. his insurance.^[45]

II

'An Attempt to demonstrate that an Engine may be fix'd in a good Ship of 5 or 600 Tonn to give her fresh way at Sea in a Calm.'

In May 1673, Sir Edward Spragge caus'd the Experiment to be made in a Dogger of about 80 Tonn, and found it effectually to answer his purpose. He intended to have promoted it, so as to have it fix'd in some Frigatts against the next Summer; but his Death put a stop to the undertaking, and tho' great endeavors have been used to set it on foot divers times since, it has not yet met with any encouragement.

The Description.—1. The Engine is to consist of an Axis or Shaft of about 35 foot in length, or more or less in proportion to the bredth of the ship, for it must extend itself without board, about 3 foot on each side.

2. This Axis is to be placed in a Frigat, lofty, betwixt Decks and to ly athwart ship, even with the upper deck, or perhaps riseing an inch or two, that it may not ly lower betwixt Decks then the Beams of the Ship. Upon the middle of the Axis shall be placed a substantiall Trundle head.

3. On each end of the Axis, without-side the ship, is to be fix'd a wheele of about 7 foot diameter, with 12 Stemms issuing out of each wheele, and a Paddle or Oar at the end of each Stem of 3 feet square upon the flat; the Stemms to be of such a length that those Paddles which hang perpendicular may be quite dipt in the water to the Stem.

4. To make this Axis and the Paddle wheels turn round, so as the Paddles may take hold of the water in the nature of Oars one after another successively.

There is to be a capstern standing upright betwixt Decks, just in that part of the Ship where the jeer capstern is usually placed. Upon this capstern shall be fix'd a cog-wheele, with the Coggs standing upwards to take hold of the aforesaid Trundlehead.

5. The wheele in which the Coggs are placed, shall have 15 holes, to put so many half barrs in upon occasion as the manner is in Drum Capsterns.

These barrs may be in length about 13 foot from the center of the capstern, if the ship have bredth enough, as I think all ships have, that have 6 foot height betwixt Decks; and then three men may well be placed to every bar.

6. Upon the wast or upper Deck, must be another capstern and crown wheele, with the Coggs turn'd downwards to take hold of the upper part of the Trundle head. So the men betwixt decks heaving one way, the men on the upper deck must heave the other way, to give the Axis and Paddle wheels motion; the like number of Barrs shall be upon ye upper Deck; and ye like number of men: 3 men at each half barr to the 32 half barrs, 96 men in all. And if need should be on any extraordinary occasion, the Barrs may be swifted with a rope running from the end of one Bar to ye end of the other quite round, and one man may heave upon the swifting between ye ends of every Barr; 16 betwixt decks and 16 upon Deck; which added to the 96 makes 128 men.

7. The Paddles and Stemms without side the ship, and the capstern barrs within shall be so ordered, that they may be put in, or taken out in a quarter of an hours time, as occasion shall require. So nothing will remain standing within but the capsterns and Crown wheels, which will take up so little room, as to hinder nothing in the ship, and without will onely remain ye 2 ends of the Axis, with the 7 foot wheel upon each, which may always be kept covered by Tarpaulins made for that purpose.

While the Engine is working, it will hinder the use of 3 or 4 Gunns on each side the ship; but when the paddles and capstern barrs are stow'd, it will neither hinder the use of one Gunn, nor anything else in the ship.

But the best way to evince this point is to have a perfect modell of the Engine, fix'd within a good modell of a fourth-rate Frigat.

Since the first Invention and the said Experiment was made, another use was found out for the Engine, than that for which it first was design'd. And the same being fix'd on two Boats, covered over with a house about 6 foot high and 20 foot square, has bin employed for the Towing of Ships, first wrought with men, and since with horses, over the Barr at Newcastle, and up and down the River of Thames, between London and Gravesend, and it was wrought with six horses, worth about 8 or 9^l a horse.

With this Engine has bin towed 4 of his Maj^ys. new thirdrate ships, built at Blackwall, from that place to Woolwich, without any masts, vizt. the Kent, Essex, Suffolk, and Exeter.

With the same has bin tow'd down the River from Deptford to severall places divers of his Majesty's 5^th and 4^th rate Frigatts, when the wind obstructed there; having all their masts and Rigging standing and sails furled. Particularly, the St. David, commanded by Sir Richard Munden, quite thro' Gallions reach, against a stiff gale of wind.

The Engine has likewise tow'd merchants ships deep laden drawing 16 foot water, from Blackwall, Gravesend, in one Tyde.

The said third rate ships were of above 1000 Tonn burthen, and each of them were towed in an houre from Blackwall to Woolwich, which is 3 miles, and 2 of them tow'd against the Wind.

All this was perform'd by the strength of 6 horses going round at a capstern in like manner as if it were to heave up an Anchor.

The Demonstration.—Now if wee knew how to place the like Engine within side a ship, and how to apply as much strength to work it as was applyed on board the Tow-boat, then the same strength will give motion to the ship by itself, at least as well as it used to give motion to the Tow boat and the Ship too.

That the Engine may be so placed in a ship is already set forth; and that like force may be applyed to it, is to bee proved.

Twelve men are allow'd to heave as much at a capstern as an able horse can draw at ye same; and say the strength of 72 men are equall to that of 6 horses.

But wee can place 96 men at 2 capsterns, and 32 upon the swiftings, in all 128; which is about ⁴⁄₅ more strength then the strength of 6 horses.

And therefore since ye strength of 6 horses, or 72 men, did give good steerage way to the Towboat and the St. David, against a brisk gale of wind; the strength of 128 men, applyed in the same manner may give fresh way to the St. David (or other like ship) at Sea in a Calme.

This I conceive to be Demonstration, but humbly submit to better judgments.

W. P.⁠

Endorsed.—An Attempt to demonstrate how an Engine may be placed in Frigatts to give them way in a calm.

November 7, '85.

---

1. See Weld, History of the Royal Society, i. 65.
2. This paper is in the MS. volume collected by Dr. Hill in 'The Sloane Collection,' British Museum.
3. Burnet's History of his Own Times, i. 169.
4. February 5, 1660.
5. Sir W. Petty to Southwell, 1663. See ch. v. p. 140.
6. The Marquis of Ormonde was the only Protestant of his family by the accident of being made a King's ward on his father's death. He was brought up in the family of Doctor Abbot, Archbishop of Canterbury. See Prendergast, p. 125.
7. August 8, 1660.
8. January 22, 1660.
9. Bodleian Letters, ii. 485.
10. To John Petty, February 19, 1660.
11. 14, 15 Charles II. ch. ii. s. 44, where the above letter is quoted and the declaration of November 30 is recited. (Irish Statutes.)
12. March 27, 1660.
13. Reflections, p. 134.
14. Life of Lord Shelburne, i. 4.
15. To John Petty, 1662.
16. Ibid. October 4, 1662. Hobbes, owing to the ill-feeling which existed between Dr. Wallis and him, was not among the original members of the Royal Society.
17. Weld, History of the Royal Society, i. 135.
18. Bodleian Letters, ii. 486.
19. See notes to the chapter, 122.
20. Bodleian Letters, ii. 490. Anthony Wood questions whether this may not be the work published in 1691, after Sir William's death, under the title of A Treatise of Naval Philosophy. See, too, Evelyn's Memoirs, i. 358.
21. Journals of the Royal Society, 1662, British Museum.
22. Evelyn's Memoirs, i. 378, 387, ii. 95, 96.
23. Pepys's Diary, iii. 233. See, too, Birch, History of the Royal Society, i. 124, 131, 141, 183.
24. Pepys, iii. 233. In the Pepysian Library at Magdalene College, Cambridge, and in the MS. volume at the British Museum, in the Sloane Collection, containing the Register Book of the Royal Society, vol. i., a picture of the vessel is to be found. See, too, the MS. minutes of the Royal Society of Dublin, i. 3, now at the British Museum, and Birch, History of the Royal Society, i. 183 et seq.
25. Register Book of the Royal Society, and Petty MSS.
26. Pepys's Diary, iv. 28.
27. Evelyn's Memoirs, i. 387.
28. Pepys's Diary, iv. 356. Wood, Athenæ Oxonienses, iv. 215, 216. Evelyn makes the ship perish in the Bay of Biscay.
29. June 16, 1666, Petty MSS. Also 'H.M. to Henry Muddleman,' September 16, 1663; 'J.C. to Williamson,' January 4, 1664, in the Calendar State Papers, Domestic Series, lxxx. 274, 437.
30. Apparently an early idea of the velocipede or cycle. In the church of Stoke Poges, near Slough, on an ancient window of the date of 1642, a figure may be seen riding a rude wheel. See the Wayfarer, February 1888, pp. 12-14.
31. Evelyn's Memoirs, ii. 244.
32. Pepys's Diary, iv. 11.
33. Pepys's Diary, iv. 23, 24.
34. Ibid. iv. 96.
35. Pepys's Diary, iv. 378.
36. Amongst the Longleat MSS., the copy of a letter exists from Sir William to Lord Anglesea (April 22, 1675) full of speculations on the nature of the Deity, the end and object of creation, &c.; also a sort of catechism (in Latin) on the fundamental truths of religion.
37. October 30, 1676.
38. November 14, 1676.
39. To Southwell, August 4, September 29, 1677. In the Bodleian Library there is a long letter to the Earl of Anglesea 'justifying his method of explaining the attributes of God,' April 3, 1675. (Rawlinson MSS.)
40. Burnet, History of his Own Times, vol. ii. p. 351.
41. Treatise on Taxes, ch. ii. p. 6.
42. It is curious that in this letter Maynard states, with reference to several other persons who were burnt at the same time, that—just as in the case of George Penn mentioned below—the desire of the Church to get possession of their wealth was the true cause of their indictment. 'They were all of them people of great estate, which is supposed was the greatest crime for which they dyed.' Thurloe, vii. 567.
43. See the original documents bearing on this case, printed in Granville Penn's Life of Admiral Penn (appendix to vol. i.).
44. Reflections, p. 119.
45. Of Lessening ye Plagues of London, October 7, 1667.