Page:Life of Sir William Petty 1623 – 1687.djvu/228

'Through the whole course of Sir William Petty's writings,' says Davenant, 'it may be plainly seen by any observing man, that he was to advance a proposition not quite right in itself, but very grateful to those who governed.'^[1] The particular instance, however, which Davenant selects to illustrate this proposition is singularly ill-chosen. He argues that the opinion advanced in the 'Political Arithmetick,' and to be noticed further on, that England had nothing to fear from French competition, was put forward by Petty to ingratiate himself with Charles II., whose French sympathies were notorious. But the exact opposite is the case, for that work was not allowed to see the light during the reign of that king and his successor, 'because the doctrines offended France,'^[2] and were in substance a plea that there was no necessity for England to join France in her crusade against Holland and Dutch trade, but that the true policy for England lay not in trying to crush the manufactures of Holland, but in becoming rich by following the example of the commercial policy of the Dutch Government. Sir William Petty no more advocated a policy hostile to French than to Dutch trade, and would gladly have seen a good understanding between the two nations. For that reason probably he was stigmatised by Davenant as being necessarily a supporter of the French policy of Charles II., on the assumption that everybody must be on one side or the other, and either wish to ruin France or destroy Holland, in order thereby to enrich England. If, however, Davenant had noticed the scattered observations in which Sir William Petty sometimes seems suddenly to recoil from the natural conclusions of his own premises, or to shelter himself behind an ambiguous plea of want of responsibility or of insufficient knowledge, he would not have been so wide of the mark in his criticisms. Some instances of this have already been given in regard to commercial policy. Others may be noticed in such passages as those in which, in the 'Treatise on Navigation,' he suddenly asks if, after all, it might not perhaps really be better, instead of employing seamen in trade, to employ

1. Davenant, Political Arithmetick, Works, i. 129.
2. See the Dedication to William III. by Sir William Petty's son, p. 200.