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THE HISTORY OF YACHTING
paper was taken away by Lord Broucnker, who kept it in his possession, saying, that "it was too great an arcanum of State to be commonly perused." He also wrote a treatise on Naval Philosophy, in three parts, and at the end, as an appendix, "An account of several new Inventions, in a discourse by way of letter to the Earl of Marlborough," published in 1691; and he drew up the 198th Number of the Philosophical Transactions, entitled "What a complete Treatise of Navigation should contain." He died in his sixty-fifth year, December 16, 1687, one of the most accomplished and learned men of his time.
A plain flat stone marks his grave at Rumsey, bearing this inscription:
HERE LAYES
SIR WILLIAM
PETTY.
