EconlibThe LibraryOther Sites |
Front Page Titles (by Subject) ADVERTISEMENT 1 - The Economic Writings of Sir William Petty, vol. 1
Return to Title Page for The Economic Writings of Sir William Petty, vol. 1The Online Library of LibertyA project of Liberty Fund, Inc.Search this Title:Also in the Library:
ADVERTISEMENT 1 - Sir William Petty, The Economic Writings of Sir William Petty, vol. 1 [1662]Edition used:The Economic Writings of Sir William Petty, together with The Observations upon Bills of Mortality, more probably by Captain John Graunt, ed. Charles Henry Hull (Cambridge University Press, 1899), 2 vols.
Part of: The Economic Writings of Sir William Petty, 2 vols.About Liberty Fund:Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals. Copyright information:The text is in the public domain. Fair use statement:This material is put online to further the educational goals of Liberty Fund, Inc. Unless otherwise stated in the Copyright Information section above, this material may be used freely for educational and academic purposes. It may not be used in any way for profit.
ADVERTISEMENT1THE Reader is desired to take notice, That by Letterees2 , are meant persons restored to Land by virtue of the Letters of King Charles the Second; and by Nominees, such persons are intended, as were restored to their Lands by being named in the Act of Settlement; and Papists per Proviso, were such as had Provisoes in that Act for their Lands: And by the 49 Officers, are meant such Commission-Officers under the King, who served in Ireland before the year of our Lord, 1649. The following Treatise of Sir William Petty's Political Anatomy of Ireland, is Printed after a Copy Transcribed from the Original, writ by the Author's own hand3 ; and all the Blanks, as here Printed, were in that Original: And which, tho’ it may be suppos'd he could easily have fill'd up, yet was it not held proper for any other to attempt, or to add to any thing done by so great a Master. This his work of The Political Anatomy of Ireland ends in page 113. P. 114. begins the famous Report from the Council of Trade in Ireland, which was not only Drawn, but wholly Composed by Sir William Petty; and with which that Council concurred unanimously. P. 132. followeth the Copy of the Commission of the late Duke of Ormond to be Lord Lieutenant; and an Account of the Establishment of the Civil and Military List in his time; faithfully and carefully taken out of Authentick Records: And to the Nature of which, the continued Title of The Political Anatomy of Ireland, on those Pages, agrees well enough.1 The Volume concludes with Sir William Petty's Verbum Sapienti, which relates wholly to England, and shews how Taxes may be equally laid, and how the Nation may well bear the Tax of Four Millions per Annum. The Reader is now left with his most Critical attentive Judgement, to enjoy the benefit of the great Political knowledg that Sir William Petty hath taught the Age; and for which (as one of the greatest Ornaments of it) he deserveth perpetual celebrations. Know Reader in a word, That Nulla ferent talem sæcla futura virum. [1]The Advertisement is not in S, and only the first paragraph of it is in the ed. of 1719. [2]The term ‘letterees’ is sometimes confined to those Irish who obtained the King's letters of restitution in the early months after his Restoration and were put out again by the Act of Settlement. Such Irish as were resored at the King's first return, by letters patent of which ‘mero-motu’ was a phrase were called ‘mero-motu men’. Their patents, if obtained before the Declaration of Settlement, 30 Nov., 1660, were confirmed by the Act of Settlement; if obtained after that date, they were voidable. Russell and Prendergast, The Carte MSS. in the Bodleian Library, 193. [3]It is probable that Southwell brought about the printing of the Political Anatomy in 1691, and it is not impossible that the book was then printed from his MS. (‘s’). S is, beyond question, “a copy transcribed from the original writ by the author's own hand.” Moreover the footings of columns of figures in S are reproduced at two points in the 1691 edition (see note 3, p. 143, and note 4, p. 145) where no editor acting independently of S would have thought to insert them, while, on the other hand, the differences between S and that edition may be sufficiently accounted for as the slips of a not over-careful printer. S, however, is still very clean. If from this circumstance we infer that it never lay upon a printer's case, we shall be forced to assume an original holograph, now lost, from which one copy, S, was made for Southwell, and another copy, likewise lost, was made for the printer. Even upon this supposition the Southwell MS. must be held to be of authority, since it bears Petty's autograph corrections. [1]The matter described in this paragraph, none of it by Petty, is omitted from the present edition, the corresponding portion of the Contents being printed in brackets. See note 1, p. 134. |

Titles (by Subject)