The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• Note On Graunt's “observations.”
• To the Right Honourable John Lord Roberts 1 , Baron of Truro , Lord Privy Seal , and One of His Majesties Most Honourable Privy Council.
• To the Honourable S R Robert Moray 1 , Knight, One of His Majestie's Privy Council For His Kingdom of Scotland , and President of the Royal Society of Philosophers Meeting At Gresham- Colledg , and to the Rest of That Honourable Society.
• The Preface.
• Natural and Political Observations, &c.
• Chap. I.: Of the Bills of Mortality, Their Beginning, and Progress. 1
• [chap. II.] 1: General Observations Upon the Casualties.
• Chap. III.: Of Particular Casualties.
• Chap. IV. of the Plague.
• Chap. V.: Other Observations Upon the Plague, and Casualties.
• Chap. VI.: Of the Sickliness, Healthfulness, and Fruitfulness of Seasons.
• Chap. VII.: Of the Difference Between Burials and Christenings.
• Chap. VIII.: Of the Difference Between the Numbers of Males and Females.
• Chap. IX.: Of the Growth of the City.
• Chap. X.: Of the Inequality of Parishes.
• Chap. XI.: Of the Number of Inhabitants.
• Chap. XII.: Of the Country-bills.
• The Conclusion.: an Appendix 1 .
• Appendices to Graunt's Observations.
• Quantulumcunque Concerning Money. 1682
• Note On the Essays In “political Arithmetick.”
• Another Essay In Political Arithmetick, Concerning the Growth of the City of London: With the Measures, Periods, Causes, and Consequences Thereof.1682. By Sir William Petty , Fellow of the Royal Society. London: Printed By H. H. For Mar
• Observations Upon the Dublin-bills of Mortality, M D C L X X X I. State of That City.
• Further Observation Upon the Dublin-bills: Or, Accompts of the Houses, Hearths, Baptisms, and Burials In That City.
• Two Essays In Political Arithmetick, Concerning the People, Housing, Hospitals, &c. London and Paris.
• Observations Upon the Cities of London and Rome.
• Five Essays In Political Arithmetick, Viz.
• Note On the “five Essays.”
• To the King's Most Excellent Majesty.
• The First Essay.
• The Second Essay.
• The Third Essay.
• The Fourth Essay 1 Concerning the Proportions of People In the 8 Eminent Cities of Christendom Undernamed , Viz.
• The Fifth Essay. Concerning Holland and the Rest of the United Provinces.
• A Treatise of Ireland, 1687. the Elements of Ireland; and of Its Religion, Trade & Policy. By Sir William Petty , Fellow of the Royal Society.
• Note On the “treatise of Ireland.
• An Essay In Political Arithmetick Concerning Ireland 1 .
• Preface.
• Chap. I.: By This Title We Mean the Several Points Following. (vizt)
• Chap. II.: The State of the Case Represented In Terms of Number, Weight, and Measure; and Thereby Made Capable of Demonstrations. ( Vizt )
• Chap. III.: The 6 First Mention'd Points Are Proved Out of the 20 Suppositions Or Assertions Next Before-going. ( Vizt )
• Chap. IV.: How to Enable the People of England and Ireland to Spend 5 Millions Worth of Commodities More Than Now: and How to Raise the Present Value of the Lands and Goods of Ireland From 2 to 3.
• Chap. V.: That the King's Revenue In England and In Ireland, Supposed to Be 2070 Thousand Pounds, Will Be Increased to Above ⅕ Part More (vizt) to 1 Above 414 Thousand Pounds; and Even to 450 Thousand Pounds: So As to Be In All 2520 Thousand Pounds.
• Chap. VI.
• Chap. VII.: How to Take Away All the Evils Arising From Differences of Births, Extractions, Languages, Manners, Customs, Religion, and Laws, and Pretence Whatsoever.
• Chap. VIII.: How the Names, Bounds, Titles, and Values, of Lands May Be Settled and Ascertained; With Remedy of the Miscarriages, Which Have Happened In the 35 Years Last Past In the Disposures of Them.
• Chap. IX.: A Repetition and Enlargement of What Has Been Here Said.
• An Appendix of Objections to This Essay, With Answers to the Same.
• Appendix.
• Bibliography of the Printed Writings of Sir William Petty 1 .
• Supplement to the Bibliography of Petty's Works.
• Bibliography of the Natural and Political Observations.

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE
JOHN Lord ROBERTS1 ,
Baron of Truro, Lord Privy Seal,
and one of His Majesties most Honourable
Privy Council.

My Lord,

AS the favours I have received from your Lordship oblige me to present you with some token of my gratitude: so the especial Honour I have ‖ for your Lordship hath made me solicitous in the choice of the Present. For, if I could have given your Lordship any choice Excerptions out of the Greek or Latin Learning, I should (according to our English Proverb) thereby but carry Coals to Newcastle, and but give your Lordship Puddle-water, who, by your own eminent Knowledge in those learned Languages, can drink out of the very Fountains yourself.

Moreover, to present your Lordship with tedious Narrations, ‖ were but to speak my own Ignorance of the Value, which His Majesty, and the Publick, have of your Lordship's Time. And in brief, to offer any thing like what is already in other Books, were but to derogate from your Lordships learning, which the world knows to be universal, and unacquainted with few useful things contained in any of them.

Now having (I know not by what accident) engaged my thoughts upon the Bills of Mortality, and so far succeeded ‖ therein, as to have reduced several great confused Volumes into a few perspicuous Tables, and abridged such Observations as naturally flowed from them, into a few succinct Paragraphs, without any long Series of multiloquious Deductions, I have presumed to sacrifice these my small, but first publish'd, Labours unto your Lordship, as unto whose benign acceptance of some other of my Papers1 , even the birth of these is due; hoping (if I may without vanity say it) they may be of as much use to persons in your Lordships place, as they are of little or none to me, which is no more than the fairest Diamonds are to the Journeymen Jeweller that works them, or the poor Labourer that first digg'd them from the Earth. For, with all humble submission to your Lordship, I conceive, That it doth not ill become a Peer of the Parliament or Member of his Majesties Council, to consider how few starve of the many that beg: That the irreligious Proposals of some, to multiply people ‖ by Polygamy, is withal irrational, and fruitless: That the troublesome seclusions in the Plague-time are not a remedy to be purchased at vast inconveniences2 : That the greatest Plagues of the City are equally, and quickly repaired from the Country: That the wasting of Males by Wars and Colonies do not prejudice the due proportion between them and Females: That the opinions of Plagues accompanying the Entrance of Kings, is false, and seditious: That London, the Metropolis of England, ‖ is perhaps a Head too big for the Body1 , and possibly too strong: That this Head grows three times as fast as the Body unto which it belongs; that is, It doubles its People in a third part of the time: That our Parishes are now grown madly disproportionable: That our Temples are not sutable to our Religion: That the Trade, and very City of London, removes Westward: That the walled City is but a fifth of the whole Pyle: That the old Streets are unfit for the present frequency of Coaches: ‖ That the passage of Ludgate is a throat too streight for the Body: That the fighting men about London are able to make three as great Armies as can be of use in this Island: That the number of Heads is such, as hath certainly much deceived some of our Senators in their appointments of Poll-money2 , &c. Now, although your Lordship's most excellent Discourses have well informed me, That your Lordship is no stranger to these Positions; yet because I knew not, that your Lordship had ever deduced ‖ them from the Bills of Mortality, I hoped it might not be ungrateful to your Lordship, to see unto how much profit that one Talent might be improved, besides the many curiosities concerning the waxing and waning of Diseases, the relation between healthful and fruitful Seasons, the difference between the City and the Country Air, &c. All which being new, to the best of my knowledge, and the whole Pamphlet not two hours reading, I did make bold to trouble your Lordship with a perusal ‖ of it, and by this humble Dedication of it, let your Lordship and the world see the Wisdom of our City, in appointing and keeping these Accompts, and with how much affection and success, I am,

My Lord,

• Birchen-lane,

25 January, 166½.

Your Lordships most obedient, and most faithful Servant,

JOHN GRAUNT. ‖

[1]John Lord Roberts (or Robartes) was born in 1606. He was two years a student of Exeter College, Oxford, where, Wood intimates, he acquired from Prideaux those prepossessions which led him into the Army of the Commonwealth. At the Restoration, however, he received a number of honours and was made Lord Privy Seal in 1661. He became a member of the Royal Soceity in 1666 and in 1669 he was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland to succeed Ormond, but was recalled in 1670. He was four times Speaker of the House of Lords and in 1679 he became Earl Radnor and Lord President of the Council, an office which he held almost until his death 17 July, 1685. He was uniformly considered an able but morose man. Wood, Athenae Oxon. II. 787; Doyle, Official Baronage, III. 91; Carte, Ormond, II. 378.

[1]Wood says that Graunt also wrote “Observations on the advance of excise, and something about religion, but these two are not yet published.” Athenae Oxon. 1. 311.

[2]The contagion being in the air, p. 350.

[1]Sir Thomas Roe applied the same figure to London in a speech in Parliament in 1641. Harl. Misc., IV. 433, 436.

[2]See Treatise of Taxes, note on p. 62.