Page:Life of Sir William Petty 1623 – 1687.djvu/117

 a party at the Coffee House, 'with a great confluence of gentlemen, where was admirable discourse till nine at night.' The discourse just then was no doubt as much political as scientific, for the future of the State was the absorbing topic of thought and discussion, and Monk's intentions were as yet doubtful.

There was at the time a club called the 'Rota,' which met at Miles's Coffee House, in New Palace Yard, under the auspices of Harrington. 'In 1659,' says Anthony Wood, 'they had every night a meeting, ... and their discourses about government and of ordering of a Commonwealth, were the most ingenious and smart that ever were heard; for the arguments in the Parliament House were but flat to those. This gang had a ballotting box and ballotted how things should be carried by way of tentamen, which being not known or used in England before, upon this account the room was very full. Besides our author (Harrington) and H. Nevill, who were the prime men of this club, were Cyriac Skinner, a merchant of London, an ingenious young gentleman and scholar to John Milton, ... Major J. Wildman, Charles Wolseley of Staffordshire, Roger Coke, &c. ... Dr. William Petty was a Rota man, and would sometimes trouble Harrington in his club. The doctrine was very taking, and the more so, because, as to human foresight, there was no possibility of the King's return.... The model of it, the design, was that the third part of the Senate, or House, should rota out by ballot every year, so that every ninth year the said Senate would be wholly altered. No magistrate was to continue above three years; and all to be chosen by ballot, than which choice nothing could be invented more fair and impartial, as 'twas then thought, though opposed by many for several reasons.'

England at the time was not merely divided between the partisans of Royalty and those of a Republic. There was a further question at issue, one which went down to the very roots of the question of Government: was the will of the people to be collected from the votes of the elected representatives in