Page:Life of Sir William Petty 1623 – 1687.djvu/135

 Lord Massereene endeavoured to hinder the sailing of the vessel for England. He had originally advanced money towards her construction, when she was intended for his Lough, and a long dispute began between Sir William and him as to the property in her. Sir William, however, ended by making good his claim to the ownership. The vessel accordingly started for England, and crossing the Channel arrived without mishap. Sir William soon succeeded in interesting the King in the experiment. Pepys gives an account of what followed. On February 1, 1664, he writes in his diary:—

'In the Duke's chamber: the King came and stayed an hour or two, laughing at Sir William Petty, who was then about his boat, and at Gresham College in general; at which poor Petty was I perceived at some loss; but did argue discreetly, and from the unreasonable follies of the King's objections and other bystanders, with great discretion; and offered to take odds against the King's best boates; but the King would not lay, but cried him down with words only. Gresham College he mightily laughed at for spending time in weighing of such things, and doing nothing else since they sat. He told him he would have to return to Ireland in his own ship, which he called a fantastical, bottomless, double bottomed machine.' His Majesty, however, was ultimately persuaded, having had his joke at the expense of the philosophers, to allow the sun of his royal countenance to shine on the project; for Evelyn records that on December 22, 1664, at the launching of a ship of two bottoms, invented by Sir William Petty, the King being present, gave it the name of 'The Experiment.' Shortly after, the prospering fortunes of the new vessel, which appears to have been one of those built on Sir William's plans, were being celebrated in orthodox fashion by a dinner. 'At noon, February 18, 1665,' says Pepys, 'at the Royal Oak Farm in Lombard Street; where Sir William Petty and the owners of the double-bottomed boat, the "Experiment," did entertain my Lord Brouncker, Sir Robert Murray, myself, and others, with marrow bones and a chine of beef, of the victuals they