Page:Life of Sir William Petty 1623 – 1687.djvu/154

 and the public offices; they formed the body of freeholders by whom the restored Irish Parliament, about to meet in Dublin, was elected; and they urged it as a great merit that they, quite as much as General Monk, had made the Restoration possible. The King, though bound by no tie of affection to men, many of whom had been distinguished by their exertions against his royal father, was obliged, from the peculiar circumstances which had attended his restoration to the throne, to conciliate their interests with his own, and to defer as largely as was possible to their views. The second party consisted of the old Anglo-Irish aristocracy, some of whom were loyal Roman Catholics, others were members of the Church of England. Of this party the Duke of Ormonde was the recognised head. Though small in numbers, it included many of the most distinguished Irishmen of the day. They had lost their homes and their possessions in the service of the King and that of his father, and now expected their reward. With them to a certain extent might be classed 'the '49 men,' or those officers who had served the King before 1649, and had subsequently served the Commonwealth against the Irish. Dr. Petty considered that at the time of the survey they had been harshly dealt with, and he had tried to protect them; but the rapacity of their demands now knew no bounds. The third party consisted of the Presbyterians of the North, who had fought against the King in the first civil war, but had supported their Scotch brethren on the royal side in the second. They had seen large portions of their lands in Ulster confiscated in consequence; and had also suffered heavy losses in the walled towns, where many of them resided, being members of the class principally engaged in commerce. Outside the limits of these parties, all in a greater or less degree British in origin and sympathy, were the great mass of the old native Irish Roman Catholic proprietors, of whom some had been undoubted rebels against the English connection, while others had been innocent altogether, or had only played with sedition. There were some also who had first rebelled against the King, and had then joined Ormonde to fight for the King against the