Page:Life of Sir William Petty 1623 – 1687.djvu/160

 'Protestants' and Churches, 2,400,000; and other miscellaneous claimants, 460,000. 'Of all that claimed innocency,' he says, 'seven in eight obtained it. The restored persons by innocence and proviso have more than what was their own, 1641, by at least one fifth. They have gotten by forged feoffments of what was more than their own, at least one third; and of those adjudged innocents not one in twenty were really so.' In his opinion the whole proceedings after the Restoration were a mass of favouritism and oppression, in which the strong trampled on the weak, and the guilty robbed the innocent. 'It may be inquired,' he wrote in 1686, 'who caused and procured the said enormities?' 'Whereunto it may be readily answered,' he replies, 'Those who got enormous profit by the same.' Wherefore it ought to be inquired as followeth:

'1. Who brought in the "49 officers" to be satisfied, wholly excluding the Soldiers? and who had greatest Pretence to "49" arrears?

'2. Whose Chaplains and Creatures were the Bishops whose Revenues were augmented?

'3. For whose sake were the Articles of 1648 reputed for no miscarriage?

'4. Who had the 300 thousand Pounds raised as year's value and supplement?

'5. Who in particular had the many vast Forfeitures, which should have been apply'd to the Publick?

'6. Who put in the 49 Trustees?

'7. Who named the Nominees?

'8. Whose Servants, Friends and Creatures, were the Private Grantees?

'9. Who had the general Power and Government, while these Things were transacting?

'10. Who were the Privy Councillors, that transmitted these Acts, and what have they gotten by the same?

'11. What has some one man gotten out of Ireland by and