Page:Life of Sir William Petty 1623 – 1687.djvu/162

 by perjury and falsification of documents in getting back their own lands and others also; while thousands of those whom they had misled, their own co-religionists, lost everything irrevocably.

Sir William had escaped destruction; but, notwithstanding his tenacity, it was only after many suits and after surrendering much, that he succeeded in getting into actual possession of his property, even after his legal title had been recognised and in retaining it when he had once got into possession. The custom still was to farm out the royal revenues to the highest bidder, and the farmers of the Irish Revenue, of whom Sir James Shaen, now an avowed enemy, was the head, were not only a powerful, but an unscrupulous body. Every species of abuse and oppression arose in consequence. The people, Sir William says, preferred 'to pay anything that was required, rather than to pass the fire of that Purgatory.' One device was to claim arrears of rent from the present holders as due to the Crown on account of the whole period of the Civil Wars, all such lands having no doubt been charged with a head rent to the State, which, however, the Act had remitted for five years from 1653; but there were no doubt some arrears antecedent to 1653, which technically were due from the holders of the lands as representing the previous proprietors. Another device was to find a title for the Crown in the estates of men who had long been in undisputed possession of their holdings, and to eject on the title, often for the benefit of some royal favourite. As the greater part of the land in Ireland during the previous hundred and fifty years had at one time or another been forfeited, the opportunities of raising such questions were endless, and it became a regular trade 'to find out these flaws and defects and to procure a commission on the results of such inquiries.' Sir William, with characteristic fearlessness, determined to resist what he considered extortion, even at the risk of the loss of favour. The farmers of the revenue soon made him feel the effects of their displeasure. 'The