Page:Life of Sir William Petty 1623 – 1687.djvu/190

 to Chester water, which I think is the best way for your condicion, it being summer time and the nights short and light....

'I wrote in my last the excellent newes of our quitrents being reduced to a very good pitch. There hath since fallen some water into our wine; but upon that accident, I take heart againe, and hope to make it better than before. On Tuesday next we shall have another Tug, especially about the arrears.

'I hope you have been at Balliboy and among other matters settled with Fletcher, who I believe intends to remove his goods to Cloncurry, which should be prevented by seizing ym for our arrears. 'Adieu my dearest,

'W. P.'

Sir William's hands appear at this time to have been full of business of all kinds. He was again urging upon the English Government the adoption of a plan for the improvement of the Irish revenue, a subject rarely out of his thoughts. To do justice to his plan it was absolutely necessary for him to be upon the spot, and he was therefore reluctant to leave England. Under these circumstances Lady Petty, who had become the mother of a second son, Henry, born October 22, 1675, undertook to remain in Ireland, and to supply her husband's place. If anything could mitigate her separation from the children to whom she was so tenderly attached, it must have been the habit to which Sir William constantly adhered of keeping up a correspondence at once most regular and minute. Every circumstance, however trivial, relating to the children which could interest a mother was almost daily dispatched to her, while her conduct was assisted and directed in all the points where advice could be of use.

Interspersed with these directions are instructions for her guidance in business. 'I suppose,' Sir William writes in May from London, 'this letter will come to your hand before your arrival in Kerry. I thought to have said Oceans about that Gulf of trouble; but know not what to say more, than what was in the letters whereof you have a Catalogue, nor was I willing to perplex you with new and perhaps contradictory