Page:Life of Sir William Petty 1623 – 1687.djvu/205

 in 1672, Sir William described himself as directing these gifts to the preparation of a work on 'Political Arithmetick,' in the intervals of the lawsuits with the farmers of the revenue, which in a list of his writings are grimly set down in one particular year of specially evil memory, 1667, as the sole proofs of authorship he could produce. Already at a very early period of his career he had given attention to the collection and examination of statistics, and had earned thereby the goodwill and support of Captain Graunt. Graunt was by occupation a clothier, but, like many others, had taken to soldiering during the Civil War, and was a captain and major of the City train bands. His good sense and probity caused him to be elected to the Common Council, and to be frequently named arbitrator in trade disputes. He had for some time been collecting materials for his 'Observations on the Bills of Mortality of the City of London,' which appeared in 1661, and is the first work of the kind published in the English language. It was generally believed at the time that Graunt had received material assistance from Petty, and that he was to be regarded as the literary patron rather than as the real author. Bishop Burnet and Evelyn were both of this opinion, which the numerous parallelisms between the 'Bills' and Sir William's own work, the 'Treatise on Taxes,' go far to support, different though the two books are in style and in some of the views expressed. On the other hand, it is difficult to understand why Sir William in this particular case should have sheltered himself under the name of a friend, instead of publishing the book anonymously, as he did several of his works. Whatever the explanation may be, a reasonable view probably is that it was a true instance of joint authorship. That Sir William had some hand in it can hardly be doubted, owing to the frequent mention of Ireland, which is so characteristic of all his works, and the wealth of medical illustration, which Graunt could hardly have supplied himself. This