Page:Life of Sir William Petty 1623 – 1687.djvu/297

 and Explanation, and while freeing England from the domination of the narrow party which had governed it almost uninterruptedly since the Restoration, would not be tempted into seeking to throw Ireland into the hands of the Talbots. To the views of this minority Sir William was inclined to lean, and his friendship with Penn, who held similar views, no doubt increased his tendency to be hopeful of the royal intentions. According to Sir John Perceval, a friend of Sir William's and a member of the old Cromwellian party, 'the King, in order to persuade men to vote for taking off the penal laws and tests, was ready to renounce the Pope's supremacy, and not suffer him to concern himself with any branches of his prerogative. This promise he undertook to embody in a Test that should be a greater security than the existing one, which he would have taken off. He offered besides to part with the greatest part of his dispensing powers and the greatest part of his army, and that the established religion should be inviolably preserved.'

Parliament had met in May, and was then prorogued till the autumn of 1685. 'Will you be in London on the 9th of October,' Sir William wrote to Southwell, 'when the Parliament sits; and help to do such things for the common good, that no King since the Conquest besides his present Majesty can so easily effect?' He augured well of the personal disposition of the King; but he acknowledged his 'fear as to what men, drunk with rage and mad with revenge, might do of harm to themselves and others,' notwithstanding the good intentions with which he credited the new occupant of the throne. 'Pamphlets,' he wrote, 'are very rife, pro and contra, concerning religion; the clergy also, of all parties, are very busy concerning the same.' 'When anybody,' he told Southwell, 'would have you to be a Roman Catholic, a Papist, a Protestant, a Church of England man, a Presbyterian, Anabaptist, Quaker, fanatick &c, or even Whig and Tory, let them quit