Page:Life of Sir William Petty 1623 – 1687.djvu/310

 appointed Surveyor-General of the kingdom, and placed at the head of a statistical office, to combine the functions now discharged by the Ordnance Survey and the Census, and he once more set out the advantages which would thereby accrue to the Revenue and the nation.

His plans were the occasion of a squib, in which he was described as enumerating the heads of an agreement with the King for a reform to be introduced into every public department, and concluding by demanding that all necessary powers were indeed to be lodged in the King and his Ministers, but that the partners 'by an under hand writing were to convey them all to Sir William Petty, and to make him President.' 'Dear Cousin,' Southwell wrote to him from Kings-Weston, 'I have read yours of the fourth and have read the papers enclosed, which are either for transplanting or propagation. The things are mighty, and call unto my mind that when Paul reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come, Felix trembled. You know Columbus made the first offer to us of his golden world and was rejected; that the Sybil's books, though never so true, were undervalued; and Mr. Newton's demonstrations will hardly be understood. The markett rule goes far in everything else. Tantum valet quantum vendi potest. Soe altho' I do not suspect you can be mistaken in what you assert, since you enumerate so many solid as well as bitter objections, yet the dullness of the worlde is such, the opposers soe many, your fellow-labourers so few, and your age so advanced, that I reckon the work insuperable.

'However, I am glad that your thoughts are all written down for posterity, as favoured by accidents it may cultivate what the present age neglects; and in the meantime since you purpose to entertaine the King on these subjects, lett me advertise you what his goode brother once said at the Councill Board "that he thought you one of the best Commissioners of the Navy that ever was, that you had vast knowledge in many things; but," said he, "the man will not be contented to be excellent but is still ayming at impossible