Page:Life of Sir William Petty 1623 – 1687.djvu/311

 things." You know I am in possession of saying any thing to you that comes into my head, but this I say for your service: that being already advanced in his Majesty's opinion for things that he comprehends, you doe not growe lesse by going beyond his reason.'

Sir William, however, remained unconvinced. 'Standing upon mine own integrity,' he tells his friend, 'I will (1) except against several of your doctrines.(2) I will plead not guilty to some of the faults you suspect me of.(3) Others I can excuse and attenuate.(4) I will shew how my practice doth and hath complied with many of your documents.(5) I will heartily call peccavi upon most of the other points.'

But Sir William had soon to recognise that rougher hands than those of the economist and the statesman were wanted by the King for the task in hand. As might have been anticipated, ideas of administrative reform and religious toleration found no supporters in Tyrconnel and his military and ecclesiastical coadjutors. The mask was thrown off and the party of moderation rudely brushed aside, notwithstanding the advice of the Pope, Innocent XI., who took a truer measure than his English advisers of the strength of the Roman Catholic party, and dreaded the supremacy of France in Europe, which an alliance between James and Louis XIV. would have secured. It was now hardly concealed that the expulsion of the Protestants was the object of the new Irish Administration. Surrounded by Jesuits, influenced by the Queen, and probably failing in health, the King abandoned the English in Ireland to the vengeance of his importunate and overbearing Deputy. Louis XIV. had given up the Huguenots to the tender mercies of Madame de Maintenon and his confessor. The example was attractive, but James forgot that the circumstances were not the same.

Sir William had now begun reluctantly to realise how extreme was the danger, though he still obstinately hoped something from the good intentions of the King. Caution and a careful observation of the times were, he thought, for