Page:Life of Sir William Petty 1623 – 1687.djvu/53

 of the powerful Anabaptist faction with which the Protector was at this moment wrestling in England. Henry Cromwell, unable to conceal his disgust at high pretences of religion combined with an almost unlimited rapacity in the affairs of this world, resolved, after trying to stave off a quarrel as long as possible, to risk a formal rupture. 'Men,' he wrote to Secretary Thurloe, 'have taken that from the State for which they paid 20l. p.a. rent, and have immediately let it out again for 150l. per a.; and, Sir, this is to be made good in above 40 particular instances; and 'tis feared that all your lande in Ireland is let at this rate. I know three men that took 18,000 acres of the Commonwealth's land in the County Meath for 600l. p.a., and let it out again for 1,800l. Sir, and these were Commissioners instructed with letting your landes. Another let to himself being a Commissioner, for 400l. p.a., and the State to bear the contribution, that which was at the same time let by the State for 800l., the country being at the same time as well stocked and planted as it is now.'

Other difficulties involving a different set of considerations were also arising. The transplantation of the native Irish into Connaught had not been adopted without considerable doubts in many quarters, both in England and in Ireland, as to the soundness of the policy. Vincent Gookin, member for Kinsale and a Privy Councillor, was the mouthpiece of the opposition. He was the son of Sir Vincent Gookin, in former years a constant opponent and unsparing critic of Strafford in the government; and from his father—reputed in his time the most independent man in the country—he had inherited a bold heart and a ready pen. He was the special adversary of the rule of petty military despots, whether Irish or English. Dr. Petty, himself sprung from the middle rank in life, was willing enough, like Gookin, to see the power of the old military chiefs broken and their strongholds wasted; but to decree the practical ruin of the whole population and to replace them by a body of English officers, was, he agreed with Gookin, a different affair, and they jointly prepared a