Page:Life of Sir William Petty 1623 – 1687.djvu/59

 subscribe towards the relief of the distressed Waldenses;' and that the officers voluntarily agreed to give a fortnight's pay and the private soldiers one week's pay, and many still larger sums. The Cavaliers and the Irish were regarded as engaged in one evil business. 'The latter,' said Fleetwood, 'are an abominable, false, cunning, and perfidious people.' ... 'As to what you write concerning our transplantation here,' he told Thurloe, 'I am glad to understand you have a good sense of it; though it hath been strangely obstructed and discouraged by the discountenance it hath received from England. There is no doubt as bad, if not a worse, spirit in these people than is in those of Savoy. We are on the gradual transplantation, though the hopes the people have from England of a dispensation makes them keep off, and not transplant so readily as otherwise they would, if their thoughts were free from expectations out of England.'

The transplantation, it was now resolved, was to be proceeded with. In vain did Gookin go over to London and publish his book there. 'A scandalous book,' Fleetwood wrote to Thurloe. In vain did he make a particular protest to the Protector on behalf at least of the 'ancient Protestants' whose case was peculiarly hard, and might have been expected to excite commiseration in the minds of their co-religionists. Exasperation and personal greed were together too strong, and the fatal order was issued.

But it was at least possible, though the policy of transplantation was not to be altered, to prevent a carnival of jobbery and confusion in connection with it. The Council accordingly announced the adoption of a new plan, which was entirely to supersede the former survey. It was decided to make a preliminary inquisition over the whole country and to prepare accurate lists of the forfeited lands; and the work of surveying was to be entirely separated, at least for the time, from that of mapping.

Thus was set on foot the 'Civil Survey,' so called because it was carried out by the civil authorities and not by soldiers.