Page:Life of Sir William Petty 1623 – 1687.djvu/74

 difficulties of the country, but also with the opposition of the native Irish, who identified the progress of the work with the loss of their own possessions. Notwithstanding the protection afforded by the garrisons, several of the soldiers and surveyors were captured and killed by the 'Tories.' Eight, for example, were taken by Donagh O'Derrick, commonly called 'Blind Donagh,' near Timolin, in Kildare, carried off into the mountains, and, after a mock trial, executed. But these difficulties were not sufficient even to retard the work in any material degree. The places of the missing soldiers were rapidly filled, and owing to the skilful division of the labour employed, the survey advanced continuously.

The original plan had been to carry out the survey of the lands and the distribution to the allottees together, the latter being intended to commence immediately on Dr. Petty reporting the completion of his survey over any district sufficiently large to be distributed regimentally. Owing, however, to various delays occasioned by the disputes amongst the committee of officers, to differences of opinion on several points of detail which arose at the commencement of the work near Dublin, to the constant appearance of fresh grantees from England, and the complications caused by the partial distributions which had taken place in some districts under the Grosse Survey to favoured individuals before Dr. Petty's appointment, the original intention had to be abandoned, and the distribution definitely severed from the survey. The partial distributions referred to had been mainly for the benefit of some of the higher officers, who had not only managed to get a start in point of time, but also to get 'the trust of the distribution mainly committed to the persons concerned themselves.' It was very difficult to ascertain what had been done, and a general suspicion of unfairness and corruption hung over the whole of these transactions. When he began his work Dr. Petty says, 'No amount of what was then done ever did appear as a light unto what was further to be done,' and 'the affair was in an altogether