Page:Life of Sir William Petty 1623 – 1687.djvu/77

 debts of the Commonwealth, civil and military, which the statutory reservations already made were insufficient to cover.

By April 1656 the greater part of the undertaking was finished; in the autumn of that year the work was complete. Dr. Petty then proposed that proper arrangements should be made for the official examination, and it was accordingly referred by the Council to a committee, who reported favourably on the execution of the task. It was next submitted to "Worsley as Surveyor-General, but he alleged various defects and omissions, and urged them with great pertinacity. To these criticisms Dr. Petty replied, pointing out the difficulties, especially the absence of ready money and the confusion of the country, under which the work had had to be performed, and that the omissions in question were all in way of being completed and were to be traced to the above-mentioned circumstances. He therefore formally applied to the Council to give back the contract, and release his securities. This application was referred to the Attorney-General, who recommended that the Doctor's application should be granted. The Council, however, at Worsley's instigation, still for a time delayed giving their assent, but ultimately decided that the work had been properly performed. The bond was then cancelled and the contract given back, to the great vexation of the persons who had constituted themselves the critics of the work, and had prophesied a failure.

'Mr. Worsley,' says Dr. Petty, 'rackt himself and his brains to invent racks for the examination of my work: not unlike the policy of the Church of Rome, as it was deciphered to me by Monsieur Cantarine, that priest whom we were wont to admire for his wit, notwithstanding his feeding and age. This priest and self were eating together at the image of St. Ambrose, our ordinary, and together with us a mad and swearing debauchee. After dinner I asked M. Cantarine what penance they used to impose upon such lewd fellows; he answered me: "Very little, for," said he, "they would do