Page:Life of Sir William Petty 1623 – 1687.djvu/79

 the lists of forfeited lands prepared by the Civil Survey Commission and the maps, had been returned into the Court of Chancery. But when, owing to the firmness of Henry Cromwell, the disputes had at last been brought to some kind of at least superficial settlement, the work of distribution had to be entered upon. This was really a far more difficult matter than even the survey which preceded it. In the first, Dr. Petty had had mainly to contend with the natural difficulties of the country; in the second, whoever was entrusted with it would have to wrestle with the fiercest passions of the human heart, excited by greed and ambition.

Henry Cromwell, weary at last of the opposition of a few interested critics, had insisted that there should be no further delay, and on May 20, 1656, the Council decided that the lands allotted to the army should be distributed according to Dr. Petty's maps and admeasurement by a committee of agents or trustees chosen by the army, as contemplated by the Act, and without necessarily waiting for the previous distribution of their lands to the adventurers, who, as already seen, technically ranked first. But a large committee was evidently useless, and after long and acrimonious disputes, the distribution was ultimately delegated, through the determination of Henry Cromwell, on May 20, 1656, to a committee of six, and eventually on July 10 following to an executive of three—Dr. Petty, Vincent Gookin, and Colonel Miles Symner—the last an officer who appears to have been persona grata to the party of the Protector, and is described by Dr. Petty as 'a person of known integrity and judgment.' Subsequently Mr. King was added to their number. The choice was remarkable. It indicated the triumph of the ideas of the civilian party over the rapacity of the officers, and the defeat of the fanatical section amongst the latter.

The larger committee of six would, it was hoped, have composed the differences among the officers before the distribution began, for it had been discovered at an early period that the Act rates produced the gravest injustice, as lands varied as much in value between particular counties as they did between the provinces. To obviate this injustice, a system of equalising the