Page:Life of Sir William Petty 1623 – 1687.djvu/86

 member of the executive appointed by the adventurers' committee for the distribution of their lands. This executive accomplished its task about the autumn of 1658. The work was far easier than in the case of the army lands, for the claims as a rule were larger in amount and smaller in number. As in the case of the army lands, a ballot or boxing was adopted to settle the order of the claimants, and the lands were distributed by the string thus created. The maps of the counties which were the joint property of the adventurers and the army, and of Louth, had been completed in about thirteen months, but they were not returned into the Surveyor-General's Office till the latter end of 1659, for reasons similar to those which had caused a delay in the final deposit of the maps of the army survey.

The allotment of the adventurers' lands was the last step in the great work Dr. Petty had undertaken, and before it was entirely completed an event had occurred which hastened it on and rendered all the claimants anxious to settle. On September 4, 1658, the Protector died, while Dr. Petty was still in England. By the end of the year, except in the 'dubious lands,' the allottees were everywhere entering into possession. Owing, however, to the determination of the earlier military allottees not to allow their allotments to be pared down to a common level, and the impossibility of giving possession in the case of the 'dubious, encumbered and withdrawn lands,' great inequalities still existed, 'some of the adventurers being left deficient and some of the soldiers being wholly deficient also, and some but in part satisfied; some according to a quota of 4s. 3d. in the pound, and some 2s. 3d. only.' The maximum actually received seems to have varied from 12s. 3d. to 13s. 4d. The allotment was not indeed perfect; the circumstances did not permit of it; but to the rapidity with which the survey and the distribution were carried out, the army and the adventurers owed it that they were in possession of their lands at the Restoration, when a very different distribution would probably