Page:Petty 1851 The Down Survey.djvu/355

 low estimate of that officer's abilities, to which the general tenor of the narrative would lead us. They indeed do not exceed what Dr. Petty had offered and undertaken, but they are methodical, concise, and well arranged, and provide for a very complete and sufficient work; showing that the Surveyor-General knew perfectly well what the survey ought to be, however short of such a mark his own operations, undertaken on the recommendations of the Committee of 1653, would have been, and still more, the earlier operation superseded by those recommendations.

Nothing is more to be admired throughout this narrative than the entire frankness and unreserve with which Dr. Petty places on record the full particulars of every transaction which has been deemed questionable. We have an instance of this in the present chapter, in regard to Sir Hardress Waller. Sir Hardress was an officer of high rank and great influence. This was all to be exerted on the Doctor's behalf, and although he states that Mr. Waller, the son, was never in reality employed, it is clear, from the agreement of the 18th of December, pp. 33, 34, that in fact a portion of the survey was to be given over to Sir Hardress, who, paying one-sixth of the expense, was to have one-sixth of the profit. This partnership of a high public officer with his own contractor, at least in a contract made on his own recommendation, would not be tolerated in our days, but at that time it may have been viewed differently by public opinion. Even then, indeed, we find Dr. Petty, in his closing paragraph, states that this arrangement was never carried out by Sir Hardress, that he might not "give any occasion of men's thinking, he would patronize him in anything not justifiable."

the arrangements which ought to have been preliminary, were yet under discussion, Dr. Petty began the survey of some of the forfeited lands near Dublin, doubtless with the view of training his assistants under his own eye. This led to the discovery of a new difficulty not provided for in the contract, viz., that many of the spaces to be surveyed were less than forty acres, which by his contract he was not strictly bound to do. It might indeed have been inferred, that such insulated spaces were in equity included in the third and fourth articles; but on this point, as usual, he differed with the Surveyor-General, and it was thought better to appoint a committee of officers to determine, "any question, difficulty, difference, or controversy, which might arise, to obstruct or retard the progress" of the work; which in this case decided, that if the small parcels upon which the controversy arose were measured, the distinction into forty acres should be dispensed with. To which was added, in regard to the delay which had taken place, "that the thirteen months should date from the 1st of February instead of the 11th December;" with another decision relating to the Rh