Page:Petty 1851 The Down Survey.djvu/78

 the Drs gaines would be great, grew severe. And Mr. Worseley, finding himselfe overseen in making the contract as to this point, tooke great paines to find out salvos for such his inadvertency; for, after he had written many polemicall sheets uppon the subject, pleasing himselfe, as he usually does, with distilling pretty inferences out of some one mistaken ground, and a laboriouse shuffling the words relatively, exclusively, and subordinately, hee was feigne to conclude as followeth, vizt.:

(Fforasmuch as all contracts and articles, when many and large, cannot easily bee soe framed and claused but that an advantage may be taken, to the prejudice of the contract it self, if no equity in such cases, in order to preserve the body of the contract, should bee allowed, against the seeming sence of the words; and if the grammar of the words should, against such an equity of the words, bee enforced, the Commonwealth could bee at noe certainty in their agreements.)

Whereas the Dr said, that if the grammar in three severall places, together with a general rule, strengthned with exceptions, should not take place of a wire-drawne equity, brought mearly to excuse tithing of mint and cummin, and neglecting the weightier things of the law, that the poor subject could never bee at any certainty in his agreements.

Lastly, Mr. Worsely perswades the Committee to determine in these words:

That, according to the contract, all forfeited proprietors lands were to be admeasured; but that, if the same should hereafter bee found in soe many very small parcells as that the contractor should suffer, itt was thought fitt that a further allowance should be made, according to good conscience.

In brief, this controversy grew soe high, some argueing for their honour, and others for their preservation, that the whole was at a stand for some dayes, untill, seeing where the shooe pinched, the Doctor framed a new body of articles, admitting him into the worke and wages, which, when he had a little disguized, to make it seeme his owne, he liked soe admirably well, that he signed and presented it to the Committee, the principall points whereoff were these, vizt.:

1st. That the lands be surveyed according to the proprieties and denominations, noe surround exceeding 350 acres, which in the other contract was but fourty.

2dly. That all gleab and mensall land be surrounded, whether they lye in parcells small or great.