Page:Sir William Petty - A Study in English Economic Literature - 1894.djvu/12



Petty's will, dated May 2, 1685, printed in the Dublin collection (1769) of his writings, gives the following autobiographical data:

"In the first place I declare and affirm that at the full age of fifteen years I had obtained the Latin, Greek and French tongues, the whole body of common arithmetick, the practical geometry and astronomy, conducing to navigation; dialling, &c. with the knowledge of several mathematical trades, all which, and having been at the University of Caen,1 preferred me for the King's Navy, where at the age of twenty years I had gotten up about three-score pounds, with as much mathematicks as any of my age was known to have had.

"With this provision, anno 1643, when the civil wars betwixt the King and Parliament grew hot, I went into the Netherlands and France for three years, and having vigorously followed my studies, especially that of medicine, at Utrecht, Leyden, Amsterdam, and Paris, I returned to Rumsey, where I was born, bringing back with me my brother Anthony, whom I had bred, with about ten pounds