Page:William Petty - Economic Writings (1899) vol 1.djvu/254

154 men of admirable Success and Courage: Unless we should rather think, that the said Court of Claims were abused by their Perjuries and Forgeries, which one would think, that a Nation, who caus'd the destruction of so many thousand Lives, for the sake of God and Religion, should not be so guilty of.

The Estates of the Irish before the Wars, was double to that of the English; but the number and natural force of the Irish quintuple to that of the English.

The Cause of the War was a desire of the Romists, to recover the Church-Revenue, worth about 110 M.l. per Ann. and of the Common Irish, to get all the Englishmens Estates; and of the 10 or 12 Grandees of Ireland, to get the Empire of the whole. But upon the playing of this Game or Match upon so great odds, the English won and have (among, and besides other Pretences) a Gamester's Right at least to their Estates. But as for the Bloodshed in the Contest, God best knows who did occasion it. |25|

 

HE English invaded Ireland about 500 years since; at which time, if the Irish were in number about 1,200,000. Anno 1641, they were but 600 M. in number, 200 years ago, and not above 300,000 M. at the said time of their Invasion; for 300,000 people will, by the ordinary Course of Generation, become 1200 M. in 500 years; allowance being made for the Extraordinary Effects of Epidemical Diseases, Famines, Wars, &c.

There is at this Day no Monument or real Argument