Page:William Petty - Economic Writings (1899) vol 1.djvu/33

Rh quit rents, were being continually found out, and it had become "A principal trade in Ireland to... prevail with persons conversant with the Higher Powers to give grants of these Discoveries, and thereupon, right or wrong, to vex the Possessors into such a Composition as may be of Profit to the Prosecutors ." Petty by no means escaped such attacks. He refused to compromise, and in consequence his time was so fully occupied with defending himself that in 1667 he grimly entered "Lawsuits" as his only work accomplished.

Upon his escape from "the fire of this legal purgatory" Petty at once set about the improvement of what remained. His household was established at Dublin, but his most extensive possessions were at Kenmare in Kerry, and there he gradually built up an "industrial colony" of protestants. To this enterprise he gave the closest attention, making the difficult overland journey to that "obscure corner of the world twice a year through thick and thin ."

The prospect was not encouraging. His Irish neighbours were hostile, and of Kenmare itself a well informed contemporary reported that while the harbours were very good for ships to load at, the place was so rocky and bare that it would hardly maintain people enough to keep a brogue-maker employed. But there were compensating advantages. The remote bay abounded with salmon. Abundance of wood made charcoal cheap and therefore he established iron and copper works, hoping vainly to discover Irish ores for their supply. The protestant colonists prospered in trade, as he had