Page:William Petty - Economic Writings (1899) vol 1.djvu/333



The Political Arithmetick, like the Political Anatomy, belongs to the third period of Petty's literary activity and was written during his second prolonged residence in Ireland. The precise date of its composition cannot now be determined. The Rawlinson MS. is dated 1671, and in Petty's "Collection of [his] several Works" it is likewise entered under 1671. Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice accordingly says that it was written in that year, and his opinion is confirmed by Sir Peter Pett, who calls the Political Arithmetick a "manuscript discourse in the year 1671— 2". But Petty's list is not infallible. It enters under 1654 the Discourse against the Transplantation into Connaught published in 1655, and under 1671 the Anatomia Politica Hiberniae, which was not finished before the close of 1672. The date 1671 is, perhaps, that at which Petty began the Political Arithmetick. He was still working upon it at the end of 1672, and internal evidence points to its completion not earlier than 1676. This internal evidence is drawn from three passages whose indications pretty closely coincide:  1st, the expenditure of the King of France "in any of these last seven years" is compared with his revenue "as the same appears by the book entitled The State of France... printed anno 1669 ";   2nd, "since the year 1636, the taxes and public levies... have been prodigiously greater,... yet the kingdoms have increased in their wealth and strength for these last forty years ";   3rd, "his Majesty's