Page:William Petty - Economic Writings (1899) vol 1.djvu/39

Rh Declarations of Indulgence as wise measures for the unification of national sentiment. Knowing as he did the immense material preponderance of the protestant interest both in England and especially in Ireland —a preponderance of which he did his best to convince the King by written and by oral argument —he was unable to believe that the Declarations, whose sentiments quite accorded with his own views, were really issued in the sole interest of the Roman Catholics, and he continued to regard the boastings of Tyrconnel and the extreme Irish faction as without foundation in the intentions of the king. But at length tidings of the alarm prevalent among the English protestants in Ireland, and especially the news that McCarthy had been appointed governor of the province of Kerry, brought home to him the danger with which he himself, as well as the other protestants in Ireland, were threatened.

It is not certain whether Petty lived to know that Kenmare was destroyed. For some months he had been unwell. In spite of a "great lameness" he attended the annual dinner of the Royal