Governing Model Populations: Queries,Quantification,and William Petty's “Scale of Salubrity”

An early version of this paper was presented at a conference on “Scientific instructions for travellers”, Moore Institute, National University of Ireland Galway, 8–9 October 2010. For their questions and comments on iterations of the argument then and since, I am particularly indebted to Daniel Carey, Adam Fox, Vera Keller, Barbara Shapiro, and Theresa Ventura, as well as to an anonymous reviewer. The present version was written with the generous support of a 2010–13 Standard Research Grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and a 2010–2011 Mellon Fellowship at the Henry E. Huntington Library.

On questionnaires and scientific method in seventeenth-century England, see for instance Shapiro Barbara J. , A culture of fact: England, 1550–1720 (Ithaca, 2000), 72–76, and idem, “Empiricism and English political thought, 1550–1720”, Eighteenth-century thought, i (2003), 2003–33. On Spanish imperial antecedents, see Cañizares-Esguerra Jorge , Nature, empire, and nation: Explorations of the history of science in the Iberian world (Stanford, 2006), 9–10.

See Rusnock Andrea , Vital accounts: Quantifying health and population in eighteenth-century England and France (Cambridge, 2002), 177–209; Glass D. V. , Numbering the people: The eighteenth-century population controversy and the development of census and vital statistics in Britain (Farnborough, 1973), 57–61.

The Survey facilitated the expropriation of Catholic land on which the subsequent “Protestant Ascendancy” in Ireland was based. See McCormick Ted , William Petty and the ambitions of political arithmetic (Oxford, 2009), 84–118; the most detailed examination remains Goblet Y. M. , La transformation de le géographie politique de l'Irlande dans les carte set essais anthropogéographiques de Sir William Petty, 2 vols (Nancy, 1930); see also Barnard Toby , Cromwellian Ireland: English government and reform in Ireland (2nd edn, Oxford, 2000). Petty's own records of the survey are in William Petty (ed. by Larcom Thomas Aiskew ), The history of the survey of Ireland, commonly called the “Down Survey” (Dublin, 1851) and the more polemical Reflections on some persons and things in Ireland (London, 1660).

Among recent works that take account of Petty's manuscript archive, see especially Aspromourgos Tony , “The life of William Petty in relation to his economics: A tercentenary interpretation”, History of political economy, xx (1988), 337–56; idem, “New light on the economics of William Petty (1623–1687): Some findings from previously undisclosed manuscripts”, Contributions to political economy, xix (2000), 2000–70; idem, “The invention of the concept of social surplus: Petty in the Hartlib Circle”, European journal of the history of economic thought, xii (2005), 2005–24. Among works relying chiefly on printed sources, see for instance Johnson E. A. J. , Predecessors of Adam Smith: The growth of British economic thought (New York, 1937), 91–113; Letwin William , The origins of scientific economics (London, 1963), 123–57; and especially Andrea Finkelstein, Harmony and the balance: An intellectual history of seventeenth-century English economic thought (Ann Arbor, 2000), 107–29.

On Petty's improvements see Barnard Toby , “Sir William Petty, his Irish estates and Irish population”, Irish economic and social history, vi (1979), 64–69; Barnard , “Sir William Petty, Irish landowner”, in Lloyd-Jones Hugh Pearl Valerie Worden Blair (eds), History & imagination: Essays in honour of H.R. Trevor-Roper (London, 1981), 201–17; Barnard , “Sir William Petty as Kerry ironmaster”, Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, lxxxii C (1982), 1–32.

See Petty William , Hiberniae delineatio (London, 1685). On the Hartlib Circle in general, see Webster Charles , The great instauration: Science, medicine and reform, 1626–1660 (London, 1975); on its work in and about Ireland, see Barnard Toby , “The Hartlib Circle and the cult and culture of improvement in Ireland”, in Greengrass Mark Leslie Michael Raylor Timothy (eds), Samuel Hartlib and the universal reformation: Studies in intellectual communication (Cambridge, 1994), 281–97.

Petty's (often posthumously) printed economic writings are gathered in Hull C. H. (ed.), The economic writings of Sir William Petty, 2 vols (Cambridge, 1899); besides this material, major publications in his own lifetime included The advice of W.P. to Mr. Samuel Hartlib for the advancement of some particular parts of learning (London, 1647 [1648]) and The discourse made before the Royal Society the 26. of November 1674. concerning the use of duplicate proportion in sundry important particulars (London, 1674); his “History of dy[e]ing or tinctures” was printed in Thomas Sprat's The history of the Royal-Society of London, for the improving of natural knowledge (London, 1665), 284–306.

McCormick , William Petty (ref. 4), 259–84. On the Petty archive, see Harris Frances , “Ireland as a laboratory: The archive of Sir William Petty”, in Hunter Michael (ed.), Archives of the Scientific Revolution: The formation and exchange of ideas in seventeenth-century Europe (Woodbridge, 1998), 73–90; Aspromourgos Tony , “The Mind of the oeconomist: An overview of the ‘Petty Papers’ archive”, History of economic ideas, ix (2001), 39–102.

See Petty William , ” The description of a colony or towneship to be made in Ireland or America”, British Library Additional MSS [hereafter BL MS Add.], 72867, ff. 86–89. Other examples are printed in Petty (ed. by Marquis of Lansdowne [ Petty-Fitzmaurice H.W.E. ]), The Petty papers: Some unpublished writings of Sir William Petty, 2 vols (London, 1927) [hereafter PP], ii, 109–21.

See Petty William , ” of New England” (c. 1675), BL MS Add. 72867, ff. 59–61; PP, ii, 105–9. Regarding Rhode Island, see Petty , “6 points concerning the King's wealth, power & government” (1685), BL MS Add. 72866, ff. 17–20.

On “Californian marriage”, see PP, ii, 49–58. Reports of New World practices may have done something to provoke his thinking about polygamy, but Petty raised similar questions in a specifically Irish context as well, for example in “The natural and pecul[i]ar interest of Ireland”(1683), BL MS Add. 72880, ff. 121–51, especially ff. 128–31. Petty's erstwhile friend and collaborator John Graunt had cited the naturally (near-)balanced sex ratio –- he found male births to exceed female “by about a thirteenth part” –- as evidence of Providential support for monogamy, but his points of reference for comparison were Catholic celibacy and Muslim polygamy rather than American arrangements. See Graunt John , Natural and political observations, mentioned in a following index, and made upon the bills of mortality (London, 1662), 47–52. The Providential significance of a sex ratio presumed to produce a slight but constant surplus of male births remained a standard component of physico-theological argument long afterward; see Arbuthnot John , “An argument for divine providence, taken from the constant regularity observ'd in the births of both sexes”, Philosophical transactions, xxvii (1712), 186–90.

For a helpful account of the use of such queries in Petty's time and after, see Fox Adam , “Printed questionnaires, research networks, and the discovery of the British Isles, 1650–1800”, The historical journal, liii (2010), 593–621. The present paper began as an attempt to rethink the relationship between Petty's concerns and the longer-term pattern Fox delineates.

Among recent works, see Cook Harold J. , Matters of exchange: Commerce, medicine, and science in the Dutch Golden Age (New Haven, 2007); Harkness Deborah E. , The jewel house: Elizabethan London and the Scientific Revolution (New Haven, 2007). A recent attempt to bridge the national and the international aspects of geographical inquiry for a later period is Charles W.J. Withers, Placing the Enlightenment: Thinking geographically about the age of reason (Chicago, 2007).

See especially Shapiro Barbara J. , “Empiricism and English political thought, 1550–1720”, Eighteenth century thought, i (2003).

Petty William , “Quaeries concerning the nature of the natives of natives of Pensilvania”, BL MS Add. 72867, ff. 74–77v; printed in PP, ii, 115–19.

PP, ii, 115–16.

The initial nineteen demographic queries were followed by six “quaeries concerning their policy, Language and Habitations”, fourteen ” of their Religion and Marriages”, and sixteen ” of their Oeconomy & exercises & Learning”. Several questions included in these latter sections, however, also had evident demographic import.

See Graunt John , Observations (ref. 19); Petty William , Political arithmetick (London, 1690); and essays gathered in Petty, Several essays in political arithmetick (London, 1699); Halley Edmund , “An estimate of the degrees of the mortality of mankind, drawn from the curious tables of the births and funerals at the city of Breslaw”, Philosophical transactions, xvii (1693), 1693–610. Petty has long been associated with Graunt's work, to which he contributed material and advice; several mutual acquaintances credited Petty with writing the 1662 Observations. This is not now regarded as likely: See Reungoat Sabine , William Petty: Observateur des Îles Britanniques (Paris, 2004), 33–42; Karl Pearson (ed. by Pearson E. S. ), The history of statistics in the 17^th and 18^th centuries: Against the changing background of intellectual, scientific, and religious thought (High Wycombe, 1978), 10–73; McCormick, William Petty (ref. 4), 131–2. But see also Hervé Le Bras, Naissance de la mortalité: L'origine politique de la statistique et de la démographie (Paris, 2000). Petty certainly edited and expanded the fifth edition of the Observations, which appeared after Graunt's death; Graunt, Natural and political observations… upon the bills of mortality (5th edn, London, 1676).

PP, ii, 117.

PP, ii, 115.

Shapiro , “Empiricism” (ref. 15), 12.

Ibid., 31–32.

Boate Arnold , An interrogatory relating more particularly to the husbandry and natural history of Ireland, printed as an appendix to Hartlib Samuel , The compleat husband-man: Or, a discourse of the whole art of husbandry; both forraign and domestick (London, 1659). Webster identifies this as the first published questionnaire; Webster, Great instauration (ref. 7), 431.

Boyle Robert , “General heads for a natural history of a countrey, great or small, imparted likewise by Mr. Boyle”, Philosophical transactions, i (1665–66), 186–9.

Ibid., 186.

Ibid., 187.

Ibid., 188.

Ogilby John , Queries in order to the description of Britannia (London, 1673); Plot Robert , Quaer's to be propounded to the most ingenious of each county in my travels through England (Oxford, 1674?); idem, Enquiries to be propounded to the most ingenious of each county in my travels through England and Wales, in order to their history of nature and arts (Oxford, 1679?); Sibbald Robert , Advertisement whereas His Sacred Majesty, by his patent, hath constituted Sir Robert Sibbald… to publish the description of the Scotia antiqua & Scotia moderna, and the natural history of the products of his ancient kingdom of Scotland… (Edinburgh, 1682). These sets of queries, among others, are examined in detail in Fox, “Printed questionnaires”.

Molyneux William , Whereas there is an accurate account and description of Ireland designed to be made publick in the English atlas undertaken by Moses Pitt of London… this is earnestly to entreat all persons that they would be pleased freely to communicate their answers to these following quaeries… (Dublin, 1682).

Plot , Quaer's to be propounded (ref. 29), [2].

“Inquiries for Turky”, Philosophical transactions, i (1665–66), 361.

“Inquiries for Suratte, and other parts of the East-Indies”, Philosophical transactions, ii (1666–67), 421.

Henshaw Thomas , “Inquiries for Ægypt, by Thomas Henshaw, Esq.”, Philosophical transactions, ii (1666–67), 471–2.

On the persistence through the early modern period of various wonders, see Daston Lorraine Park Katharine , Wonders and the order of nature, 1150–1750 (New York, 1998).

Sibbald , Advertisement (ref. 29).

Lhwyd Edward , Parochial queries in order to a geographical dictionary, a natural history, &c., of Wales (Oxford, 1697?), 3.

Ibid., 1.

Petty William , ” The method of enquiring into the state of any country”, BL MS Add. 72899, ff. 161–2v; printed in PP, i, 175–8.

PP, i, 176–7.

Petty William , “Materialls for a new history of life & death”, BL MS Add. 72897, ff. 157–8v; printed in PP, i, 187–9.

PP, i, 187.

PP, i, 188. Graunt had expressed frustration with the “perhaps ignorant, and careless Searchers Reports”, which frequently confused causes of death in London; Graunt, Observations (ref. 12), 13.

Bacon Francis (ed. by Jardine Lisa Silverthorne Michael ), The new organon (Cambridge, 2000), 235–6.

Ibid., 24, 34.

PP, i, 188.

Petty , Discourse (ref. 8), 82–88.

Petty , Discourse (ref. 8), 82–83.

Petty , Discourse (ref. 8), 84–85.

See for example Halley Edmund , “Estimate of the degrees of mortality of mankind”; Rohrbasser Jean-Marc Véron Jacques , Leibniz et les raisonnements sur la vie humaine (Paris, 2001); Smart John Brand Charles , Tables of interest, discount, annuities, &c. … To which is added an appendix, containing some observations on the general probability of life (London, 1730), 190–7; Deparcieux Antoine , Essai sur les probabilités de la durée de la vie humaine (Paris, 1746), 35–42; Heberden Thomas , ” of the increase and mortality of the inhabitants of the island of Madeira”, Philosophical transactions, lvii (1767), 1767–3; Price Richard , “Observations on the expectations of lives, the increase of mankind, the influence of great towns on population, and particularly the state of London, with respect to the healthfulness and number of inhabitants”, Philosophical transactions, lix (1769), 1769–125. On population statistics in the eighteenth century, see Glass , Numbering the people (ref. 3); Daston Lorraine , Classical probability in the Enlightenment (Princeton, 1988); Hacking Ian , The taming of chance (Cambridge, 1990); Rusnock, Vital accounts (ref. 3); Martin Thierry (ed.), Arithmétique politique dans la France du XVIII^e siècle (Paris, 2003).

Graunt , Observations (ref. 19), 41–42. (I refer to the first edition.).

Petty , Discourse (ref. 8), 87–88.

Petty showed little awareness of the Native American demographic collapse under way in his time –- or none, at least, of its relevance to his concerns. However, he might have encountered evidence of it in the Philosophical transactions. Colonial surgeon Thomas Glover, writing to the Royal Society in 1676 (shortly after Petty's own notes on New England) commented on the stature and communal life of Virginia's native inhabitants before noting that “At the first coming of the English divers Towns had two or three thousand Bow-men in them; but now, in the Southern parts of Virginia, the biggest Indian Town hath not above five hundred Inhabitants” – though Glover laid the blame for these “small numbers” on the Native Americans' “continual wars with each other”; Glover Thomas , “An account of Virginia, its scituation, temperature, productions, inhabitants, and their manner of planting and ordering tobacco, etc.”, Philosophical transactions, xi (1676), 623–36, p. 632. Yet whatever Petty knew about the European effect on New World populations, there is no obvious reason why this should have prevented him from using the “scale of salubrity” to determine the longevity, fertility, and so on, naturally attainable by any given population (caeteris paribus) on American soil. This may bring out still more clearly the significance of his request for an abstract model rather than for “actual” Native American numbers.

See especially Petty , Political arithmetick (ref. 19), 92; Petty William , The political anatomy of Ireland (London, 1691), 29–31; McCormick , William Petty (ref. 4), 168–208.

Petty , Political anatomy (ref. 54), 30–31.

Petty William , ” of American plantations”, BL MS Add. 72867, ff. 70–71v; printed in PP, ii, 111–13.

PP, ii, 113.

See McCormick , William Petty (ref. 4), 239–40. Petty's correspondence with his kinsman and close friend Sir Robert Southwell (later President of the Royal Society) includes a lengthy exchange from September 1685 on the prospect and desirability of “full peopling” both in Britain and Ireland and across the globe; see Marquis of Lansdowne [ Petty-Fitzmaurice H. W. E. ] (ed.), The Petty-Southwell correspondence, 1676–1687 (London, 1928), 143–68. On Ireland, see also Petty , “The natural… interest of Ireland”, BL MS Add. 72880, especially ff. 125r–31r. In various Restoration-era manuscripts, Petty described the pursuit of “peopling” as an alternative to colonial conquest in the future and a necessary measure for consolidating conquests already made against European rivals (chiefly France, but also the United Provinces); see Petty , “6 Points”, ff. 1 7–20v; Petty , “Termes of an agreement between the King & Parliament” (1686), BL MS Add. 72889, ff. 47–50v; Petty , “Remedies for the King” (1686), BL MS Add. 72866, ff. 59–60v; Petty , “Twenty eight remarkable points in the essay about the analysis populi” (1686?), BL MS Add. 72866, ff. 53–54v; Petty , ” of the King of England his naturall & intrinsic power” (1687), BL MS Add. 72866, ff. 148–51v.

Lux David S. Cook Harold J. , “Closed circles or open networks? Communicating at a distance during the Scientific Revolution”, History of science xxxvi (1998), 179–211. On London scientific networks operating well before the Royal Society, see Harkness, Jewel house (ref. 14).

See for example Cook , Matters of exchange (ref. 14); Jacob Margaret C. , Strangers nowhere in the world (Philadelphia, 2006).

See Petty , Advice of W.P (ref. 8), 1–3.

Petty William , “Causes of the contempt of the clergy” (1680s?), BL MS Add. 72887, f. 42v.

Ibid., f. 42r.

Ibid., f. 42v.

Decades earlier, Petty had suggested a similar role, including the study of judicial astrology, for the Steward of his ideal teaching hospital, the Nosocomium Academicum; see Petty , Advice (ref. 8), 11–12.

See Foucault Michel , “Omnes et singulatim: Towards a criticism of political reason”, the Tanner Lectures on Human Values, Stanford University, 10 and 16 October 1979, printed in idem (ed. by Carrette Jeremy R. ), Religion and culture (New York, 1999), 135–52. See also Higgs Edward , The Information state in England: The central collection of information on citizens since 1500 (Basingstoke, 2004), 71; Gordon Colin , “Governmental rationality: An introduction”, in Burchell Graham Gordon Colin Mller Peter , The Foucault effect: Studies in governmentality (Chicago, 1991), 1–51, especially 8–14.

Petty William , [untitled] (1670s–1680s?), BL MS Add. 72887, f. 30r.

Ibid., f. 30r.

Ibid., f. 31r-v.

Ibid., f. 31 v. Though no exact date can be assigned to this detailed paper, Petty called for apparently similar “New employments for the parish priest” in two manuscripts dated to 1686: “How to make the church-reformation practicable”, BL MS Add. 72889, ff. 41–42v, and ” The additional temporall employments and profits to each parish curate”, BL MS Add. 72889, ff. 78–81v.

Barnard , “Hartlib Circle” (ref. 7).

Petty devoted some of his political-arithmetical efforts to establishing the plausibility of Biblical chronology as well as such orthodox tenets as the resurrection of the body. See Petty , Another essay in political arithmetick, concerning the growth of the City of London: With the measures, periods, causes, and consequences thereof (London, 1683), 24, and Petty to Robert Southwell, 20 August 1681, in Lansdowne (ed.), Petty-Southwell correspondence (ref. 58), 91–3.

On toleration see for instance Petty , Political arithmetick (ref. 72), 95.

Petty William , ” The new instrument of government” (1682), BL MS Add. 72880, ff. 60–71 v.

Ibid., ff. 61v–62r.

Ibid., ff. 63r–67r, 69r–69v.