In 1652 he was appointed Physician to the Army in Ireland, which post he retained for seven years, at a salary of twenty shillings a day, while his practice produced him £400 a year more. His first great step to wealth, however, arose from his dealings with the forfeited lands in Ireland, and in a few years he managed his financial affairs so skilfully that he acquired a rental of £18,000 a year; part of this he was dispossessed of at the Restoration, as being unfairly obtained. He, however, had still a large fortune at his command, and bought the Earl of Arundel’s house and gardens in Lothbury, and erected thereupon the buildings forming Tokenhouse Yard, which was partly destroyed by the great fire. Petty had the tact to make his peace with the new government, and became a favourite with Charles II., who knighted him, and bestowed on him the place of Surveyor General for Ireland; and it is said, by Aubrey, that he was created Earl of Kelmore, though he never assumed the title. When the College of Physicians obtained its new Charter his name was published in the list of Fellows, although he had then resigned practice. The universality of his genius is clearly shewn by the list of his published works. He was a man of a genial character and handsome person:—“If he has a mind to it,” says Aubrey, “he will preach extempore, either as a Presbyterian, Independent, or as a Capucin friar, or Jesuit.” As a proof of his humour, when he was challenged to fight by Sir H. Sankey, he told his opponent, that as his short sight would not allow of the usual mode of warfare, he would meet him, if he was so minded, in a dark cellar, each to have a carpenter’s axe for his weapon: this the knight declined. He died in 1687 of a gangrene of the foot, and was buried at Romsey, by the side of his father and mother: there lie his remains, covered with a flat stone, on which an illiterate workman has cut these words:—“_Here layes Sir William Pety._” The part played by the Good-Wives and Ladies Bountiful in this age deserves a passing notice, and we will make one or two quotations from books especially devoted to their use. Thus: “To make Oil of Swallows:—Take lavender cotton, spikenut grass, ribwort, and twenty other simples, of each a handful, sage of virtue, camomiles and red roses, of each two handsful, _twenty live_ swallows; beat all together in a mortar, add a quart of neatsfoot oyl or May-butter, and mix. This oyl is exceeding sovereign for any broken bones, bones out of joint, or any grief of the sinews.”