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Title: Essays on Mankind and Political Arithmetic
Author: Sir William Petty
Release Date: May, 2004 [EBook #5619]
[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
[This file was first posted on July 23, 2002]
[Most recently updated May 8, 2003]
Edition: 10
Language: English
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Transcribed from the Cassell & Co. edition by David Price, email
ccx074@coventry.ac.uk
ESSAYS ON MANKIND AND POLITICAL ARITHMETIC
Contents:
Introduction (by Henry Morley)
Another Essays
The stationer to the reader
The principal points of this discourse
Of the growth of the city of London
Further observation upon the Dublin bills
The stationer to the reader
A postscript to the stationer
Two essays in political arithmetic
To the king’s most excellent majesty
An essay in political arithmetic
Five essays in political arithmetic
The first essay
The second essay
The third essay.
The fourth essay
The fifth essay
Of the people of England (by Gregory King)
INTRODUCTION.
William Petty, born on the 26th of May, 1623, was the son of a clothier
at Romsey in Hampshire. After education at the Romsey Grammar
School, he continued his studies at Caen in Normandy. There he
supported himself by a little trade while learning French, and advancing
his knowledge of Greek, Latin, Mathematics, and much else that belonged
to his idea of a liberal education. His idea was large.
He came back to England, and had for a short time a place in the Navy;
but at the age of twenty he went abroad again, and was away three years,
studying actively at Utrecht, Leyden, and Amsterdam, and also in Paris.
In Paris he assisted Thomas Hobbes in drawing diagrams for his treatise
on optics. At the age of twenty-four Petty took out a patent for
the invention of a copying machine. It was described in a folio
pamphlet “On Double Writing.” That was in 1647, in
Civil War time, and although Petty followed Hobbes in his studies, he
did not share the philosopher’s political opinions, but held with
the Parliament. In 1648 he added to his former pamphlet a “Declaration
concerning the newly invented Art of Double Writing.”
Samuel Hartlib, the large-hearted Pole, who in those days spent his
worldly means in England for the advancement of agriculture and of education,
and other aids to the well-being of a nation, had caused Milton to write
his letter on education, as has been shown in the Introduction to the
hundred and twenty-first volume of this Library, which contains that
Letter together with Milton’s Areopagitica. Young Petty’s
first published writing was a Letter to Hartlib on Education, entitled
“The Advice of W. P. to Mr. Samuel Hartlib for the Advancement
of some Particular Parts of Learning.” This appeared in
1648, when Petty’s age was twenty-five, and its aim was to suggest
a wider view of the whole field of education than had been possible
in the Middle Ages, of which schools and colleges were then preserving
the traditions, as they do still here and there to some extent.
This pamphlet has been reprinted in the sixth volume of the “Harleian
Miscellany.” William Petty wished the training of the young
to be in several respects more practical.
His own activity of mind caused him to settle at Oxford, where he taught
anatomy and chemistry, which he had been studying abroad. He had
read with Hobbes the writings of Vesalius, the great founder of modern
practical anatomy. In 1649 William Petty graduated at Oxford as
Doctor of Medicine, obtained a fellowship at Brasenose, and practised.
In 1650 he surprised the public by restoring the action of the lungs
in a woman who had been hanged for infanticide, and so restoring her
to life.
Dr. Petty now took his place at Oxford among the energetic men of science
who had been inspired by the teaching of Francis Bacon to seek knowledge
by direct experiment, and to value knowledge above all things for its
power of advancing the welfare of man. The headquarters of these
workers were at Oxford, and in London at Gresham College.
In 1650 Petty was made Professor of Anatomy at Oxford, and it is a characteristic
illustration of his great activity of mind that he was at the same time
Professor of Music at Gresham College. Music had then a high place
in the Seven Sciences, as that use of regulated numbers which expressed
the harmonies of the created world. The Seven Sciences were divided
into three of the Trivium, and four of the Quadrivium. The three
of the Trivium concerned the use of speech; they were Grammar, Rhetoric,
and Logic. The four of the Quadrivium concerned number and measure;
they were Arithmetic, Geometry, Music; and Astronomy, which led up straight
to God. Advance to Music might be represented in the student’s
mind by his reaching to a sense of the harmonious relation of all his
studies, which, so to speak, lived in his mind as a single well-proportioned
thought.
In 1652 Dr. Petty was sent to Ireland as physician to the army of the
Commonwealth. While there his active mind observed that the Survey
on which the Government had based its distribution of fortified lands
to the soldiers had been “most inefficiently and absurdly managed.”
He obtained the commission to make a fresh Survey, which he completed
accurately in thirteen months, and by which he obtained in payments
from the Government and from other persons interested ten thousand pounds.
By investing this in the purchase of soldiers’ claims, he secured
for himself an Irish estate of fifty thousand acres in the county of
Kerry, opened upon it mines and quarries, developed trade in timber,
and set up a fishery. John Evelyn said of him “that he had
never known such another genius, and that if Evelyn were a prince he
would make Petty his second councillor at least.” Henry
Cromwell as Lord Deputy in Ireland made Petty his secretary.
Petty’s Maps were printed in 1685, two years before his death,
as “Hiberniæ Delineatio quoad hactenus licuit perfectissima;”
a collection of thirty-six maps, with a portrait of Sir William Petty,
a work answering to its description as the most perfect delineation
of Ireland that had up to that time been obtained. There is a
coloured copy of Petty’s maps in the British Museum, and also
an uncoloured copy, with the first five maps varying from those in the
coloured copy, and giving a General Map of Ireland, followed by Maps
of Leinster, Munster, Ulster, and Connaught. There was afterwards
published in duodecimo, without date, “A Geographical Description
of ye Kingdom of Ireland, collected from ye actual Survey made by Sir
William Petty, corrected and amended, engraven and published by Fra.
Lamb.” This volume gives as its contents, “one general
mapp, four provincial mapps, and thirty-two county mapps; to which is
added a mapp of Great Brittaine and Ireland, together with an Index
of the whole.”
At the Restoration William Petty accepted the inevitable change, and
continued his service to the country. He was knighted by Charles
the Second, and appointed in 1661 Inspector-General of Ireland.
He entered Parliament. He was one of the first founders of the
Royal Society, established at the beginning of the reign of Charles
the Second; and the outcome of these scientific studies along the line
marked out by Francis Bacon, which had been actively pursued in Oxford
and at Gresham College. In 1663 he applied his ingenuity to the
invention of a swift double-bottomed ship, that made one or two passages
between England and Ireland, but was then lost in a storm.
In 1670 Sir William Petty established on his lands at Kerry the English
settlement at the head of the bay of Kenmare. The building of
forty-two houses for the English settlers first laid the foundations
of the present town of Kenmare. “The population,”
writes Lord Macaulay, “amounted to a hundred and eighty.
The land round the town was well cultivated. The cattle were numerous.
Two small barks were employed in fishing and trading along the coast.
The supply of herrings, pilchards, mackerel, and salmon, was plentiful,
and would have been still more plentiful had not the beach been, in
the finest part of the year, covered by multitudes of seals, which preyed
on the fish of the bay. Yet the seal was not an unwelcome visitor:
his fur was valuable; and his oil supplied light through the long nights
of winter. An attempt was made with great success to set up ironworks.
It was not yet the practice to employ coal for the purpose of smelting;
and the manufacturers of Kent and Sussex had much difficulty in procuring
timber at a reasonable price. The neighbourhood of Kenmare was
then richly wooded; and Petty found it a gainful speculation to send
ore thither.” He looked also for profit from the variegated
marbles of adjacent islands. Distant two days’ journey over
the mountains from the nearest English, Petty’s English settlement
of Kenmare withstood all surrounding dangers, and in 1688, a year after
its founder’s death, defended itself successfully against a fierce
and general attack.
Sir William Petty died at London, on the 16th of December, 1687, and
was buried in his native town of Romsey. He had added to his great
wealth by marriage, and was the founder of the family in which another
Sir William Petty became Earl of Shelburne and first Marquis of Lansdowne.
The son of that first Marquis was Henry third Marquis of Lansdowne,
who took a conspicuous part in our political history during the present
century.
Sir William Petty’s survey of the land in Ireland, called the
Down Survey, because its details were set down in maps, remains the
legal record of the title on which half the land in Ireland is held.
The original maps are preserved in the Public Record Office at Dublin,
and many of Petty’s MSS. are in the Bodleian Library at Oxford.
He published in 1662 and 1685 a “Treatise of Taxes and Contributions,
the same being frequently to the present state and affairs of Ireland,”
of which his view started from the general opinion that men should contribute
to the public charge according to their interest in the public peace
- that is, according to their riches. “Now, he said, “there
are two sorts of riches - one actual, and the other potential.
A man is actually and truly rich according to what he eateth, drinketh,
weareth, or in any other way really and actually enjoyeth. Others
are but potentially and imaginatively rich, who though they have power
over much, make little use of it, these being rather stewards and exchangers
for the other sort than owners for themselves.” He then
showed how he considered that “every man ought to contribute according
to what he taketh to himself, and actually enjoyeth.”
In 1674 Sir William Petty published a paper on “Duplicate Proportion,”
and in 1679 he published in Latin a “Colloquy of David with his
Own Soul.” In 1682 he published a tract called “Quantulumcunque,
concerning Money;” and “England’s Guide to Industry,”
in 1686. From 1682 to 1687, the year of his death, Sir William
Petty was drawing great attention to the “Essays on Political
Arithmetic,” which are here reprinted. There was the little
“Essay in Political Arithmetic, concerning the People, Housings,
Hospitals of London and Paris;” published in 1682, again in French
in 1686, and again in English in 1687. There was the little “Essay
concerning the Multiplication of Mankind, together with an Essay on
the Growth of London,” published in 1682, and again in 1683 and
1686. There was in 1683, “Another Essay in Political Arithmetic
concerning the growth of the City of London.” There were
“Farther Considerations on the Dublin Bills of Mortality,”
in 1686; and “Five Essays on Political Arithmetic” (in French
and English), “Observations upon the Cities of London and Rome,”
in 1687, the last year of Sir William Petty’s life. Other
writings of his were published in his lifetime, or have been published
since his death. He was in the study of political economy one
of the most ingenious and practical thinkers before the days of Adam
Smith.
But the interest of those “Essays in Political Arithmetic”
lies chiefly in the facts presented by so trustworthy an authority.
London had become in the time of the Stuarts the most populous city
in Europe, if not in the world. This Sir William Petty sought
to prove against the doubts of foreign and other critics, and his “Political
Arithmetic” was an endeavour to determine the relative strength
in population of the chief cities of England, France, and Holland.
His application of arithmetic in the first of these essays to a census
of the population at the Day of Judgment he himself spoke of slightingly.
It is a curious example of a bygone form of theological discussion.
But his tables and his reasonings upon them grow in interest as he attempts
his numbering of the people in the reign of James II. by collecting
facts upon which his deductions might be founded. The references
to the deaths by Plague in London before the cleansing of the town by
the great fire of 1666 are very suggestive; and in one passage there
is incidental note of delay in the coming of the Plague then due, without
reckoning the change made in conditions of health by the rebuilding.
Nobody knew, and no one even now can calculate, how many lives the Fire
of London saved.
There was in Petty’s time no direct numbering of the people.
The first census in this country was not until more than a hundred years
after Sir William Petty’s death, although he points out in these
essays how easily it could be established, and what useful information
it would give. There was a census taken at Rome 566 years before
Christ. But the first census in Great Britain was taken in 1801,
under provision of an Act passed on the last day of the year 1800, to
secure a numbering of the population every ten years. Ireland
was not included in the return; the first census in Ireland was not
until the year 1813.
Sir William Petty had to base his calculations partly upon the Bills
of Mortality, which had been imperfectly begun under Elizabeth, but
fell into disuse, and were revived, as a weekly record of the number
of deaths, beginning on the 29th of October, 1603; notices of diseases
first appeared in them in 1629. The weekly bills were published
every Thursday, and any householder could have them supplied to him
for four shillings a year. These essays will show how inferences
as to the number of the living were drawn from the number of the dead.
And even now our Political Arithmetic depends too much upon rough calculations
made from the death register. It is seven years since the last
census; we have lost count of the changes in our population to a very
great extent, and have to wait three years before our reckoning can
be made sure. The interval should be reduced to five years.
Another of Sir William Petty’s helps in the arithmetic of population
was the Chimney Tax, a revival of the old fumage or hearth-money - smoke
farthings, as the people called them - once paid, according to Domesday
Book, for every chimney in a house. Charles the Second had set
up a chimney tax in the year 1662; the statistics of the collection
were at the service of Sir William Petty. The tax outlived him
but two years. It was promptly abolished in the first year of
William and Mary.
The interest taken at home and abroad in these calculations of Political
Arithmetic set other men calculating, and reasoning upon their calculations.
The next worker in that direction was Gregory King, Lancaster Herald,
whose calculations immediately followed those of Sir William Petty.
Sir William Petty’s essays extended from 1682 until his death
in 1687. Gregory King’s estimates were made in 1689.
They were a study of the number population and distribution of wealth
among us at the time of the English Revolution, and the unpublished
results were first printed in a chapter on “The People of England,”
which formed part a volume published in 1699 as “An Essay upon
the Probable Methods of making a People Gainers in the Balance of Trade,
by the Author of the Essay on Ways and Means.” The volume
was written by a member of Parliament in the days of William and Mary,
who desired to apply principles of political economy to the maintenance
of English wealth and liberty. It has been wrongly scribed to
Defoe; and its suggestion of the plan a trading Corporation for solution
of the whole problem of relief to the poor who cannot work, and relief
from the poor who can, might indeed make another chapter in Defoe’s
“Essay on Projects.” The chapter, which gives the
Political Arithmetic of Gregory King, with such comment and suggestions
as might be expected from a liberal supporter of the Revolution, and
with this suggestion of a Corporation, is in itself a complete essay.
It follows naturally upon the Political Arithmetic of Sir William Petty
in close sequence of time, and in carrying a like method of inquiry
forward until it reaches a few more conclusions. I have, therefore,
added it to this volume. It seems, at any rate, to show how Sir
William Petty’s books, of which the very small size grieved the
stationer, had a large influence on other minds; his figures bearing
fruit in a new search for facts and careful reasoning on the condition
of the country at one of the most critical times in English history.
H. M.
THE STATIONER TO THE READER
The ensuing essay concerning the growth of the city of London was entitled
“Another Essay,” intimating that some other essay had preceded
it, which was not to be found. I having been much importuned for
that precedent essay, have found that the same was about the growth,
increase, and multiplication of mankind, which subject should in order
of nature precede that of the growth of the city of London, but am not
able to procure the essay itself, only I have obtained from a gentleman,
who sometimes corresponded with Sir W. Petty, an extract of a letter
from Sir William to him, which I verily believe containeth the scope
thereof; wherefore, I must desire the reader to be content therewith,
till more can be had.
The extract of a letter concerning the scope of an essay intended
to precede another essay concerning the growth of the City of London,
&c. An Essay in Political Arithmetic, concerning the
value and increase of People and Colonies.
The scope of this essay is concerning people and colonies, and to
make way for “Another Essay” concerning the growth of the
city of London. I desire in this first essay to give the world
some light concerning the numbers of people in England, with Wales,
and in Ireland; as also of the number of houses and families wherein
they live, and of acres they occupy.
2. How many live upon their lands, how many upon their personal
estates and commerce, and how many upon art, and labour; how many upon
alms, how many upon offices and public employments, and how many as
cheats and thieves; how many are impotents, children, and decrepit old
men.
3. How many upon the poll-taxes in England, do pay extraordinary
rates, and how many at the level.
4. How many men and women are prolific, and how many of each are
married or unmarried.
5. What the value of people are in England, and what in Ireland
at a medium, both as members of the Church or Commonwealth, or as slaves
and servants to one another; with a method how to estimate the same,
in any other country or colony.
6. How to compute the value of land in colonies, in comparison
to England and Ireland.
7. How 10,000 people in a colony may be planted to the best advantage.
8. A conjecture in what number of years England and Ireland may
be fully peopled, as also all America, and lastly the whole habitable
earth.
9. What spot of the earth’s globe were fittest for a general
and universal emporium, whereby all the people thereof may best enjoy
one another’s labours and commodities.
10. Whether the speedy peopling of the earth would make
(1) For the good of mankind.
(2) To fulfil the revealed will of God.
(3) To what prince or State the same would be most advantageous.
11. An exhortation to all thinking men to solve the Scriptures
and other good histories, concerning the number of people in all ages
of the world, in the great cities thereof, and elsewhere.
12. An appendix concerning the different number of sea-fish and
wild-fowl at the end of every thousand years since Noah’s Flood.
13. An hypothesis of the use of those spaces (of about 8,000 miles
through) within the globe of our earth, supposing a shell of 150 miles
thick.
14. What may be the meaning of glorified bodies, in case the place
of the blessed shall be without the convex of the orb of the fixed stars,
if that the whole system of the world was made for the use of our earth’s
men.
THE PRINCIPAL POINTS OF THIS DISCOURSE
1. That London doubles in forty years, and all England in three
hundred and sixty years.
2. That there be, A.D. 1682, about 670,000 souls in London, and
about 7,400,000 in all England and Wales, and about 28,000,000 of acres
of profitable land.
3. That the periods of doubling the people are found to be, in
all degrees, from between ten to twelve hundred years.
4. That the growth of London must stop of itself before the year
1800.
5. A table helping to understand the Scriptures, concerning the
number of people mentioned in them.
6. That the world will be fully peopled within the next two thousand
years.
7. Twelve ways whereby to try any proposal pretended for the public
good.
8. How the city of London may be made (morally speaking) invincible.
9. A help to uniformity in religion.
10. That it is possible to increase mankind by generation four
times more than at present.
11. The plagues of London is the chief impediment and objection
against the growth of the city.
12. That an exact account of the people is necessary in this matter.
OF THE GROWTH OF THE CITY OF LONDON: And of the Measures,
Periods, Causes, and Consequences thereof
By the city of London we mean the housing within the walls of the
old city, with the liberties thereof, Westminster, the Borough of Southwark,
and so much of the built ground in Middlesex and Surrey, whose houses
are contiguous unto, or within call of those aforementioned. Or
else we mean the housing which stand upon the ninety-seven parishes
within the walls of London; upon the sixteen parishes next without them;
the six parishes of Westminster, and the fourteen out-parishes in Middlesex
and Surrey, contiguous to the former, all which, 133 parishes, are comprehended
within the weekly bills of mortality.
The growth of this city is measured. (1) By the quantity of ground,
or number of acres upon which it stands. (2) By the number of
houses, as the same appears by the hearth-books and late maps. (3) By
the cubical content of the said housing. (4) By the flooring of
the same. (5) By the number of days’ work, or charge of
building the said houses. (6) By the value of the said houses,
according to their yearly rent, and number of years’ purchase.
(7) By the number of inhabitants; according to which latter sense only
we make our computations in this essay.
Till a better rule can be obtained, we conceive that the proportion
of the people may be sufficiently measured by the proportion of the
burials in such years as were neither remarkable for extraordinary healthfulness
or sickliness.
That the city hath increased in this latter sense appears from the bills
of mortality represented in the two following tables, viz., one whereof
is a continuation for eighteen years, ending 1682, of that table which
was published in the 117th page of the book of the observations upon
the London bills of mortality, printed in the year 1676. The other
showeth what number of people died at a medium of two years, indifferently
taken, at about twenty years’ distance from each other.
The first of the said two tables.
A.D. 97 16 Out Buried Besides of Christened
Parishes Parishes Parishes in all the Plague
1665 5,320 12,463 10,925 28,708 68,596 9,967
1666 1,689 3,969 5,082 10,740 1,998 8,997
1667 761 6,405 8,641 15,807 35 10,938
1668 796 6,865 9,603 17,267 14 11,633
1669 1,323 7,500 10,440 19,263 3 12,335
1670 1,890 7,808 10,500 20,198 11,997
1671 1,723 5,938 8,063 15,724 5 12,510
1672 2,237 6,788 9,200 18,225 5 12,593
1673 2,307 6,302 8,890 17,499 5 11,895
1674 2,801 7,522 10,875 21,198 3 11,851
1675 2,555 5,986 8,702 17,243 1 11,775
1676 2,756 6,508 9,466 18,730 2 12,399
1677 2,817 6,632 9,616 19,065 2 12,626
1678 3,060 6,705 10,908 20,673 5 12,601
1679 3,074 7,481 11,173 21,728 2 12,288
1680 3,076 7,066 10,911 21,053 12,747
1681 3,669 8,136 12,166 23,971 13,355
1682 2,975 7,009 10,707 20,691 12,653
According to which latter table there died as follows:-
THE LATTER OF THE SAID TWO TABLES
There died in London at the medium between the years -
1604 and 1605 . . . 5,135. A.
1621 and 1622 . . . 8,527. B.
1641 and 1642 . . . 11,883. C.
1661 and 1662 . . . 15,148. D.
1681 and 1682 . . . 22,331. E.
Wherein observe, that the number C is double to A and 806 over.
That D is double to B within 1,906. That C and D is double to
A and B within 293. That E is double to C within 1,435.
That D and E is double to B and C within 3,341; and that C and D and
E are double to A and B and C within 1,736; and that E is above quadruple
to A. All which differences (every way considered) do allow the
doubling of the people of London in 40 years to be a sufficient estimate
thereof in round numbers, and without the trouble of fractions.
We also say that 669,930 is near the number of people now in London,
because the burials are 22,331, which, multiplied by 30 (one dying yearly
out of 30, as appears in the 94th page of the aforementioned observations),
maketh the said number; and because there are 84,000 tenanted houses
(as we are credibly informed), which, at 8 in each, makes 672,000 souls;
the said two accounts differing inconsiderably from each other.
We have thus pretty well found out in what number of years (viz., in
about 40) that the city of London hath doubled, and the present number
of inhabitants to be about 670,000. We must now also endeavour
the same for the whole territory of England and Wales. In order
whereunto, we first say that the assessment of London is about an eleventh
part of the whole territory, and, therefore, that the people of the
whole may well be eleven times that of London, viz., about 7,369,000
souls; with which account that of the poll-money, hearth-money, and
the bishop’s late numbering of the communicants, do pretty well
agree; wherefore, although the said number of 7,369,000 be not (as it
cannot be) a demonstrated truth, yet it will serve for a good supposition,
which is as much as we want at present.
As for the time in which the people double, it is yet more hard to be
found. For we have good experience (in the said page 94 of the
aforementioned observations) that in the country but 1 of 50 die per
annum; and by other late accounts, that there have been sometimes but
24 births for 23 burials. The which two points, if they were universally
and constantly true, there would be colour enough to say that the people
doubled but in about 1,200 years. As, for example, suppose there
be 600 people, of which let a fiftieth part die per annum, then there
shall die 12 per annum; and if the births be as 24 to 23, then the increase
of the people shall be somewhat above half a man per annum, and consequently
the supposed number of 600 cannot be doubled but in 1,126 years, which,
to reckon in round numbers, and for that the aforementioned fractions
were not exact, we had rather call 1,200.
There are also other good observations, that even in the country one
in about 30 or 32 per annum hath died, and that there have been five
births for four burials. Now, according to this doctrine, 20 will
die per annum out of the above 600, and 25 will be born, so as the increase
will be five, which is a hundred and twentieth part of the said 600.
So as we have two fair computations, differing from each other as one
to ten; and there are also several other good observations for other
measures.
I might here insert, that although the births in this last computation
be 25 of 600, or a twenty-fourth part of the people, yet that in natural
possibility they may be near thrice as many, and near 75. For
that by some late observations, the teeming females between 15 and 44
are about 180 of the said 600, and the males of between 18 and 59 are
about 180 also, and that every teeming woman can bear a child once in
two years; from all which it is plain that the births may be 90 (and
abating 15 for sickness, young abortions, and natural barrenness), there
may remain 75 births, which is an eighth of the people, which by some
observations we have found to be but a two-and-thirtieth part, or but
a quarter of what is thus shown to be naturally possible. Now,
according to this reckoning, if the births may be 75 of 600, and the
burials but 15, then the annual increase of the people will be 60; and
so the said 600 people may double in ten years, which differs yet more
from 1,200 above-mentioned. Now, to get out of this difficulty,
and to temper those vast disagreements, I took the medium of 50 and
30 dying per annum, and pitched upon 40; and I also took the medium
between 24 births and 23 burials, and 5 births for 4 burials, viz.,
allowing about 10 births for 9 burials; upon which supposition there
must die 15 per annum out of the above-mentioned 600, and the births
must be 16 and two-thirds, and the increase one and two-thirds, or five-thirds
of a man, which number, compared with 1,800 thirds, or 600 men, gives
360 years for the time of doubling (including some allowance for wars,
plagues, and famines, the effects thereof), though they be terrible
at the times and places where they happen, yet in a period of 360 years
is no great matter in the whole nation. For the plagues of England
in twenty years have carried away scarce an eightieth part of the people
of the whole nation; and the late ten years’ civil wars
(the like whereof hath not been in several ages before) did not take
away above a fortieth part of the whole people.
According to which account or measure of doubling, if there be now in
England and Wales 7,400,000 people, there were about 5,526,000 in the
beginning of Queen Elizabeth’s reign, A.D. 1560, and about 2,000,000
at the Norman Conquest, of which consult the Doomsday Book, and my Lord
Hale’s “Origination of Mankind.”
Memorandum. - That if the people double in 360 years, that the present
320,000,000 computed by some learned men (from the measures of all the
nations of the world, their degrees of being peopled, and good accounts
of the people in several of them) to be now upon the face of the earth,
will within the next 2,000 years so increase as to give one head for
every two acres of land in the habitable part of the earth. And
then, according to the prediction of the Scriptures, there must be wars,
and great slaughter, &c.
Wherefore, as an expedient against the above-mentioned difference between
10 and 1,200 years, we do for the present, and in this country, admit
of 360 years to be the time wherein the people of England do double,
according to the present laws and practice of marriages.
Now, if the city double its people in 40 years, and the present number
be 670,000, and if the whole territory be 7,400,000, and double in 360
years, as aforesaid, then by the underwritten table it appears that
A.D. 1840 the people of the city will be 10,718,880, and those of the
whole country but 10,917,389, which is but inconsiderably more.
Wherefore it is certain and necessary that the growth of the city must
stop before the said year 1840, and will be at its utmost height in
the next preceding period, A.D. 1800, when the number of the city will
be eight times its present number, 5,359,000. And when (besides
the said number) there will be 4,466,000 to perform the tillage, pasturage,
and other rural works necessary to be done without the said city, as
by the following table, viz.:-
A.D. Burials People in People in
London England
1565 2,568 77,040 5,526,929
As in the } 1605 5,135
former table } 1642 11,883
} 1682 22,331 669,930 7,369,230
1722 44,662
1762 89,324
1802 178,648 5,359,440 9,825,650
1842 357,296 10,718,889 10,917,389
Now, when the people of London shall come to be so near the people
of all England, then it follows that the growth of London must stop
before the said year 1842, as aforesaid, and must be at its greatest
height A.D. 1800, when it will be eight times more than now, with above
4,000,000 for the service of the country and ports, as aforesaid.
Of the aforementioned vast difference between 10 years and 1,200 years
for doubling the people, we make this use, viz.:- To justify the Scriptures
and all other good histories concerning the number of the people in
ancient time. For supposing the eight persons who came out of
the Ark, increased by a progressive doubling in every ten years, might
grow in the first 100 years after the Flood from 8 to 8,000, and that
in 350 years after the Flood (whereabouts Noah died) to 1,000,000 and
by this time, 1682, to 320,000,000 (which by rational conjecture are
thought to be now in the world), it will not be hard to compute how,
in the intermediate years, the growths may be made, according to what
is set down in the following table, wherein making the doubling to be
ten years at first, and within 1,200 years at last, we take a discretionary
liberty, but justifiable by observations and the Scriptures for the
rest, which table we leave to be corrected by historians who know the
bigness of ancient cities, armies, and colonies in the respective ages
of the world, in the meantime affirming that without such difference
in the measures and periods for doubling (the extremes whereof we have
demonstrated to be real and true) it is impossible to solve what is
written in the Holy Scriptures and other authentic books. For
if we pitch upon any one number throughout for this purpose, 150 years
is the fittest of all round numbers; according to which there would
have been but 512 souls in the whole world in Moses’ time (being
800 years after the Flood), when 603,000 Israelites of above twenty
years old (besides those of other ages, tribes, and nations) were found
upon an exact survey appointed by God, whereas our table makes 12,000,000.
And there would have been about 8,000 in David’s time, when were
found 1,100,000, of above twenty years old (besides others, as aforesaid)
in Israel, upon the survey instigated by Satan, whereas our table makes
32,000,000. And there would have been but a quarter of a million
about the birth of Christ, or Augustus’s time, when Rome and the
Roman Empire were so great, whereas our table makes 100,000,000.
Where note, that the Israelites in about 500 years, between their coming
out of Egypt to David’s reign, increased from 603,000 to 1,100,000.
On the other hand, if we pitch upon a less number, as 100 years, the
world would have been over-peopled 700 years since. Wherefore
no one number will solve the phenomena, and therefore we have supposed
several, in order to make the following table, which we again desire
historians to correct, according to what they find in antiquity concerning
the number of the people in each age and country of the world.
We did (not long since) assist a worthy divine, writing against some
sceptics, who would have baffled our belief of the resurrection, by
saying, that the whole globe of the earth could not furnish matter enough
for all the bodies that must rise at the last day, much less would the
surface of the earth furnish footing for so vast a number; whereas we
did (by the method afore mentioned) assert the number of men now living,
and also of those that had died since the beginning of the world, and
did withal show, that half the island of Ireland would afford them all,
not only footing to stand upon, but graves to lie down in, for that
whole number; and that two mountains in that country were as weighty
as all the bodies that had ever been from the beginning of the world
to the year 1680, when this dispute happened. For which purpose
I have digressed from my intended purpose to insert this matter, intending
to prosecute this hint further upon some more proper occasion.
A TABLE SHOWING HOW THE PEOPLE MIGHT HAVE DOUBLED IN THE SEVERAL AGES
OF THE WORLD.
A.D., after the Flood.
Periods of { 1 8 persons.
doubling { 10 16
{ 20 32
{ 30 64
{ 40 128
In 10 years { 50 256
{ 60 512
{ 70 1,024
{ 80 2,048
{ 90 4,096
{ 100 8,000 and more.
{ 120 years after
In 20 years { the Flood. 16,000
{ 140 32,000
{ 170 64,000
30 {
{ 200 128,000
40 240 256,000
50 290 512,000
60 350 1,000,000 and more.
70 420 2,000,000
100 520 4,000,000
190 710 8,000,000
290 1,000 16,000,000 in Moses’ time.
400 1,400 32,000,000 about David’s time.
550 1,950 64,000,000
750 2,700 128,000,000 about the birth of Christ.
1,000 3,700 256,000,000
300 {
In { 4,000 320,000,000
1,200 {
It is here to be noted, that in this table we have assigned a
different number of years for the time of doubling the people in the
several ages of the world, and might have done the same for the several
countries of the world, and therefore the said several periods assigned
to the whole world in the lump may well enough consist with the 360
years especially assigned to England, between this day and the Norman
Conquest; and the said 360 years may well enough serve for a supposition
between this time and that of the world’s being fully peopled;
nor do we lay any stress upon one or the other in this disquisition
concerning the growth of the city of London.
We have spoken of the growth of London, with the measures and periods
thereof; we come next to the causes and consequences of the same.
The causes of its growth from 1642 to 1682 may be said to have been
as follows, viz.:- From 1642 to 1650, that men came out of the country
to London, to shelter themselves from the outrages of the Civil Wars
during that time; from 1650 to 1660, the royal party came to London
for their more private and inexpensive living; from 1660 to 1670, the
king’s friends and party came to receive his favours after his
happy restoration; from 1670 to 1680, the frequency of plots and parliaments
might bring extraordinary numbers to the city; but what reasons to assign
for the like increase from 1604 to 1642 I know not, unless I should
pick out some remarkable accident happening in each part of the said
period, and make that to be the cause of this increase (as vulgar people
make the cause of every man’s sickness to be what he did last
eat), wherefore, rather than so to say quidlibet de quolibet,
I had rather quit even what I have above said to be the cause of London’s
increase from 1642 to 1682, and put the whole upon some natural and
spontaneous benefits and advantages that men find by living in great
more than in small societies, and shall therefore seek for the antecedent
causes of this growth in the consequences of the like, considered in
greater characters and proportions.
Now, whereas in arithmetic, out of two false positions the truth is
extracted, so I hope out of two extravagant contrary suppositions to
draw forth some solid and consistent conclusion, viz.:-
The first of the said two suppositions is, that the city of London is
seven times bigger than now, and that the inhabitants of it are 4,690,000
people, and that in all the other cities, ports, towns, and villages,
there are but 2,710,000 more.
The other supposition is, that the city of London is but a seventh part
of its present bigness, and that the inhabitants of it are but 96,000,
and that the rest of the inhabitants (being 7,304,000) do cohabit thus:
104,000 of them in small cities and towns, and that the rest, being
7,200,000, do inhabit in houses not contiguous to one another, viz.,
in 1,200,000 houses, having about twenty-four acres of ground belonging
to each of them, accounting about 28,000,000 of acres to be in the whole
territory of England, Wales, and the adjacent islands, which any man
that pleases may examine upon a good map.
Now, the question is, in which of these two imaginary states would be
the most convenient, commodious, and comfortable livings?
But this general question divides itself into the several questions,
relating to the following particulars, viz.:-
1. For the defence of the kingdom against foreign powers.
2. For preventing the intestine commotions of parties and factions.
3. For peace and uniformity in religion.
4. For the administration of justice.
5. For the proportionably taxing of the people, and easy levying
the same.
6. For gain by foreign commerce.
7. For husbandry, manufacture, and for arts of delight and ornament.
8. For lessening the fatigue of carriages and travelling.
9. For preventing beggars and thieves.
10. For the advancement and propagation of useful learning.
11. For increasing the people by generation.
12. For preventing the mischiefs of plagues and contagious.
And withal, which of the said two states is most practicable and natural,
for in these and the like particulars do lie the tests and touchstones
of all proposals that can be made for the public good.
First, as to practicable, we say, that although our said extravagant
proposals are both in nature possible, yet it is not obvious to every
man to conceive how London, now seven times bigger than in the beginning
of Queen Elizabeth’s reign, should be seven times bigger than
now it is, and forty-nine times bigger than A.D. 1560. To which
I say, 1. That the present city of London stands upon less than
2,500 acres of ground, wherefore a city seven times as large may stand
upon 10,500 acres, which is about equivalent to a circle of four miles
and a half in diameter, and less than fifteen miles in circumference.
2. That a circle of ground of thirty-five miles semidiameter will
bear corn, garden-stuff, fruits, hay, and timber, for the 4,690,000
inhabitants of the said city and circle, so as nothing of that kind
need be brought from above thirty-five miles distance from the said
city; for the number of acres within the said circle, reckoning two
acres sufficient to furnish bread and drink-corn for every head, and
two acres will furnish hay for every necessary horse; and that the trees
which may grow in the hedgerows of the fields within the said circle
may furnish timber for 600,000 houses. 3. That all live cattle
and great animals can bring themselves to the said city; and that fish
can be brought from the Land’s End and Berwick as easily as now.
4. Of coals there is no doubt: and for water, 20s. per family
(or £600,000 per annum in the whole) will serve this city, especially
with the help of the New River. But if by practicable be understood
that the present state may be suddenly changed into either of the two
above-mentioned proposals, I think it is not practicable. Wherefore
the true question is, unto or towards which of the said two extravagant
states it is best to bend the present state by degrees, viz., Whether
it be best to lessen or enlarge the present city? In order whereunto,
we inquire (as to the first question) which state is most defensible
against foreign powers, saying, that if the above-mentioned housing,
and a border of ground, of three-quarters of a mile broad, were encompassed
with a wall and ditch of twenty miles about (as strong as any in Europe,
which would cost but a million, or about a penny in the shilling of
the house-rent for one year) what foreign prince could bring an army
from beyond seas, able to beat - 1. Our sea-forces, and next with horse
harassed at sea, to resist all the fresh horse that England could make,
and then conquer above a million of men, well united, disciplined, and
guarded within such a wall, distant everywhere three-quarters of a mile
from the housing, to elude the granadoes and great shot of the enemy?
2. As to intestine parties and factions, I suppose that 4,690,000
people united within this great city could easily govern half the said
number scattered without it, and that a few men in arms within the said
city and wall could also easily govern the rest unarmed, or armed in
such a manner as the Sovereign shall think fit. 3. As to uniformity
in religion, I conceive, that if St. Martin’s parish (may as it
doth) consist of about 40,000 souls, that this great city also may as
well be made but as one parish, with seven times 130 chapels, in which
might not only be an uniformity of common prayer, but in preaching also;
for that a thousand copies of one judiciously and authentically composed
sermon might be every week read in each of the said chapels without
any subsequent repetition of the same, as in the case of homilies.
Whereas in England (wherein are near 10,000 parishes, in each of which
upon Sundays, holy days, and other extraordinary occasions there should
be about 100 sermons annum, making about a million of sermons per annum
in the whole) it were a miracle, if a million of sermons composed by
so many men, and of so many minds and methods, should produce uniformity
upon the discomposed understandings of about 8,000,000 of hearers.
4. As to the administration of justice. If in this great
city shall dwell the owners of all the lands, and other valuable things
in England; if within it shall be all the traders, and all the courts,
offices, records, juries, and witnesses; then it follows that justice
may be done with speed and ease.
5. As to the equality and easy levying of taxes. It is too
certain that London hath at some time paid near half the excise of England,
and that the people pay thrice as much for the hearths in London as
those in the country, in proportion to the people of each, and that
the charge of collecting these duties have been about a sixth part of
the duty itself. Now in this great city the excise alone according
to the present laws would not only be double to the whole kingdom, but
also more equal. And the duty of hearths of the said city would
exceed the present proceed of the whole kingdom. And as for the
customs we mention them not at present.
6. Whether more would be gained by foreign commerce? The
gain which England makes by lead, coals, the freight of shipping, &c.,
may be the same, for aught I see, in both cases. But the gain
which is made by manufactures will be greater as the manufacture itself
is greater and better. For in so vast a city manufactures will
beget one another, and each manufacture will be divided into as many
parts as possible, whereby the work of each artisan will be simple and
easy. As, for example, in the making of a watch, if one man shall
make the wheels, another the spring, another shall engrave the dial-plate,
and another shall make the cases, then the watch will be better and
cheaper than if the whole work be put upon any one man. And we
also see that in towns, and in the streets of a great town, where all
the inhabitants are almost of one trade, the commodity peculiar to those
places is made better and cheaper than elsewhere. Moreover, when
all sorts of manufactures are made in one place, there every ship that
goeth forth can suddenly have its loading of so many several particulars
and species as the port whereunto she is bound can take off. Again,
when the several manufactures are made in one place, and shipped off
in another, the carriage, postage, and travelling charges, will enhance
the price of such manufacture, and lessen the gain upon foreign commerce.
And lastly, when the imported goods are spent in the port itself, where
they are landed, the carriage of the same into other places will create
no further charge upon such commodity; all which particulars tend to
the greater gain by foreign commerce.
7. As for arts of delight and ornament. They are best promoted
by the greatest number of emulators. And it is more likely that
one ingenious curious man may rather be found out amongst 4,000,000
than 400 persons. But as for husbandry, viz., tillage and pasturage,
I see no reason, but the second state (when each family is charged with
the culture of about twenty-four acres) will best promote the same.
8. As for lessening the fatigue of carriage and travelling.
The thing speaks for itself, for if all the men of business, and all
artisans, do live within five miles of each other, and if those who
live without the great city do spend only such commodities as grow where
they live, then the charge of carriage and travelling could be little.
9. As to the preventing of beggars and thieves.
I do not find how the differences of the said two states should make
much difference in this particular; for impotents (which are but one
in about 600) ought to be maintained by the rest. 2. Those who
are unable to work, through the evil education of their parents, ought
(for aught I know) to be maintained by their nearest kindred, as a just
punishment upon them. 3. And those who cannot find work (though
able and willing to perform it), by reason of the unequal application
of hands to lands, ought to be provided for by the magistrate and landlord
till that can be done; for there need be no beggars in countries where
there are many acres of unimproved improvable land to every head, as
there are in England. As for thieves, they are for the most part
begotten from the same cause; for it is against Nature that any man
should venture his life, limb, or liberty, for a wretched livelihood,
whereas moderate labour will produce a better. But of this see
Sir Thomas More, in the first part of his “Utopia.”
10. As to the propagation and improvement of useful learning.
The same may be said concerning it as was above said concerning manufactures,
and the arts of delight and ornaments; for in the great vast city there
can be no so odd a conceit or design whereunto some assistance may not
be found, which in the thin, scattered way of habitation may not be.
11. As for the increase of people by generation. I see no
great difference from either of the two states, for the same may be
hindered or promoted in either from the same causes.
12. As to the plague.
It is to be remembered that one time with another a plague happeneth
in London once in twenty years, or thereabouts; for in the last hundred
years, between the years 1582 and 1682, there have been five great plagues
- viz., A.D. 1592, 1603, 1625, 1636, and 1665. And it is also
to be remembered that the plagues of London do commonly kill one-fifth
part of the inhabitants. Now if the whole people of England do
double but in 360 years, then the annual increase of the same is but
20,000, and in twenty years 400,000. But if in the city of London
there should be 2,000,000 of people (as there will be about sixty years
hence), then the plague (killing one-fifth of them, namely, 400,000
once in twenty years) will destroy as many in one year as the whole
nation can re-furnish in twenty; and consequently the people of the
nation shall never increase. But if the people of London shall
be above 4,000,000 (as in the first of our two extravagant suppositions
is premised), then the people of the whole nation shall lessen above
20,000 per annum. So as if people be worth £70 per head
(as hath elsewhere been shown), then the said greatness of the city
will be a damage to itself and the whole nation of £1,400,000
per annum, and so pro rata for a greater or lesser number; wherefore
to determine which of the two states is best - that is to say, towards
which of the said two states authority should bend the present state,
a just balance ought to be made between the disadvantages from the plague,
with the advantages accruing from the other particulars above mentioned,
unto which balance a more exact account of the people, and a better
rule for the measure of its growth is necessary than what we have here
given, or are yet able to lay down.
POSTSCRIPT.
It was not very pertinent to a discourse concerning the growth of the
city of London to thrust in considerations of the time when the whole
world will be fully peopled; and how to justify the Scriptures concerning
the number of people mentioned in them; and concerning the number of
the quick and the dead that may rise at the last day, &c.
Nevertheless, since some friends, liking the said digressions and impertinences
(perhaps as sauce to a dry discourse) have desired that the same might
be explained and made out, I, therefore, say as followeth:-
1. If the number of acres in the habitable part of the earth be
under 50,000,000,000; if 20,000,000,000 of people are more than the
said number of acres will feed (few or no countries being so fully peopled),
and for that in six doublings (which will be in 2,000 years) the present
320,000,000 will exceed the said 20,000,000,000.
2. That the number of all those who have died since the Flood
is the sum of all the products made by multiplying the number of the
doubling periods mentioned in the first column of the last table, by
the number of people respectively affixed to them in the third column
of the same table, the said sum being divided by 40 (one dying out of
40 per annum out of the whole mass of mankind), which quotient is 12,570,000,000;
whereunto may be added, for those that died before the Flood, enough
to make the last-mentioned number 20,000,000,000, as the full number
of all that died from the beginning of the world to the year 1682, unto
which, if 320,000,000, the number of those who are now alive, be added,
the total of the quick and the dead will amount but unto one fifth part
of the graves which the surface of Ireland will afford, without ever
putting two bodies into any one grave; for there be in Ireland 28,000
square English miles, each whereof will afford about 4,000,000 of graves,
and consequently above 114,000,000,000 of graves, viz., about five times
the number of the quick and the dead which should arise at the last
day, in case the same had been in the year 1682.
3. Now, if there may be place for five times as many graves in
Ireland as are sufficient for all that ever died, and if the earth of
one grave weigh five times as much as the body interred therein, then
a turf less than a foot thick pared off from a fifth part of the surface
of Ireland, will be equivalent in bulk and weight to all the bodies
that ever were buried, and may serve as well for that purpose as the
two mountains aforementioned in the body of this discourse. From
all which it is plain how madly they were mistaken who did so petulantly
vilify what the Holy Scriptures have delivered.
FURTHER OBSERVATION UPON THE DUBLIN BILLS; Or, Accounts of
the Houses, Hearths, Baptisms, and Burials in that
City.
THE STATIONER TO THE READER.
I have not thought fit to make any alteration of the first edition,
but have only added a new table, with observation upon it, placing the
same in the front of what was before, which, perhaps, might have been
as well placed after the like table at the eighth page of the first
edition.
DUBLIN, 1682.
Parishes Houses Fireplaces Baptised Buried
St. James’s 272 836 }
St. Katherine’s 540 2,198 } 122 306
St. Nicholas }
Without and } 1,064 4,082 145 414
St. Patrick’s }
St. Bridget’s 395 1,903 68 149
St. Audone’s 276 1,510 56 164
St. Michael’s 174 884 34 50
St. John’s 302 1,636 74 101
St. Nicholas }
Within and } 153 902 26 52
Christ Church Lib. }
St. Warburgh’s 240 1,638 45 105
St. Michan’s 938 3,516 124 389
St. Andrew’s 864 3,638 131 300
St. Kevin’s 554 2,120 } 87 233
Donnybrook 253 506 }
6,025 25,369 912 2,263
The table hath been made for the year 1682, wherein is to be noted
-
1. That the houses which A.D. 1671 were but 3,850 are, A.D. 1682,
6,025; but whether this difference is caused by the real increase of
housing, or by fraud and defect in the former accounts, is left to consideration.
For the burials of people have increased but from 1,696 to 2,263, according
to which proportion the 3,850 houses A.D. 1671 should A.D. 1682 have
been but 5,143, wherefore some fault may be suspected as aforesaid,
when farming the hearth-money was in agitation.
2. The hearths have increased according to the burials, and one-third
of the said increase more, viz., the burials A.D. 1671 were 1,696, the
one-third whereof is 563, which put together makes 2,259, which is near
the number of burials A.D. 1682. But the hearths A.D. 1671 were
17,500, whereof the one-third is 5,833, making in all but 23,333; whereas
the whole hearths A.D. 1682 were 25,369, viz., one-third and better
of the said 5,833 more.
3. The housing were A.D. 1671 but 3,850, which if they had increased
A.D. 1682 but according to the burials, they had been but 5,143, or,
according to the hearths, had been but 5,488, whereas they appear 6,025,
increasing double to the hearths. So as it is likely there hath
been some error in the said account of the housing, unless the new housing
be very small, and have but one chimney apiece, and that one-fourth
part of them are untenanted. On the other hand, it is more likely
that when 1,696 died per annum there were near 6,000; for 6,000 houses
at 8 inhabitants per house, would make the number of the people to be
48,000, and the number of 1,696 that died according to the rule of one
out of 30, would have made the number of inhabitants about 50,000: for
which reason I continue to believe there was some error in the account
of 3,850 houses as aforesaid, and the rather because there is no ground
from experience to think that in eleven years the houses in Dublin have
increased from 3,850 to 6,025.
Moreover, I rather think that the number of 6,025 is yet short, because
that number at 8 heads per house makes the inhabitants to be but 48,200;
whereas the 2,263 who died in the year 1682, according to the aforementioned
rule of one dying out of 30 makes the number of people to be 67,890,
the medium betwixt which number and 48,200 is 58,045, which is the best
estimate I can make of that matter, which I hope authority will ere
long rectify, by direct and exact inquiries.
4. As to the births, we say that A.D. 1640, 1641, and 1642, at
London, just before the troubles in religion began, the births were
five-sixths of the burials, by reason I suppose of the greaterness of
families in London above the country, and the fewer breeders, and not
for want of registering. Wherefore, deducting one-sixth of 2,263,
which is 377, there remains 1,886 for the probable number of births
in Dublin for the year 1682; whereas but 912 are represented to have
been christened in that year, though 1,023 were christened A.D. 1671,
when there died but 1,696, which decreasing of the christening, and
increasing of the burials, shows the increase of non-registering in
the legal books, which must be the increase of Roman Catholics at Dublin.
The scope of this whole paper therefore is, that the people of Dublin
are rather 58,000 than 32,000, and that the dissenters, who do not register
their baptisms, have increased from 391 to 974: but of dissenters, none
have increased but the Roman Catholics, whose numbers have increased
from about two to five in the said years. The exacter knowledge
whereof may also be better had from direct inquiries.
OBSERVATIONS UPON THE DUBLIN BILLS OF MORTALITY, 1681: AND THE STATE
OF THAT CITY.
The observations upon the London bills of mortality have been a new
light to the world, and the like observation upon those of Dublin may
serve as snuffers to make the same candle burn clearer.
The London observations flowed from bills regularly kept for near one
hundred years, but these are squeezed out of six straggling London bills,
out of fifteen Dublin bills, and from a note of the families and hearths
in each parish of Dublin, which are all digested into the one table
or sheet annexed, consisting of three parts, marked A, B, C; being indeed
the A, B, C of public economy, and even of that policy which tends to
peace and plenty.
Observations upon the Table A.
1. The total of the burials in London (for the said six straggling
years mentioned in the Table A) is 120,170, whereof the medium or sixth
part is 20,028, and exceeds the burials of Paris, as may appear by the
late bills of that city.
2. The births, for the same time, are 73,683, the medium or sixth
part whereof is 12,280, which is about five-eighth parts of the burials,
and shows that London would in time decrease quite away, were it not
supplied out of the country, where are about five births for four burials,
the proportion of breeders in the country being greater than in the
city.
3. The burials in Dublin for the said six years were 9,865, the
sixth part or medium whereof is 1,644, which is about the twelfth part
of the London burials, and about a fifth part over. So as the
people of London do hereby seem to be above twelve times as many as
those of Dublin.
4. The births in the same time at Dublin are 6,157, the sixth
part or medium whereof is 1,026, which is also about five-eighth parts
of the 1,644 burials, which shows that the proportion between burials
and births are alike at London and Dublin, and that the accounts are
kept alike, and consequently are likely to be true, there being no confederacy
for that purpose; which, if they be true, we then say -
5. That the births are the best way (till the accounts of the
people shall be purposely taken) whereby to judge of the increase and
decrease of people, that of burials being subject to more contingencies
and variety of causes.
6. If births be as yet the measure of the people, and that the
births (as has been shown) are as five to eight, then eight-fifths of
the births is the number of the burials, where the year was not considerable
for extraordinary sickness or salubrity, and is the rule whereby to
measure the same. As for example, the medium of births in Dublin
was 1,026, the eight-fifths whereof is 1,641, but the real burials were
1,644; so as in the said years they differed little from the 1,641,
which was the standard of health, and consequently the years 1680, 1674,
and 1668 were sickly years, more or less, as they exceeded the said
number, 1,641; and the rest were healthful years, more or less, as they
fell short of the same number. But the city was more or less populous,
as the births differed from the number 1,026, viz., populous in the
years 1680, 1679, 1678, and 1668, for other causes of this difference
in births are very occult and uncertain.
7. What hath been said of Dublin, serves also for London.
8. It hath already been observed by the London bills that there
are more males than females. It is to be further noted, that in
these six London bills, also, there is not one instance either in the
births or burials to the contrary.
9. It hath been formerly observed that in the years wherein most
die fewest are born, and vice versa. The same may be further
observed in males and females, viz., when fewest males are born then
most die: for here the males died as twelve to eleven, which is above
the mean proportion of fourteen to thirteen, but were born but as nineteen
to eighteen, which is below the same.
Observations upon the Table B.
1. From the Table B it appears that the medium of the fifteen
years’ burials (being 24,199) is 1,613, whereas the medium of
the other six years in the Table A was 1,644, and that the medium of
the fifteen years’ births (being in all 14,765) is 984, whereas
the medium of the said other six years was 1,026. That is to say,
there were both fewer births and burials in these fifteen years than
in the other six years, which is a probable sign that at a medium there
were fewer people also.
2. The medium of births for the fifteen years being 984, whereof
eight-fifths (being 1,576) is the standard of health for the said fifteen
years; and the triple of the said 1,576 being 4,728, is the standard
for each of the ternaries of the fifteen years within the said table.
3. That 2,952, the triple of 984 births, is for each ternary the
standard of people’s increase and decrease from the year 1666
to 1680 inclusive, viz., the people increased in the second ternary,
and decreased from the same in the third and fourth ternaries, but re-increased
in the fifth ternary beyond any other.
4. That the last ternary was withal very healthful, the burials
being but 4,624, viz., below 4,728, the standard.
5. That according to this proportion of increase, the housing
of Dublin have probably increased also.
Observations upon the Table C.
1. First, from the Table C it appears, 1. That the housing
of Dublin is such, as that there are not five hearths in each house
one with another, but nearer five than four.
2. That in St. Warburgh’s parish are near six hearths to
a house. In St. John’s five. In St. Michael’s
above five. In St. Nicholas Within above six. In Christ
Church above seven. In St. James’s and St. Katherine’s,
and in St. Michan’s, not four. In St. Kevin’s about
four.
3. That in St. James’s, St. Michan’s, St. Bride’s,
St. Warburgh’s, St. Andrew’s, St. Michael’s, and St.
Patrick’s, all the christenings were but 550, and the burials
1,055, viz., near double; and that in the rest of the parishes the christenings
were five, and the burials seven, viz., as 457 to 634. Now whether
the cause of this difference was negligence in accounts, or the greaterness
of the families, &c., is worth inquiring.
4. It is hard to say in what order (as to greatness) these parishes
ought to stand, some having most families, some most hearths, some most
births, and others most burials. Some parishes exceeding the rest
in two, others in three of the said four particulars, but none in all
four. Wherefore this table ranketh them according to the plurality
of the said four particulars wherein each excelleth the other.
5. The London observations reckon eight heads in each family,
according to which estimation, there are 32,000 souls in the 4,000 families
of Dublin, which is but half of what most men imagine, of which but
about one sixth part are able to bear arms, besides the royal regiment.
6. Without the knowledge of the true number of people, as a principle,
the whole scope and use of the keeping bills of births and burials is
impaired; wherefore by laborious conjectures and calculations to deduce
the number of people from the births and burials, may be ingenious,
but very preposterous.
7. If the number of families in Dublin be about 4,000, then ten
men in one week (at the charge of about £5 surveying eight families
in an hour) may directly, and without algebra, make an account of the
whole people, expressing their several ages, sex, marriages, title,
trade, religion, &c., and those who survey the hearths, or the constables
or the parish clerks (may, if required) do the same ex officio, and
without other charge, by the command of the chief governor, the diocesan,
or the mayor.
8. The bills of London have since their beginning admitted several
alterations and improvements, and £8 or £10 per annum surcharge,
would make the bills of Dublin to exceed all others, and become an excellent
instrument of Government. To which purpose the forms for weekly,
quarterly, and yearly bills are humbly recommended, viz.
TABLE A - YEARLY BILLS OF MORTALITY FOR
A.D. LONDON and DUBLIN.
Burials Births Burials Births
1680 21,053 12,747 1,826 1,096
1679 21,730 12,288 1,397 1,061
1678 20,678 12,601 1,401 1,045
1674 21,201 11,851 2,106 942
1672 18,230 12,563 1,436 987
1668 17,278 11,633 1,699 1,026
120,170 73,683 9,865 6,157
The medium
or 6th part
whereof is
part whereof
is 20,028 12,280 1,644 1,026
TABLE A - CONTINUED
A.D. LONDON.
BURIALS. BIRTHS.
Male Female Male Female
1680 11,039 10,044 6,543 6,041
1679 11,154 10,576 6,247 6,041
1678 10,681 9,977 6,568 6,033
1674 11,000 10,196 6,113 5,738
1672 9,560 8,070 6,443 6,120
1668 9,111 8,167 6,073 5,566
62,545 57,030 37,992 35,697
The medium
or 6th part
whereof is
part whereof
is 10,424 9,505 6,332 5,949
TABLE B. - DUBLIN.
A.D. Burials Births In Ternaries of Years
1666 1,480 952 }
1667 1,642 1,001 } 4,821 2,979
1668 1,699 1,026 }
1669 1,666 1,000 }
1670 1,713 1,067 } 5,353 3,070
1671 1,974 1,003 }
1672 1,436 967 }
1673 1,531 933 } 5,073 2,842
1674 2,106 942 }
1675 1,578 823 }
1676 1,391 952 } 4,328 2,672
1677 1,359 897 }
1678 1,401 1,045 }
1679 1,397 1,061 } 4,624 3,202
1680 1,826 1,096 }
24,199 14,765 24,199 14,765
The medium }
or 15th }1,613 984 1,613 984
part whereof }
is }
TABLE C.
THE PARISHES OF DUBLIN A.D. A.D., 1670-71-72
1671. at a medium
Families Hearths Births Burials
St. Katherine’s 661 2,399 161 290
and St. James’s
St. Nicholas Without 490 2,348 207 262
St. Michan’s 656 2,301 127 221
St. Andrew’s with Donnybrook 483 2,123 108 178
St. Bridget’s 416 1,989 70 100
St. John’s 244 1,337 70 138
St. Warburgh’s 267 1,650 54 103
St. Audaen’s 216 1,081 53 121
St. Michael’s 140 793 44 59
St. Kevin’s 106 433 64 133
St. Nicholas Within 93 614 28 34
St. Patrick’s Liberties 52 255 21 44
Christ Church and Trinity
College, per estimate 26 197 - 1
3,850 17,500 1,013 1,696
Houses built between 1671 and
1681, per estimate 150 550
4,000 18,150
A WEEKLY BILL OF MORTALITY FOR THE CITY OF DUBLIN,
Ending the XXX day of XXX 1681.
PARISHES’ NAMES.
St. Katharine’s and St. James’s
St. Nicholas Without
St. Michan’s
St. Andrew’s with Donnybrook
St. Bridget’s
St. John’s
St. Warburgh’s
St. Audaen’s
St. Michael’s
St. Kevin’s
St. Nicholas Within
St. Patrick’s Liberties
Christ Church and Trinity College
Totals
[The columns for the table are: Births, Males, Females, Burials,
Under 16 years old, Plague, Small Pox, Measles, Spotted Fever.
In the book there are no figures in the table at all. - DP.]
A QUARTERLY BILL OF MORTALITY,
Beginning XXX and ending XXX for the City of DUBLIN
PARISHES’ NAMES.
St. Katharine’s and St. James’s
St. Nicholas Without
St. Michan’s
St. Andrew’s with Donnybrook
St. Bridget’s
St. John’s
St. Warburgh’s
St. Audaen’s
St. Michael’s
St. Kevin’s
St. Nicholas Within
St. Patrick’s Liberties
Christ Church and Trinity College
Totals
[The columns for the table are: Births 1.; Marriages 2.; Buried
under 16 years olds; Buried above 60 years old; Measles, Spotted Fever,
Small Pox, Plague; Consumption, Dropsy, Gout, Stone; Fever, Pleurisy,
Quinsy, Sudden Death; Aged above 70 years old; Infants under 2 years
old; All other Casualties. In the book there are no figures in
the table at all. - DP.]
AN ACCOUNT OF THE PEOPLE OF DUBLIN FOR ONE YEAR,
Ending the 24th of March, 1681.
PARISHES’ NAMES.
St. Katharine’s and St. James’s
St. Nicholas Without
St. Michan’s
St. Andrew’s with Donnybrook
St. Bridget’s
St. John’s
St. Warburgh’s
St. Audaen’s
St. Michael’s
St. Kevin’s
St. Nicholas Within
St. Patrick’s Liberties
Christ Church and Trinity College
Totals
[The columns for the table are: Number of person; Males; Females;
Remarried Persons; Persons under 16 years old; Persons above 60 years
old; Protestants of above 16 years old; Papists of above 16 years old;
Of all other religions above 16 years old; Births; Burials; Marriages.
In the book there are no figures in the table at all. - DP.]
CASUALTIES AND DISEASES.
Aged above 70 years Epilepsy and planet
Abortive and still-born Fever and ague
Childbed women Pleurisy
Convulsion Quinsy
Teeth Executed, murdered,
Worms drowned
Gout and sciatica Plague and spotted fever
Stone Griping of the guts
Palsy Scouring, vomiting
Consumption and French bleeding
pox Small pox
Dropsy and tympany Measles
Rickets and livergrown Neither of all the other
Headache and megrim sorts
A POSTSCRIPT TO THE STATIONER.
Whereas you complain that these observations make no sufficient bulk,
I could answer you that I wish the bulk of all books were less; but
do nevertheless comply with you in adding what follows, viz.:
1. That the parishes of Dublin are very unequal; some having in
them above 600 families, and others under thirty.
2. That thirteen parishes are too few for 4,000 families; the
middling parishes of London containing 120 families; according to which
rate there should be about thirty-three parishes in Dublin.
3. It is said that there are 84,000 houses or families in London,
which is twenty-one times more than are in Dublin, and yet the births
and burials of London are but twelve times those of Dublin, which shows
that the inhabitants of Dublin are more crowded and straitened in their
housing than those of London; and consequently that to increase the
buildings of Dublin will make that city more conformable to London.
4. I shall also add some reasons for altering the present forms
of the Dublin bills of mortality, according to what hath been here recommended
- viz.:
1. We give the distinctions of males and females in the births
only; for that the burials must, at one time or another, be in the same
proportion with the births.
2. We do in the weekly and quarterly bills propose that notice
be taken in the burials of what numbers die above sixty and seventy,
and what under sixteen, six, and two years old, foreseeing good uses
to be made of that distinction.
3. We do in the yearly bill reduce the casualties to about twenty-four,
being such as may be discerned by common sense, and without art, conceiving
that more will but perplex and imbroil the account. And in the
quarterly bills we reduce the diseases to three heads - viz., contagious,
acute, and chronical, applying this distinction to parishes, in order
to know how the different situation, soil, and way of living in each
parish doth dispose men to each of the said three species; and in the
weekly bills we take notice not only of the plague, but of the other
contagious diseases in each parish, that strangers and fearful persons
may thereby know how to dispose of themselves.
4. We mention the number of the people, as the fundamental term
in all our proportions; and without which all the rest will be almost
fruitless.
5. We mention the number of marriages made in every quarter, and
in every year, as also the proportion which married persons bear to
the whole, expecting in such observations to read the improvement of
the nation.
6. As for religions, we reduce them to three - viz.: (1) those
who have the Pope of Rome for their head; (2) who are governed by the
laws of their country; (3) those who rely respectively upon their own
private judgments. Now, whether these distinctions should be taken
notice of or not, we do but faintly recommend, seeing many reasons pro
and con for the same; and, therefore, although we have mentioned
it as a matter fit to be considered, yet we humbly leave it to authority.
TWO ESSAYS IN POLITICAL ARITHMETIC,
Concerning the People, Housing, Hospitals, &c.,
of London and Paris.
TO THE KING’S MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY.
I do presume, in a very small paper, to show your Majesty that your
City of London seems more considerable than the two best cities of the
French monarchy, and for aught I can find, greater than any other of
the universe, which because I can say without flattery, and by such
demonstration as your Majesty can examine, I humbly pray your Majesty
to accept from
Your Majesty’s
Most humble, loyal, and obedient subject,
WILLIAM PETTY.
AN ESSAY IN POLITICAL ARITHMETIC
Tending to prove that London hath more people and housing than the
cities of Paris and Rouen put together, and is also more considerable
in several other respects.
1. The medium of the burials at London in the three last years
- viz., 1683, 1684, and 1685, wherein there was no extraordinary sickness,
and wherein the christenings do correspond in their ordinary proportions
with the burials and christenings of each year one with another, was
22,337, and the like medium of burials for the three last Paris bills
we could procure - viz., for the years 1682, 1683, and 1684 (whereof
the last as appears by the christenings to have been very sickly), is
19,887.
2. The city of Bristol in England appears to be by good estimate
of its trade and customs as great as Rouen in France, and the city of
Dublin in Ireland appears to have more chimneys than Bristol, and consequently
more people, and the burials in Dublin were, A.D. 1682 (being a sickly
year) but 2,263.
3. Now the burials of Paris (being 19,887) being added to the
burials of Dublin (supposed more than at Rouen) being 2,263, makes but
22,150, whereas the burials of London were 187 more, or 22,337, or as
about 6 to 7.
4. If those who die unnecessarily, and by miscarriage in L’Hôtel
Dieu in Paris (being above 3,000), as hath been elsewhere shown, or
any part thereof, should be subtracted out of the Paris burials aforementioned,
then our assertion will be stronger, and more proportionable to what
follows concerning the housing of those cities, viz.:
5. There were burnt at London, A.D. 1666, above 13,000 houses,
which being but a fifth part of the whole, the whole number of houses
in the said year were above 65,000; and whereas the ordinary burials
of London have increased between the years 1666 and 1686, above one-third
the total of the houses at London, A.D. 1686, must be about 87,000,
which A.D. 1682, appeared by account to have been 84,000.
6. Monsieur Moreri, the great French author of the late geographical
dictionaries, who makes Paris the greatest city in the world, doth reckon
but 50,000 houses in the same, and other authors and knowing men much
less; nor are there full 7,000 houses in the city of Dublin, so as if
the 50,000 houses of Paris, and the 7,000 houses in the city of Dublin
were added together, the total is but 57,000 houses, whereas those of
London are 87,000 as aforesaid, or as 6 to 9.
7. As for the shipping and foreign commerce of London, the common
sense of all men doth judge it to be far greater than that of Paris
and Rouen put together.
8. As to the wealth and gain accruing to the inhabitants of London
and Paris by law-suits (or La chicane) I only say that the courts
of London extend to all England and Wales, and affect seven millions
of people, whereas those of Paris do not extend near so far. Moreover,
there is no palpable conspicuous argument at Paris for the number and
wealth of lawyers like the buildings and chambers in the two Temples,
Lincoln’s Inn, Gray’s Inn, Doctors’ Commons, and the
seven other inns in which are chimneys, which are to be seen at London,
besides many lodgings, halls, and offices, relating to the same.
9. As to the plentiful and easy living of the people we say,
(a.) That the people of Paris to those of London, being as about 6 to
7, and the housing of the same as about 6 to 9, we infer that the people
do not live at London so close and crowded as at Paris, but can afford
themselves more room and liberty.
(b.) That at London the hospitals are better and more desirable than
those of Paris, for that in the best at Paris there die two out of fifteen,
whereas at London there die out of the worst scarce 2 out of 16, and
yet but a fiftieth part of the whole die out of the hospitals at London,
and two-fifths, or twenty times that proportion die out of the Paris
hospitals which are of the same kind; that is to say, the number of
those at London, who choose to lie sick in hospitals rather than in
their own houses, are to the like people of Paris as one to twenty;
which shows the greater poverty or want of means in the people of Paris
than those of London.
(c.) We infer from the premises, viz., the dying scarce two of sixteen
out of the London hospitals, and about two of fifteen in the best of
Paris, to say nothing of L’Hôtel Dieu, that either the physicians
and chirurgeons of London are better than those of Paris, or that the
air of London is more wholesome.
10. As for the other great cities of the world, if Paris were
the greatest we need say no more in behalf of London. As for Pekin
in China, we have no account fit to reason upon; nor is there anything
in the description of the two late voyages of the Chinese emperor from
that city into East and West Tartary, in the years 1682 and 1683, which
can make us recant what we have said concerning London. As for
Delhi and Agra, belonging to the Mogul, we find nothing against our
position, but much to show the vast numbers which attend that emperor
in his business and pleasures.
11. We shall conclude with Constantinople and Grand Cairo; as
for Constantinople it hath been said by one who endeavoured to show
the greatness of that city, and the greatness of the plague which raged
in it, that there died 1,500 per diem, without other circumstances;
to which we answer, that in the year 1665 there died in London 1,200
per diem, and it hath been well proved that the Plague of London never
carried away above one-fifth of the people, whereas it is commonly believed
that in Constantinople, and other eastern cities, and even in Italy
and Spain, that the plague takes away two-fifths, one half, or more;
wherefore where 1,200 is but one-fifth of the people it is probable
that the number was greater, than where 1,500 was two-fifths or one
half, &c.
12. As for Grand Cairo it is reported, that 73,000 died in ten
weeks, or 1,000 per diem, where note, that at Grand Cairo the plague
comes and goes away suddenly, and that the plague takes away two or
three-fifths parts of the people as aforesaid; so as 73,000 was probably
the number of those that died of the plague in one whole year at Grand
Cairo, whereas at London, A.D. 1665, 97,000 were brought to account
to have died in that year. Wherefore it is certain, that that
city wherein 97,000 was but one-fifth of the people, the number was
greater than where 73,000 was two-fifths or the half.
We therefore conclude, that London hath more people, housing, shipping,
and wealth, than Paris and Rouen put together; and for aught yet appears,
is more considerable than any other city in the universe, which was
propounded to be proved.
AN ESSAY IN POLITICAL ARITHMETIC
Tending to prove that in the hospital called L’Hôtel
Dieu at Paris, there die above 3,000 per annum by reason of ill accommodation.
1. It appears that A.D. 1678 there entered into the Hospital
of La Charité 2,647 souls, of which there died there within the
said year 338, which is above an eighth part of the said 2,647; and
that in the same year there entered into L’Hôtel Dieu 21,491,
and that there died out of that number 5,630, which is above one quarter,
so as about half the said 5,630, being 2,815, seem to have died for
want of as good usage and accommodation as might have been had at La
Charité.
2. Moreover, in the year 1679 there entered into La Charité
3,118, of which there died 452, which is above a seventh part, and in
the same year there entered into L’Hôtel Dieu 28,635, of
which there died 8,397; and in both the said years 1678 and 1679 (being
very different in their degrees of mortality) there entered into L’Hôtel
Dieu 28,635 and 2l,491 - in all 50,126, the medium whereof is 25,063;
and there died out of the same in the said two years, 5,630 and 8,397
- in all 14,027, the medium whereof is 7,013.
3. There entered in the said years into La Charité 2,647
and 3,118, in all 5,765, the medium whereof is 2,882, whereof there
died 338 and 452, in all 790, the medium whereof is 395.
4. Now, if there died out of L’Hôtel Dieu 7,013 per
annum, and that the proportion of those that died out of L’Hôtel
Dieu is double to those that died out of La Charité (as by the
above numbers it appears to be near thereabouts), then it follows that
half the said numbers of 7,013, being 3,506, did not die by natural
necessity, but by the evil administration of that hospital.
5. This conclusion seemed at the first sight very strange, and
rather to be some mistake or chance than a solid and real truth; but
considering the same matter as it appeared at London, we were more reconciled
to the belief of it, viz.:-
(a.) In the Hospital of St. Bartholomew in London, there was sent out
and cured in the year 1685, 1,764 persons, and there died out of the
said hospital 252. Moreover, there were sent out and cured out
of St. Thomas’s Hospital 1,523, and buried, 209 - that is to say,
there were cured in both hospitals 3,287, and buried out of both hospitals
461, and consequently cured and buried 3,748, of which number the 461
buried is less than an eighth part; whereas at La Charité the
part that died was more than an eighth part; which shows that out of
the most poor and wretched hospitals of London there died fewer in proportion
than out of the best in Paris.
(b.) Furthermore, it hath been above shown that there died out of La
Charité at a medium 395 per annum, and 141 out of Les Incurables,
making in all 536; and that out of St. Bartholomew’s and St. Thomas’s
Hospitals, London, there died at a medium but 461, of which Les Incurables
are part; which shows that although there be more people in London than
in Paris, yet there went at London not so many people to hospitals as
there did at Paris, although the poorest hospitals at London were better
than the best at Paris; which shows that the poorest people at London
have better accommodation in their own houses than the best hospital
of Paris affordeth.
6. Having proved that there die about 3,506 persons at Paris unnecessarily,
to the damage of France, we come next to compute the value of the said
damage, and of the remedy thereof, as follows, viz., the value of the
said 3,506 at 60 livres sterling per head, being about the value of
Argier slaves (which is less than the intrinsic value of people at Paris),
the whole loss of the subjects of France in that hospital seems to be
60 times 3,506 livres sterling per annum, viz., 210,360 livres sterling,
equivalent to about 2,524,320 French livres.
7. It hath appeared that there came into L’Hôtel Dieu
at a medium 25,063 per annum, or 2,089 per mensem, and that the
whole stock of what remained in the precedent months is at a medium
about 2,108 (as may appear by the third line of the Table No. 5, which
shall be shortly published), viz., the medium of months is 2,410 for
the sickly year 1679, whereunto 1,806 being added as the medium of months
for the year 1678, makes 4,216, the medium whereof is the 2,108 above
mentioned; which number being added to the 2,089 which entered each
month, makes 4,197 for the number of sick which are supposed to be always
in L’Hôtel Dieu one time with another.
8. Now, if 60 French livres per annum for each of the said 4,197
sick persons were added to the present ordinary expense of that hospital
(amounting to an addition of 251,820 livres), it seems that so many
lives might be saved as are worth above ten times that sum, and this
by doing a manifest deed of charity to mankind.
Memorandum. - That A.D. 1685, the burials of London were 23,222,
and those of Amsterdam 6,245; from whence, and the difference of air,
it is probable that the people of London are quadruple to those of Amsterdam.
OBSERVATIONS UPON THE CITIES OF LONDON AND ROME
1. That before the year 1630 the christenings at London exceeded
the burials of the same, but about the year 1655 they were scarce half;
and now about two-thirds.
2. Before the restoration of monarchy in England, A.D. 1660, the
people of Paris were more than those of London and Dublin put together,
whereas now, the people of London are more than those of Paris and Rome,
or of Paris and Rouen.
3. A.D. 1665 one fifth part of the then people of London, or 97,000,
died of the plague, and in the next year, 1666, 13,000 houses, or one
fifth part of all the housing of London, were burnt also.
4. At the birth of Christ old Rome was the greatest city of the
world, and London the greatest at the coronation of King James II.,
and near six times as great as the present Rome, wherein are 119,000
souls besides Jews.
5. In the years of King Charles II.’s death, and King James
II.’s coronation (which were neither of them remarkable for extraordinary
sickliness or healthfulness) the burials did wonderfully agree, viz.,
A.D. 1684, they were 23,202, and A.D. 1685, they were 23,222, the medium
whereof is 23,212. And the christenings did very wonderfully agree
also, having been A.D. 1684, 14,702, and A.D. 1685, 14,732, the medium
whereof is 14,716, which consistence was never seen before, the said
number of 23,212 burials making the people of London to be 696,360,
at the rate of one dying per annum out of 30.
6. Since the great Fire of London, A.D. 1666, about 7 parts of
15 of the present vast city hath been new built, and is with its people
increased near one half, and become equal to Paris and Rome put together,
the one being the seat of the great French Monarchy, and the other of
the Papacy.
FIVE ESSAYS IN POLITICAL ARITHMETIC
I. Objections from the city of Ray in Persia, and from Monsier
Auzout, against two former essays, answered, and that London hath as
many people as Paris, Rome, and Rouen put together.
II. A comparison between London and Paris in 14 particulars.
III. Proofs that at London, within its 134 parishes named in the
bills of mortality, there live about 696,000 people.
IV. An estimate of the people in London, Paris, Amsterdam, Venice,
Rome, Dublin, Bristol, and Rouen, with several observations upon the
same.
V. Concerning Holland and the rest of the Seven United Provinces.
TO THE KING’S MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY
Sir,
Your Majesty having graciously accepted my two late essays, about the
cities and hospitals of London and Paris, as also my observations on
Rome and Rouen; I do (after six months’ waiting for what may be
said against my several doctrines by the able men of Europe) humbly
present your Majesty with a few other papers upon the same subject,
to strengthen, explain, and enlarge the former; hoping by such real
arguments, better to praise and magnify your Majesty, than by any other
the most specious words and eulogies that can be imagined by
Your Majesty’s
Most humble, loyal
And obedient subject,
WILLIAM PETTY.
THE FIRST ESSAY.
It could not be expected that an assertion of London’s being bigger
than Paris and Rouen, or than Paris and Rome put together, and bigger
than any city of the world, should escape uncontradicted; and ’tis
also expected that I (if continuing in the same persuasion), should
make some reply to those contradictions. In order whereunto,
I begin with the ingenious author of the “République
des Lettres,” who saith that Rey in Persia is far bigger than
London, for that in the sixth century of Christianity (I suppose, A.D.
550 the middle of that century), it had 15,000, or rather 44,000 mosques
or Mahometan temples; to which I reply, that I hope this objector is
but in jest, for that Mahomet was not born till about the year 570,
and had no mosques till about 50 years after.
In the next place I reply to the excellent Monsieur Auzout’s “Letters
from Rome,” who is content that London, Westminster, and Southwark
may have as many people as Paris and its suburbs; and but faintly denieth,
that all the housing within the bills may have almost as many people
as Paris and Rouen, but saith that several parishes inserted into these
bills are distant from, and not contiguous with London, and that Grant
so understood it.
To which (as his main if not his only objection) we answer: - (l) That
the London bills appear in Grant’s book to have been always, since
the year 1636; as they now are; (2) That about fifty years since, three
or four parishes, formerly somewhat distant, were joined by interposed
buildings to the bulk of the city, and therefore then inserted into
the bills; (3) That since fifty years the whole buildings being more
than double have perfected that union, so as there is no house within
the said bills from which one may not call to some other house; (4)
All this is confirmed by authority of the king and city, and the custom
of fifty years; (5) That there are but three parishes under any colour
of this exception which are scarce one-fifty-second part of the whole.
Upon the whole matter, upon sight of Monsieur Auzout’s large letter,
dated the 19th of November, from Rome, I made remarks upon every paragraph
thereof, but suppressing it (because it looked like a war against a
worthy person with whom I intended none, whereas, in truth, it was but
a reconciling explication of some doubts) I have chosen the shorter
and softer way of answering Monsieur Auzout as followeth, viz.:-
Concerning the number of people in London, as also in Paris, Rouen,
and Rome, viz.:-
Monsieur Auzout allegeth an authentic account that there are 23,223
houses in Paris, wherein do live about eighty thousand families, and
therefore supposing three and a half families to live in every of the
said houses, one with another, the number of families will be 81,280;
and Monsier Auzout also allowing six heads to each family, the utmost
number of people in Paris, according to that opinion, will be 487,680.
The medium of the Paris burials was not denied by Monsier Auzout to
be 19,887, nor that there died 3,506 unnecessarily out of the L’Hôtel
Dieu; wherefore deducting the said last number out of the former, the
net standard for burials at Paris will be 16,381, so, as the number
of people there, allowing but one to die out of thirty (which is more
advantageous to Paris than Monsieur Auzout’s opinion of one to
die out of twenty-five) the number of people at Paris will be 491,430
more than by Monsier Auzout’s own last-mentioned account 491,430.
And the medium of the said two Paris accounts is 488,055.
The medium of the London burials is really 23,212, which, multiplied
by thirty (as hath been done for Paris), the number of the people there
will be 696,360.
The number of houses at London appears by the register to be 105,315,
whereunto adding one-tenth part of the same, or 10,315, as the least
number of double families that can be supposed in London, the total
of families will be 115,840, and allowing six heads for each family,
as was done for Paris, the total of the people at London will be 695,076.
The medium of the two last London accounts is 695,718.
So, as the people of Paris, according to the above account, is 488,055.
Of Rouen, according to Monsieur Auzout’s utmost demands 80,000.
Of Rome, according to his own report thereof in a former letter 125,000.
Total 693,055.
So as there are more people at London than at Paris, Rouen, and Rome
by 2,663.
Memorandum. - That the parishes of Islington, Newington, and Hackney,
for which only there is any colour of non-contiguity, is not one-fifty-second
part of what is contained in the bills of mortality, and consequently
London, without the said three parishes, hath more people than Paris
and Rouen put together, by 114,284.
Which number of 114,284 is probably more people than any other city
of France contains.
THE SECOND ESSAY.
As for other comparisons of London with Paris, we farther repeat and
enlarge what hath been formerly said upon those matters, as followeth,
viz.:-
1. That forty per cent. die out of the hospitals at Paris where
so many die unnecessarily, and scarce one-twentieth of that proportion
out of the hospitals of London, which have been shown to be better than
the best of Paris.
2. That at Paris 81,280 kitchens are within less than 24,000 street-doors,
which makes less cleanly and convenient way of living than at London.
3. Where the number of christenings are near unto, or exceed the
burials, the people are poorer, having few servants and little equipage.
4. The river Thames is more pleasant and navigable than the Seine,
and its waters better and more wholesome; and the bridge of London is
the most considerable of all Europe.
5. The shipping and foreign trade of London is incomparably greater
than that at Paris and Rouen.
6. The lawyers’ chambers at London have 2,772 chimnies in
them, and are worth £140,000 sterling, or 3,000,000 of French
livres, besides the dwellings of their families elsewhere.
7. The air is more wholesome, for that at London scarce two of
sixteen die out of the worst hospitals, but at Paris above two of fifteen
out of the best. Moreover the burials of Paris are one-fifth part
above and below the medium, but at London not above one-twelfth, so
as the intemperies of the air at Paris is far greater than at London.
8. The fuel cheaper, and lies in less room, the coals being a
wholesome sulphurous bitumen.
9. All the most necessary sorts of victuals, and of fish, are
cheaper, and drinks of all sorts in greater variety and plenty.
10. The churches of London we leave to be judged by thinking that
nothing at Paris is so great as St. Paul’s was, and is like to
be, nor so beautiful as Henry the Seventh’s chapel.
11. On the other hand, it is probable, that there is more money
in Paris than London, if the public revenue (grossly speaking, quadruple
to that of England) be lodged there.
12. Paris hath not been for these last fifty years so much infested
with the plague as London; now that at London the plague (which between
the years 1591 and 1666 made five returns, viz., every fifteen years,
at a medium, and at each time carried away one-fifth of the people)
hath not been known for the 21 years last past, and there is a visible
way by God’s ordinary blessing to lessen the same by two-thirds
when it next appeareth.
13. As to the ground upon which Paris stands in respect of London,
we say, that if there be five stories or floors of housing at Paris,
for four at London, or in that proportion, then the 82,000 families
of Paris stand upon the equivalent of 65,000 London housteds, and if
there be 115,000 families at London, and but 82,000 at Paris, then the
proportion of the London ground to that of Paris is as 115 to sixty-five,
or as twenty-three to thirteen.
14. Moreover Paris is said to be an oval of three English miles
long and two and a half broad, the area whereof contains but five and
a half square miles; but London is seven miles long, and one and a quarter
broad at a medium, which makes an area of near nine square miles, which
proportion of five and half to nine differs little from that of thirteen
to twenty-three.
15. Memorandum, that in Nero’s time, as Monsieur Chivreau
reporteth, there died 300,000 people of the plague in old Rome; now
if there died three of ten then and there, being a hotter country, as
there dies two of ten at London, the number of people at that time,
was but a million, whereas at London they are now about 700,000.
Moreover the ground within the walls of old Rome was a circle but of
three miles diameter, whose area is about seven square miles, and the
suburbs scarce as much more, in all about thirteen square miles, whereas
the built ground at London is about nine square miles as aforesaid;
which two sorts of proportions agree with each other, and consequently
old Rome seems but to have been half as big again as the present London,
which we offer to antiquaries.
THE THIRD ESSAY.
Proofs that the number of people in the 134 parishes of the London bills
of mortality, without reference to other cities, is about 696,000, viz.
-
I know but three ways of finding the same.
1. By the houses, and families, and heads living in each.
2. By the number of burials in healthful times, and by the proportion
of those that live, to those that die.
3. By the number of those who die of the plague in pestilential
years, in proportion to those that escape.
The First Way.
To know the number of houses, I used three methods, viz. -
1. The number of houses which were burnt A.D. 1666, which by authentic
report was 13,200; next what proportion the people who died out of those
houses, bore to the whole; which I find A.D. 1686, to be but one seventh
part, but A.D. 1666 to be almost one-fifth, from whence I infer the
whole housing of London A.D. 1666 to have been 66,000, then finding
the burials A.D. 1666 to be to those of 1686 as 3 to 4,I pitch upon
88,000 to be the number of housing A.D. 1686.
2. Those who have been employed in making the general map of London,
set forth in the year 1682, told me that in that year they had found
above 84,000 houses to be in London, wherefore A.D. 1686, or in four
years more, there might be one-tenth or 8,400 houses more (London doubling
in forty years) so as the whole, A.D. 1686 might be 92,400.
3. I found that A.D. 1685, there were 29,325 hearths in Dublin,
and 6,400 houses, and in London 388 thousand hearths, whereby there
must have been at that rate 87,000 houses in London. Moreover
I found that in Bristol there were in the same year 16,752 hearth; and
5,307 houses, and in London 388,000 hearths as aforesaid; at which rate
there must have been 123,000 houses in London, and at a medium between
Dublin and Bristol proportions 105,000 houses.
Lastly, by certificate from the hearth office, I find the houses within
the bills of mortality to be 105,315.
Having thus found the houses, I proceed next to the number of families
in them, and first I thought that if there were three or four families
or kitchens in every house of Paris, there might be two families in
one-tenth of the housing of London; unto which supposition, the common
opinion of several friends doth concur with my own conjectures.
As to the number of heads in each family, I stick to Grant’s observation
in page --- of his fifth edition, that in tradesmen of London’s
families there be eight heads one with another, in families of higher
ranks, above ten, and in the poorest near live, according to which proportions,
I had upon another occasion pitched the medium of heads in all the families
of England to be six and one-third, but quitting the fraction in this
case, I agree with Monsieur Auzout for six.
To conclude, the houses of London being 105,315 and the addition of
double families 10,531 more, in all 115,846; I multiplied the same by
six, which produced 695,076 for the number of the people.
The Second Way.
I found that the years 1684 and 1685, being next each other, and
both healthful, did wonderfully agree in their burials, viz., 1684 they
were 23,202, and A.D. 1685 23,222, the medium whereof is 23,212; moreover
that the christenings 1684 were 14,702, and those A.D. 1685 were 14,730,
wherefore I multiplied the medium of burials 23,212 by 30, supposing
that one dies out of 30 at London, which made the number of people 696,360
souls.
Now to prove that one dies out of 30 at London or thereabouts, I say
-
1. That Grant in the --- page of his fifth edition, affirmeth
from observation, that 3 died of 88 per annum which is near the same
proportion.
2. I found that out of healthful places, and out of adult persons,
there dies much fewer, as but one out of 50 among our parliament men,
and that the kings of England having reigned 24 years one with another,
probably lived above 30 years each.
3. Grant, page --- hath shown that but about one of 20 die per
annum out of young children under 10 years old, and Monsieur Auzout
thinks that but 1 of 40 die at Rome, out of the greater proportion of
adult persons there, wherefore we still stick as a medium to the number
30.
4. In nine country parishes lying in several parts of England,
I find that but one of 37 hath died per annum, or 311 out of 11,507,
wherefore till I see another round number, grounded upon many observations,
nearer than 30, I hope to have done pretty well in multiplying our burials
by 30 to find the number of the people, the product being 696,360, and
what we find by the families they are 695,076, as aforesaid.
The Third Way.
It was proved by Grant, that one-fifth of the people died of the
plague, but A.D. 1665 there died of the plague near 98,000 persons,
the quintuple whereof is 490,000 as the number of people in the year
1665, whereunto adding above one-third, as the increase between 1665
and 1686, the total is 653,000, agreeing well enough with the other
two computations above mentioned.
Wherefore let the proportion of 1 to 30 continue till a better be put
in its place.
Memorandum. That two or three hundred new houses would
make a contiguity of two or three other great parishes, with the 134
already mentioned in the bills of mortality: and that an oval wall of
about twenty miles in compass would enclose the same, and all the shipping
at Deptford and Blackwall, and would also fence in 20,000 acres of land,
and lay the foundation or designation of several vast advantages to
the owners, and inhabitants of that ground, as also to the whole nation
and government.
THE FOURTH ESSAY.
Concerning the proportions of People in the eight eminent Cities
of Christendom undernamed, viz.:-
1. We have by the number of burials in healthful years, and by
the proportion of the living to those who die yearly, as also by the
number of houses and families within the 134 parishes called London,
and the estimate of the heads in each, pitched upon the number of people
in that city to be at a medium 695,718.
2. We have, by allowing that at Paris above 80,000 families, viz.,
81,280, do live in 23,223 houses, 32 palaces, and 38 colleges, or that
there are 81,280 kitchens within less than 24,000 street doors; as also
by allowing 30 heads for every one that died necessarily there; we have
pitched upon the number of people there at a medium to be 488,055, nor
have we restrained them to 300,000, by allowing with Monsieur Auzout
6 heads for each of Moreri’s 50,000 houses or families.
3. To Amsterdam we allow 187,350 souls, viz., 30 times the number
of their burials, which were 6,245 in the year 1685.
4. To Venice we allow 134,000 souls, as found there in a special
account taken by authority, about ten years since, when the city abounded
with such as returned from Candia, then surrendered to the Turks.
5. To Rome we allow 119,000 Christians, and 6,000 Jews, in all
125,000 souls, according to an account sent thither of the same by Monsieur
Auzout.
6. To Dublin we allow (as to Amsterdam) 30 times its burials,
the medium whereof for the last two years is 2,303, viz., 69,090 souls.
7. As to Bristol, we say that if the 6,400 houses of Dublin give
69,090 people, that the 5,307 houses of Bristol must give above 56,000
people. Moreover, if the 29,325 hearths of Dublin give 69,090
people, the 16,752 hearths of Bristol must give about 40,000; but the
medium of 56,000 and 40,000 is 48,000.
8. As for Rouen, we have no help, but Monsieur Auzout’s
fancy of 80,000 souls to be in that city, and the conjecture of knowing
men that Rouen is between the one-seventh and one-eighth part of Paris,
and also that it is by a third bigger than Bristol; by all which, we
estimate, till farther light, that Rouen hath at most but 66,000 people
in it.
Now it may be wondered why we mentioned Rouen at all, having had so
little knowledge of it; whereunto we answer, that we did not think it
just to compare London with Paris, as to shipping and foreign trade,
without adding Rouen thereunto, Rouen being to Paris as that part of
London which is below the bridge, is to what is above it.
All which we heartily submit to the correction of the curious and candid,
in the meantime observing according to the gross numbers under-mentioned.
London 696,000
Paris 488,000
Amsterdam 187,000
Venice 134,000
Rome 125,000
Dublin 69,000
Bristol 48,000
Rouen 66,000
Observations on the said Eight Cities.
1. That the people of Paris being 488,000
Rome 125,000
Rouen 66,000
do make in all but 679,000
or 17,000 less than the 696,000 of London alone.
2. That the people of the two English cities and emporiums - viz.,
of London, 696,000, and Bristol, 48,000 - do make 744,000, or more than
In Paris 488,000
Amsterdam 187,090
Rouen 66,000
Being in all 741,000
3. That the same two English cities seem equivalent
To Paris, which hath 488,000 souls.
Rouen 66,000
Lyons 100,000
Toulouse 90,000
In all 744,000
If there be any error in these conjectures concerning these cities
of France, we hope they will be mended by those whom we hear to be now
at work upon that matter.
4. That the King of England’s three cities, viz.
London 696,000 { Paris 488,000
Dublin 69,000 exceed { Amsterdam 187,000
Bristol 48,000 { Venice 134,000
In all 813,000 Being but 809,000
5. That of the four great emporiums, London, Amsterdam,
Venice, and Rouen, London alone is near double to the other three, viz.,
above 7 to 4.
Amsterdam 187,000 }
Venice 134,000 } 387,000
Rouen 66,000 } 2
774,000 London 696,000
6. That London, for aught appears, is the greatest and most
considerable city of the world, but manifestly the greatest emporium.
When these assertions have passed the examen of the critics, we shall
make another essay, showing how to apply those truths to the honour
and profit of the King and Kingdom of England.
THE FIFTH ESSAY.
Concerning Holland and the rest of the United Provinces.
Since the close of this paper, it hath been objected from Holland,
that what hath been said of the number of houses and people in London
is not like to be true; for that if it were, then London would be the
two-thirds of the whole Province of Holland. To which is answered,
that London is the two-thirds of all Holland, and more, that province
having not 1,044,000 inhabitants (whereof 696,000 is the two-thirds),
nor above 800,000, as we have credibly and often heard. For suppose
Amsterdam hath - as we have elsewhere noted - 187,000, the seven next
great cities at 30,000 each, one with another, 210,000, the ten next
at 15,000 each 150,000, the ten smallest at 6,000 each 60,000 - in all,
the twenty-eight walled cities and towns of Holland 607,000; in the
dorps and villages 193,000, which is about one head for every four acres
of land; whereas in England there is eight acres for every head, without
the cities and market-towns.
Now, suppose London, having 116,000 families, should have seven heads
in each - the medium between MM. Auzout’s and Grant’s reckonings
- the total of the people would be 812,000; or if we reckon that there
dies one out of thirty-four - the medium between thirty and thirty-seven
above mentioned - the total of the people would be thirty-four times
23,212, viz., 789,208, the medium between which number and the above
812,000 is 800,604, somewhat exceeding 800,000, the supposed number
of Holland.
Furthermore, I say that upon former searches into the peopling of the
world, I never found that in any country - not in China itself - there
was more than one man to every English acre of land: many territories
passing for well-peopled where there is but one man for ten such acres.
I found by measuring Holland and West Frisia (alias North Holland)
upon the best maps, that it contained but as many such acres as London
doth of people, viz., about 696,000 acres. I therefore venture
to pronounce (till better informed) that the people of London are as
many as those of Holland, or at least above two-thirds of the same,
which is enough to disable the objection above mentioned; nor is there
any need to strain up London from 696,000 to 800,000, though competent
reasons have been given to that purpose, and though the author of the
excellent map of London, set forth A.D. 1682, reckoned the people thereof
(as by the said map appears) to be 1,200,000, even when he thought the
houses of the same to be but 85,000.
The worthy person who makes this objection in the same letter also saith
-
1. That the province of Holland hath as many people as the other
six united provinces together, and as the whole kingdom of England,
and double to the city of Paris and its suburbs; that is to say, 2,000,000
souls. 2. He says that in London and Amsterdam, and other
trading cities, there are ten heads to every family, and that in Amsterdam
there are not 22,000 families. 3. He excepteth against the
register alleged by Monsieur Auzout, which makes 23,223 houses and above
80,000 families to be in Paris; as also against the register alleged
by Petty, making 105,315 houses to be in London, with a tenth part of
the same to be of families more than houses; and probably will except
against the register of 1,163 houses to be in all England, that number
giving, at six and one-third heads to each family, about 7,000,000 people,
upon all which we remark as follows, viz.:-
1. That if Paris doth contain but 488,000 souls, that then all
Holland containeth but the double of that number, or 976,000, wherefore
London, containing 696,000 souls, hath above two-thirds of all Holland
by 46,000.
2. If Paris containeth half as many people as there are in all
England, it must contain 3,500,000 souls, or above seven times 488,000;
and because there do not die 20,000 per annum out of Paris, there must
die but one out of 175; whereas Monsieur Auzout thinks that there dies
one out of 25, and there must live 149 heads in every house of Paris
mentioned in the register, but there must be scarce two heads in every
house of England, all which we think fit to be reconsidered.
I must, as an Englishman, take notice of one point more, which is, that
these assertions do reflect upon the empire of England, for that it
is said that England hath but 2,000,000 inhabitants, and it might as
well have been added, that Scotland and Ireland, with the Islands of
Man, Jersey, and Guernsey, have but two-fifths of the same number, or
800,000 more, or that all the King of England’s subjects in Europe
are but 2,800,000 souls, whereas he saith that the subjects of the seven
united provinces are 4,000,000. To which we answer that the subjects
of the said seven provinces are, by this objector’s own showing,
but the quadruple of Paris, or 1,932,000 souls, Paris containing but
488,000, as afore hath been proved, and we do here affirm that England
hath 7,000,000 people, and that Scotland, Ireland, with the Islands
of Man, Jersey, and Guernsey, hath two-fifths of the said number, or
2,800,000 more, in all 9,800,000; whereas by the objector’s doctrine,
if the seven provinces have 1,932,000 people, the King of England’s
territories should have but seven-tenths of the same number, viz., 1,351,000,
whereas we say 9,800,000, as aforesaid, which difference is so gross
as that it deserves to be thus reflected upon.
To conclude, we expect from the concerned critics of the world that
they would prove -
1. That Holland, and West Frisia, and the twenty-eight towns and
cities thereof, hath more people than London alone.
2. That any three of the best cities of France, any two of all
Christendom, or any one of the world, hath the same, or better housing,
and more foreign trade than London, even in the year that King James
the Second came to the empire thereof.
OF THE PEOPLE OF ENGLAND.
Founded upon the Calculations of Gregory King, Lancaster Herald,
and forming part of “An Essay upon the Probable Methods
of making a People gainers in the Balance of Trade.”
Published in 1699.
The writer of these papers has seen the natural and political observations
and conclusions upon the state and condition of England by Gregory King,
Esq., Lancaster Herald, in manuscript. The calculations therein
contained are very accurate, and more perhaps to be relied upon than
anything that has been ever done of the like kind. This skilful
and laborious gentleman has taken the right course to form his several
schemes about the numbers of the people, for besides many different
ways of working, he has very carefully inspected the poll-books, and
the distinctions made by those acts, and the produce in many of the
respective polls, going everywhere by reasonable and discreet mediums:
besides which pains, he has made observations of the very facts in particular
towns and places, from which he has been able to judge and conclude
more safely of others, so that he seems to have looked further into
this mystery than any other person.
With his permission, we shall offer to the public such of his computations
as may be of use, and enlighten in the matter before us.
He lays down that if the first peopling of England was by a colony or
colonies, consisting of a number between 100 and 1,000 people (which
seems probable), such colony or colonies might be brought over between
the year of the world 2400 and 2600, viz., about 800 or 900 years after
the Flood, and 1,400 or 1,500 years before the birth of Christ, at which
time the world might have about 1,000,000 families, and 4,000,000 or
5,000,000 people.
From which hypothesis it will follow by an orderly series of increase
-
That when the Romans invaded England fifty-three years before Christ’s
time, the kingdom might have about 360,000 people, and at Christ’s
birth about 400,000.
That at the Norman Conquest, A.D. 1066, the kingdom might contain somewhat
above 2,000,000.
That A.D. 1260, or about 200 years after the Norman Conquest, it might
contain about 2,750,000 people, or half the present number: so that
the people of England may have doubled in about 435 years last past.
That in all probability the next doubling will be in about 600 years
to come, viz., by the year 2300, at which time it may have about 11,000,000
people, and the kingdom containing about 39,000,000 of acres, there
will be then about three acres and a half per head.
That the increase of the kingdom for every hundred years of the last
preceding term of doubling, and the subsequent term of doubling, may
have been and in all probability may be, according to the following
scheme:-
Anno Number of Increase every
Domini. people. hundred years.
1300 2,800,000
1400 3,300,000 440,000.
1500 3,840,000 540,000.
1600 4,620,000 780,000.
1700 5,500,000 880,000.
1800 6,420,000 920,000.
1900 7,350,000 930,000.
2000 8,280,000 930,000.
2100 9,205,000 925,000.
2200 10,115,000 910,000.
2300 11,000,000 885,000.
Whereby it may appear that the increase of the kingdom being 880,000
people in the last hundred years, and 920,000 in the next succeeding
hundred years, the annual increase at this time may be about 9,000 souls
per annum.
But whereas the yearly births of the
kingdom are about 1 in 28.95, or 190,000 souls.
And the yearly burials 1 in 32.35 or 170,000 souls.
Whereby the yearly increase would be 20,000 souls.
It is to be noted - Per ann.
1. That the allowance for
plagues and great mortalities
may come to at a medium 4,000
2. Foreign or civil wars at a
medium 3,500
3. The sea constantly employing 11,000 per annum.
about 40,000, may precipitate 2,500
the death of about
4. The plantations (over and above
the accession of foreigners) 1,000
may carry away
Whereby the net annual increase may
be but 9,000 souls.
That of these 20,000 souls, which would be the annual increase
of the kingdom by procreation, were it not for the before-mentioned
abatements.
The country increases annually
by procreation 20,000 souls.
The cities and towns, exclusive
of London, by procreation 2,000 souls.
But London and the bills of
mortality decrease annually 2,000 souls.
So that London requires a supply of 2,000 souls per annum to keep
it from decreasing, besides a further supply of about 3,000 per annum
for its increase at this time. In all 5,000, or above a half of
the kingdom’s net increase.
Mr. King further observes that by the assessments on marriages, births,
and burials, and the collectors’ returns thereupon, and by the
parish registers, it appears that the proportions of marriages, births,
and burials are according to the following scheme
Vide Scheme A.
Whence it may be observed that in 10,000 coexisting persons there are
71 or 72 marriages in the country, producing 343 children; 78 marriages
in towns producing 351 children; 94 marriages in London, producing 376
children.
Whereby it follows -
1. That though each marriage in London produces fewer people than
in the country, yet London in general having a greater proportion of
breeders, is more prolific than the other great towns, and the great
towns are more prolific than the country.
2. That if the people of London of all ages were as long-lived
as those in the country, London would increase in people much faster
pro rata than the country.
3. That the reasons why each marriage in London produces fewer
children than the country marriages seem to be -
(1) From the more frequent fornications and adulteries.
(2) From a greater luxury and intemperance.
(3) From a greater intentness on business.
(4) From the unhealthfulness of the coal smoke.
(5) From a greater inequality of age between the husbands and wives.
(6) From the husbands and wives not living so long as in the country.
He further observes, accounting the people to be 5,500,000, that the
said five millions and a half (including the transitory people and vagrants)
appear by the assessments on marriages, births, and burials, to bear
the following proportions in relation to males and females, and other
distinctions of the people, viz.:-
SCHEMA A
People Annual Marriages Producing
children
In all each
530,000 London and bills of mortality 1 in 106 5,000 4.0
870,000 The cities and market towns 1 in 128 6,800 4.5
4,100,000 The villages and hamlets 1 in 141 29,200 4.8
5,500,000 1 in 134 41,000 4.64
Annual Births Annual Burials
In all In all
London and bills of mortality 1 in 26½ 20,000 1 in 24.1 22,000
The cities and market towns 1 in 28½ 30,600 1 in 30.4 28,600
The villages and hamlets 1 in 29.4 29,200 1 in 34.4 119,400
1 in 28.95 190,000 1 in 32.35 170,000
Vide Scheme B.
So that the number of communicants is in all 3,260,000 souls; and the
number of fighting men between sixteen and sixty is 1,308,000.
SCHEME B.
Males Females Males Females Both
In London and 10 to 13 230,000 300,000 530,000
bills of mortality
In the other cities 8 to 9 410,000 460,000 870,000
and market-towns
In the villages and 100 to 99 2,060,000 2,040,000 4,100,000
hamlets
27 to 28 2,700,000 2,800,000 5,500,000
That as to other distinctions they appear by the said assessments
to bear these proportions.
People. Males. Females.
Husbands and wives 1,900,000 950,000 950,000
at above, 34½%
Widowers at above 1½% 90,000 90,000
Widows at about 4½% 240,000 240,000
Children at above 45% 2,500,000 1,300,000 1,200,000
Servants at about 10½% 560,000 260,000 300,000
Sojourners and
single persons 4% 210,000 100,000 110,000
100% 5,500,000 2,700,000 2,800,000
And that the different proportions in each of the said articles
between London, the great towns, and the villages, may the better appear,
he has formed the following scheme:-
London and Bills The other Cities The Villages and
of Mortality. and great Towns. Hamlets.
Souls. Souls. Souls.
Husbands
and
Wives 37% 196,100 36% 313,200 34% 1,394,000
Widowers 2% 10,600 2% 17,400 1½% 61,500
Widows 7% 37,100 6% 52,200 4½% 184,500
Children 33% 174,900 40% 348,000 47% 1,927,000
Servants 13% 68,900 11% 95,700 10% 410,000
Sojourners 8% 42,400 5% 43,500 3% 123,000
100% 530,000 100% 870,000 100% 4,100,000
SCHEME B (Continued)
He further observes, supposing the people to be 5,500,000, that the
yearly births of the Kingdom may be 190,000, and that the several ages
of the people may be as follows:
In all Males Females
Those under 1 years old 170,000 88,500 81,500
Those under 5 years old 820,000 413,300 406,700
Those under 10 years old 1,520,000 762,900 757,100
Those above 16 years old 3,260,000 1,578,000 1,682,000
Those above 21 years old 2,700,000 1,300,000 1,400,000
Those above 25 years old 2,400,000 1,152,000 1,248,000
Those above 60 years old 600,000 270,000 330,000
Those under 16 years old 2,240,000
Those above 16 years old 3,260,000
Total of the people 5,500,000
That the bachelors are about 28 per cent. of the whole, whereof
those under twenty-five years are 25½ per cent., and those above
twenty-five years are 2½ per cent.
That the maidens are about 28½ per cent. of the whole.
Whereof those under 25 years are 26½ per cent.
And those above 25 years are 2 per cent.
That the males and females in the kingdom in general are aged, one with
another, 27 years and a half.
That in the kingdom in general there is near as many people living under
20 years of age as there is above 20, whereof half of the males are
under 19, and one half of the females are under 21 years.
That the ages of the people, according to their several distinctions,
are as follows, viz.:-
Vide Scheme C.
Having thus stated the numbers of the people, he gives a scheme of the
income and expense of the several families of England, calculated for
the year 1688.
SCHEME C
The husbands are aged 43 years apiece, which, at 17¼%, makes 742 years.
The wives 40 17¼% 690
The widowers 56 1½% 84
The widows 60 4½% 270
The children 12 45% 540
The servants 27 10½% 284
The sojourners 35 4% 140
At a medium 27½ 100 2,750
Vide Scheme D.
Mr. King’s modesty has been so far overruled as to suffer us to
communicate these his excellent computations, which we can the more
safely commend, having examined them very carefully, tried them by some
little operations of our own upon the same subject, and compared them
with the schemes of other persons, who take pleasure in the like studies.
What he says concerning the number of the people to be 5,500,000 is
no positive assertion, nor shall we pretend anywhere to determine in
that matter; what he lays down is by way of hypothesis, that supposing
the inhabitants of England to have been, A.D. 1300, 2,860,000 heads,
by the orderly series of increase allowed of by all writers they may
probably be about A.D. 1700, 5,500,000 heads; but if they were A.D.
1300 either less or more, the case must proportionably alter; for as
to his allowances for plagues, great mortalities, civil wars, the sea,
and the plantations, they seem very reasonable, and not well to be controverted.
Upon these schemes of Mr. King we shall make several remarks, though
the text deserves much a better comment.
SCHEME D. - A SCHEME OF THE INCOME AND EXPENSE OF THE SEVERAL
FAMILIES OF ENGLAND, CALCULATED FOR THE YEAR
1688
Number of Ranks, Degrees and Heads per
Families. Qualifications Family.
160 Temporal Lords 40
26 Spiritual Lords 20
800 Baronets 16
600 Knights 13
3,000 Esquires 10
12,000 Gentlemen 8
5,000 Persons in greater offices and places 8
5,000 Persons in lesser offices and places 6
2,000 Eminent merchants and traders by sea 8
8,000 Lesser merchants and traders by sea 6
10,000 Persons in the law 7
2,000 Eminent clergymen 6
8,000 Lesser clergymen 5
40,000 Freeholders of the better sort 7
120,000 Freeholders of the lesser sort 5½
150,000 Farmers 5
15,000 Persons in liberal arts and sciences 5
50,000 Shopkeepers and tradesmen 4½
60,000 Artisans and handicrafts 4
5,000 Naval officers 4
4,000 Military officers 4
500,586 5.33
50,000 Common seamen 3
364,000 Labouring people and out-servants 3½
400,000 Cottagers and paupers 3¼
35,000 Common soldiers 2
849,000
Vagrants, as gipsies, thieves,
beggars, &c. 3¼
500,586 Increasing the wealth of the kingdom 5.33
849,000 Decreasing the wealth of the kingdom 3¼
1,349,586 Net totals 4 1/13
[The previous table continues but is too wide for the page.
It has been split down the middle - DP.]
Number Yearly Yearly Yearly Yearly Yearly Yearly
of Income Income Income Expense Increase Incr.
Persons per. in per. per per. in
Family general Hd. Hd. Hd. General
£ s. £ £ s. £ s. d. £ s. d. £
6,400 3,200 0 512,000 80 0 70 0 0 10 0 0 64,000
520 1,300 0 33,800 65 0 45 0 0 20 0 0 10,400
12,800 880 0 704,000 55 0 49 0 0 6 0 0 76,800
7,800 650 0 390,000 50 0 45 0 0 5 0 0 39,000
30,000 450 0 1,200,000 45 0 41 0 0 4 0 0 120,000
96,000 280 0 2,880,000 35 0 32 0 0 3 0 0 288,000
40,000 240 0 1,200,000 30 0 26 0 0 4 0 0 160,000
30,000 120 0 600,000 20 0 17 0 0 3 0 0 90,000
16,000 400 0 800,000 50 0 37 0 0 13 0 0 208,000
48,000 198 0 1,600,000 33 0 27 0 0 6 0 0 288,000
70,000 154 0 1,540,000 22 0 18 0 0 4 0 0 280,000
12,000 72 0 144,000 12 0 10 0 0 2 0 0 24,000
40,000 50 0 400,000 10 0 9 4 0 0 16 0 32,000
280,000 91 0 3,640,000 13 0 11 15 0 1 5 0 350,000
660,000 55 0 6,600,000 10 0 9 10 0 0 10 0 330,000
750,000 42 10 6,375,000 8 10 8 5 0 0 5 0 187,500
75,000 60 0 900,000 12 0 11 0 0 1 0 0 75,000
225,000 45 0 2,250,000 10 0 9 0 0 1 0 0 225,000
240,000 38 0 2,280,000 9 10 9 0 0 0 10 0 120,000
20,000 80 0 400,000 20 0 18 0 0 2 0 0 40,000
16,000 60 0 240,000 15 0 14 0 0 1 0 0 16,000
2,675,520 68 18 34,488,800 12 18 l1 15 4 1 2 8 3,023,700
Decrease.Decrease.
150,000 20 0 1,000,000 7 0 7 10 0 0 10 0 75,000
1,275,000 15 0 5,460,000 4 10 4 12 0 0 2 0 127,500
1,300,000 6 10 2,000,000 2 0 2 5 0 0 5 0 325,000
70,000 14 0 490,000 7 0 7 10 0 0 10 0 35,000
2,795,000 10 10 8,950,000 3 5 3 9 0 0 4 0 562,500
30,000 60,000 2 0 4 0 0 2 0 0 60,000
So the General Account is
2,675,520 68 18 34,488,800 12 18 11 15 4 1 2 8 3,023,700
2,825,000 10 10 9,010,000 3 3 3 7 6 0 4 6 622,500
5,500,520 32 5 43,491,800 7 18 7 9 3 0 8 9 2,401,200
The people being the first matter of power and wealth, by whose
labour and industry a nation must be gainers in the balance, their increase
or decrease must be carefully observed by any government that designs
to thrive; that is, their increase must be promoted by good conduct
and wholesome laws, and if they have been decreased by war, or any other
accident, the breach is to be made up as soon as possible, for it is
a maim in the body politic affecting all its parts.
Almost all countries in the world have been more or less populous, as
liberty and property have been there well or ill secured. The
first constitution of Rome was no ill-founded government, a kingly power
limited by laws; and the people increased so fast, that, from a small
beginning, in the reign of their sixth king were they able to send out
an army of 80,000 men. And in the time of the commonwealth, in
that invasion which the Gauls made upon Italy, not long before Hannibal
came thither, they were grown so numerous, as that their troops consisted
of 700,000 foot and 70,000 horse; it is true their allies were comprehended
in this number, but the ordinary people fit to bear arms being mustered
in Rome and Campania, amounted to 250,000 foot and 23,000 horse.
Nothing, therefore, can more contribute to the rendering England populous
and strong than to have liberty upon a right footing, and our legal
constitution firmly preserved. A nation may be as well called
free under a limited kingship as in a commonwealth, and it is to this
good form of our government that we partly owe that doubling of the
people which has probably happened here in the 435 years last past.
And if the ambition of some, and the mercenary temper of others, should
bring us at any time to alter our constitution, and to give up our ancient
rights, we shall find our numbers diminish visibly and fast. For
liberty encourages procreation, and not only keeps our own inhabitants
among us, but invites strangers to come and live under the shelter of
our laws.
The Romans, indeed, made use of an adventitious help to enlarge their
city, which was by incorporating foreign cities and nations into their
commonwealth; but this way is not without its mischiefs. For the
strangers in Rome by degrees had grown so numerous, and to have so great
a vote in the councils, that the whole Government began to totter, and
decline from its old to its new inhabitants, which Fabius the censor
observing, he applied a remedy in time by reducing all the new citizens
into four tribes, that being contracted into so narrow a space, they
might not have so malignant an influence upon the city.
An Act of general naturalisation would likewise probably increase our
numbers very fast, and repair what loss we may have suffered in our
people by the late war. It is a matter that has been very warmly
contended for by many good patriots; but peradventure it carries also
its danger with it, which perhaps would have the less influence by this
expedient, namely, if an Act of Parliament were made, that no heads
of families hereafter to be naturalised for the first generation, should
have votes in any of our elections. But as the case stands, it
seems against the nature of right government that strangers (who may
be spies, and who may have an interest opposite to that of England,
and who at best ever join in one link of obsequiousness to the Ministers)
should be suffered to intermeddle in that important business of sending
members to Parliament. From their sons indeed there is less to
fear, who by birth and nature may come to have the same interest and
inclinations as the natives.
And though the expedient of Fabius Maximus, to contract the strangers
into four tribes, might be reasonable where the affairs of a whole empire
were transacted by magistrates chosen in one city, yet the same policy
may not hold good in England; foreigners cannot influence elections
here by being dispersed about in the several counties of the kingdom,
where they can never come to have any considerable strength. But
some time or other they may endanger the government by being suffered
to remain, such vast numbers of them here in London where they inhabit
altogether, at least 30,000 persons in two quarters of the town, without
intermarrying with the English, or learning our language, by which means
for several years to come they are in a way still to continue foreigners,
and perhaps may have a foreign interest and foreign inclinations; to
permit this cannot be advisable or safe. It may therefore be proper
to limit any new Acts of naturalisation with such restrictions as may
make the accession of strangers not dangerous to the public.
An accession of strangers, well regulated, may add to our strength and
numbers; but then it must be composed of labouring men, artificers,
merchants, and other rich men, and not of foreign soldiers, since such
fright and drive away from a nation more people than their troops can
well consist of: for if it has been ever seen that men abound most where
there is most freedom (China excepted, whose climate excels all others,
and where the exercise of the tyranny is mild and easy) it must follow
that people will in time desert those countries whose best flower is
their liberties, if those liberties are thought precarious or in danger.
That foreign soldiers are dangerous to liberty, we may produce examples
from all countries and all ages; but we shall instance only one, because
it is eminent above all the rest.
The Carthaginians, in their wars, did very much use mercenary and foreign
troops; and when the peace was made between them and the Romans, after
a long dispute for the dominion of Sicily, they brought their army home
to be paid and disbanded, which Gesco, their General, had the charge
of embarking, who did order all his part with great dexterity and wisdom.
But the State of Carthage wanting money to clear arrears, and satisfy
the troops, was forced to keep them up longer than was designed.
The army consisted of Gauls, Ligurians, Baleareans, and Greeks.
At first they were insolent in their quarters in Carthage, and were
prevailed upon to remove to Sicca, where they were to remain and expect
their pay. There they grew presently corrupted with ease and pleasure,
and fell into mutinies and disorder, and to making extravagant demands
of pay and gratuities; and in a rage, with their arms in their hands,
they marched 20,000 of them towards Carthage, encamping within fifteen
miles of the city; and chose Spendius and Matho, two profligate wretches,
for their leaders, and imprisoned Gesco, who was deputed to them from
the commonwealth. Afterwards they caused almost all the Africans,
their tributaries, to revolt; they grew in a short time to be 70,000
strong; they fought several battles with Hanno and Hamilcar Barcas.
During these transactions, the mercenaries that were in garrison in
Sardinia mutinied likewise, murdering their commander and all the Carthaginians;
while Spendius and Matho, to render their accomplices more desperate,
put Gesco to a cruel death, presuming afterwards to lay siege to Carthage
itself. They met with a shock indeed at Prion, where 40,000 of
them were slaughtered; but soon after this battle, in another they took
one of the Carthaginian generals prisoner, whom they fixed to a cross,
crucifying thirty of the principal senators round about him. Spendius
and Matho were at last taken, the one crucified and the other tormented
to death: but the war lasted three years and near four months with excessive
cruelty; in which the State of Carthage lost several battles, and was
often brought within a hair’s-breadth of utter ruin.
If so great a commonwealth as Carthage, though assisted at that time
by Hiero, King of Syracuse, and by the Romans, ran the hazard of losing
their empire, city, and liberties, by the insurrection of a handful
of mercenaries, whose first strength was but 20,000 men; it should be
a warning to all free nations how they suffer armies so composed to
be among them, and it should frighten a wise State from desiring such
an increase of people as may be had by the bringing over foreign soldiers.
Indeed, all armies whatsoever, if they are over-large, tend to the dispeopling
of a country, of which our neighbour nation is a sufficient proof, where
in one of the best climates in Europe men are wanting to till the ground.
For children do not proceed from the intemperate pleasures taken loosely
and at random, but from a regular way of living, where the father of
the family desires to rear up and provide for the offspring he shall
beget.
Securing the liberties of a nation may be laid down as a fundamental
for increasing the numbers of its people; but there are other polities
thereunto conducing which no wise State has ever neglected.
No race of men did multiply so fast as the Jews, which may be attributed
chiefly to the wisdom of Moses their Lawgiver, in contriving to promote
the state of marriage.
The Romans had the same care, paying no respect to a man childless by
his own fault, and giving great immunities and privileges, both in the
city and provinces, to those who had such and such a number of children.
Encouragements of the like kind are also given in France to such as
enrich the commonwealth by a large issue.
But we in England have taken another course, laying a fine upon the
marriage bed, which seems small to those who only contemplate the pomp
and wealth round about them, and in their view; but they who look into
all the different ranks of men are well satisfied that this duty on
marriages and births is a very grievous burden upon the poorer sort,
whose numbers compose the strength and wealth of any nation. This
tax was introduced by the necessity of affairs. It is difficult
to say what may be the event of a new thing; but if we are to take measures
from past wisdom, which exempted prolific families from public duties,
we should not lay impositions upon those who find it hard enough to
maintain themselves. If this tax be such a weight upon the poor
as to discourage marriage and hinder propagation, which seems the truth,
no doubt it ought to be abolished; and at a convenient time we ought
to change it for some other duty, if there were only this single reason,
that it is so directly opposite to the polity of all ages and all countries.
In order to have hands to carry on labour and manufactures, which must
make us gainers in the balance of trade, we ought not to deter, but
rather invite men to marry, which is to be done by privileges and exemptions
for such a number of children, and by denying certain offices of trust
and dignities to all unmarried persons; and where it is once made a
fashion among those of the better sort, it will quickly obtain with
the lower degree.
Mr. King, in his scheme (for which he has as authentic grounds as perhaps
the matter is capable of) lays down that the annual marriages of England
are about 41,000, which is one marriage out of every 134 persons.
Upon which, we observe, that this is not a due proportion, considering
how few of our adult males (in comparison with other countries) perish
by war or any other accident; from whence may be inferred that our polity
is some way or other defective, or the marriages would bear a nearer
proportion with the gross number of our people; for which defect, if
a remedy can be found, there will be so much more strength added to
the kingdom.
From the books of assessment on births, marriages, &c., by the nearest
view he can make, he divides the 5,500,000 people into 2,700,000 males
and 2,800,000 females; from whence (considering the females exceed the
males in number, and considering that the men marry later than women,
and that many of the males are of necessity absent in the wars, at sea,
and upon other business) it follows that a large proportion of the females
remain unmarried, though at an adult age, which is a dead loss to the
nation, every birth being as so much certain treasure, upon which account
such laws must be for the public good, as induce all men to marry whose
circumstances permit it.
From his division of the people it may be likewise observed, that the
near proportion there is between the males and females (which is said
to hold also in other places) is an argument (and the strongest that
can be produced) against polygamy, and the increase of mankind which
some think might be from thence expected; for if Nature had intended
to one man a plurality of wives, she would have ordered a great many
more female births than male, her designments being always right and
wise.
The securing the parish for bastard children is become so small a punishment
and so easily compounded, that it very much hinders marriage.
The Dutch compel men of all ranks to marry the woman whom they have
got with child, and perhaps it would tend to the further peopling of
England if the common people here, under such a certain degree, were
condemned by some new law to suffer the same penalty.
A country that makes provision to increase in inhabitants, whose situation
is good, and whose people have a genius adapted to trade, will never
fail to be gainers in the balance, provided the labour and industry
of their people be well managed and carefully directed.
The more any man contemplates these matters the more he will come to
be of opinion, that England is capable of being rendered one of the
strongest nations, and the richest spot of ground in Europe.
It is not extent of territory that makes a country powerful, but numbers
of men well employed, convenient ports, a good navy, and a soil producing
all sort of commodities. The materials for all this we have, and
so improvable, that if we did but second the gifts of Nature with our
own industry we should soon arrive to a pitch of greatness that would
put us at least upon an equal footing with any of our neighbours.
If we had the complement of men our land can maintain and nourish; if
we had as much trade as our stock and knowledge in sea affairs is capable
of embracing; if we had such a naval strength as a trade so extended
would easily produce; and, if we had those stores and that wealth which
is the certain result of a large and well-governed traffic, what human
strength could hurt or invade us? On the contrary, should we not
be in a posture not only to resist but to give the law to others?
Our neighbouring commonwealth has not in territory above 8,000,000 acres,
and perhaps not much above 2,200,000 people, and yet what a figure have
they made in Europe for these last 100 years? What wars have they
maintained? What forces have they resisted? and to what a height
of power are they now come, and all by good order and wise government?
They are liable to frequent invasions; they labour under the inconvenience
and danger of bad ports; they consume immense sums every year to defend
their land against the sea; all which difficulties they have subdued
by an unwearied industry.
We are fenced by nature against foreign enemies, our ports are safe,
we fear no irruptions of the sea, our land territory at home is at least
39,000,000 acres. We have in all likelihood not less than 5,500,000
people. What a nation might we then become, if all these advantages
were thoroughly improved, and if a right application were made of all
this strength and of these numbers?
They who apprehend the immoderate growth of any prince or State may,
perhaps, succeed by beginning first, and by attempting to pull down
such a dangerous neighbour, but very often their good designs are disappointed.
In all appearance they proceed more safely, who, under such a fear,
make themselves strong and powerful at home. And this was the
course which Philip, King of Macedon, the father of Perseus, took, when
he thought to be invaded by the Romans.
The greatness of Rome gave Carthage very anxious thoughts, and it rather
seems that they entered into the second Punic War more for fear the
Romans should have the universal empire, than out of any ambition to
lord it themselves over the whole world. Their design was virtuous,
and peradventure wise to endeavour at some early interruption to a rival
that grew so fast. However, we see they miscarried, though their
armies were led by Hannibal. But fortune which had determined
the dominion of the earth for Rome, did, perhaps, lead them into the
fatal counsel of passing the Eber contrary to the articles of peace
concluded with Asdrubal, and of attacking Saguntum before they had sufficiently
recovered of the wounds they had suffered in the wars about Sicily,
Sardinia, and with their own rebels. If the high courage of Hannibal
had not driven the commonwealth into a new war while it was yet faint
and weak, and if they had been suffered to pursue their victories in
Spain, and to get firm footing in that rich, warlike, and then populous
country, very probably in a few years they might have been a more equal
match for the Roman people. It is true, if the Romans had endeavoured,
at the conquest of Spain, and if they had disturbed the Carthaginians
in that country, the war must have been unavoidable, because it was
evident in that age, and will be apparent in the times we live in, that
whatever foreign power, already grown great, can add to its dominion
the possession of Spain, will stand fair for universal empire.
But unless some such cogent reason of state, as is here instanced, intervene,
in all appearance the best way for a nation that apprehends the growing
power of any neighbour is to fortify itself within; we do not mean by
land armies, which rather debilitate than strengthen a country, but
by potent navies, by thrift in the public treasure, care of the people’s
trade, and all the other honest and useful arts of peace.
By such an improvement of our native strength, agreeable to the laws
and to the temper of a free nation, England without doubt may be brought
to so good a posture and condition of defending itself, as not to apprehend
any neighbour jealous of its strength or envious of its greatness.
And to this end we open these schemes, that a wise Government under
which we live, not having any designs to become arbitrary, may see what
materials they have to work upon, and how far our native wealth is able
to second their good intentions of preserving us a rich and a free people.
Having said something of the number of our inhabitants, we shall proceed
to discourse of their different degrees and ranks, and to examine who
are a burden and who are a profit to the public, for by how much every
part and member of the commonwealth can be made useful to the whole,
by so much a nation will be more and more a gainer in this balance of
trade which we are to treat of.
Mr. King, from the assessments on births and marriages, and from the
polls, has formed the scheme here inserted, of the ranks, degrees, titles
and qualifications of the people. He has done it so judiciously,
and upon such grounds, that is well worth the careful perusal of any
curious person, from thence we shall make some observations in order
to put our present matter in a clearer light.
First, this scheme detects their error, who in the calculation they
frame contemplate nothing but the wealth and plenty they see in rich
cities and great towns, and from thence make a judgment of the kingdom’s
remaining part, and from this view conclude that taxes and payments
to the public do mostly arise from the gentry and better sort, by which
measures they neither contrive their imposition aright, nor are they
able to give a true estimate what it shall produce; but when we have
divided the inhabitants of England into their proper classes, it will
appear that the nobility and gentry are but a small part of the whole
body of the people.
Believing that taxes fell chiefly upon the better sort, they care not
what they lay, as thinking they will not be felt; but when they come
to be levied, they either fall short, and so run the public into an
immense debt, or they light so heavily upon the poorer sort, as to occasion
insufferable clamours; and they, whose proper business it was to contrive
these matters better have been so unskilful, that the legislative power
has been more than once compelled for the peoples’ ease to give
new funds, instead of others that had been ill projected.
This may be generally said, that all duties whatsoever upon the consumption
of a large produce, fall with the greatest weight upon the common sort,
so that such as think in new duties that they chiefly tax the rich will
find themselves quite mistaken; for either their fund must yield little,
or it must arise from the whole body of the people, of which the richer
sort are but a small proportion.
And though war, and national debts and engagements, might heretofore
very rationally plead for excises upon our home consumption, yet now
there is a peace, it is the concern of every man that loves his country
to proceed warily in laying new ones, and to get off those which are
already laid as fast as ever he can. High customs and high excises
both together are incompatible, either of them alone are to be endured,
but to have them co-exist is suffered in no well-governed nation.
If materials of foreign growth were at an easy rate, a high price might
be the better borne in things of our own product, but to have both dear
at once (and by reason of the duties laid upon them) is ruinous to the
inferior rank of men, and this ought to weigh more with us, when we
consider that even of the common people a subdivision is to be made,
of which one part subsist from their own havings, arts, labour, and
industry; and the other part subsist a little from their own labour,
but chiefly from the help and charity of the rank that is above them.
For according to Mr. King’s scheme -
The nobility and gentry, with their families and retainers, the persons
in offices, merchants, persons in the law, the clergy, freeholders,
farmers, persons in sciences and liberal arts, shopkeepers, and tradesmen,
handicrafts, men, naval officers, with the families and dependants upon
all these altogether, make up the number of 2,675,520 heads.
The common seamen, common soldiers, labouring people, and out-servants,
cottagers, paupers, and their families, with the vagrants, make up the
number of 2,825,000 heads.
In all 5,500,520 heads.
So that here seems a majority of the people, whose chief dependence
and subsistence is from the other part, which majority is much greater,
in respect of the number of families, because 500,000 families contribute
to the support of 850,000 families. In contemplation of which,
great care should be taken not to lay new duties upon the home consumption,
unless upon the extremest necessities of the State; for though such
impositions cannot be said to fall directly upon the lower rank, whose
poverty hinders them from consuming such materials (though there are
few excises to which the meanest person does not pay something), yet
indirectly, and by unavoidable consequences, they are rather more affected
by high duties upon our home-consumption than the wealthier degree of
people, and so we shall find the case to be, if we look carefully into
all the distinct ranks of men there enumerated.
First, as to the nobility and gentry, they must of necessity retrench
their families and expenses, if excessive impositions are laid upon
all sorts of materials for consumption, from whence follows, that the
degree below them of merchants, shopkeepers, tradesmen, and artisans,
must want employment.
Secondly, as to the manufactures, high excises in time of peace are
utterly destructive to that principal part of England’s wealth;
for if malt, coals, salt, leather, and other things, bear a great price,
the wages of servants, workmen, and artificers, will consequently rise,
for the income must bear some proportion with the expense; and if such
as set the poor to work find wages for labour or manufacture advance
upon them, they must rise in the price of their commodity, or they cannot
live, all which would signify little, if nothing but our own dealings
among one another were thereby affected; but it has a consequence far
more pernicious in relation to our foreign trade, for it is the exportation
of our own product that must make England rich; to be gainers in the
balance of trade, we must carry out of our own product what will purchase
the things of foreign growth that are needful for our own consumption,
with some overplus either in bullion or goods to be sold in other countries,
which overplus is the profit a nation makes by trade, and it is more
or less according to the natural frugality of the people that export,
or as from the low price of labour and manufacture they can afford the
commodity cheap, and at a rate not to be undersold in foreign markets.
The Dutch, whose labour and manufactures are dear by reason of home
excises, can notwithstanding sell cheap abroad, because this disadvantage
they labour under is balanced by the parsimonious temper of their people;
but in England, where this frugality is hardly to be introduced, if
the duties upon our home consumption are so large as to raise considerably
the price of labour and manufacture, all our commodities for exportation
must by degrees so advance in the prime value, that they cannot be sold
at a rate which will give them vent in foreign markets, and we must
be everywhere undersold by our wiser neighbours. But the consequence
of such duties in times of peace will fall most heavily upon our woollen
manufactures, of which most have more value from the workmanship than
the material; and if the price of this workmanship be enhanced, it will
in a short course of time put a necessity upon those we deal with of
setting up manufactures of their own, such as they can, or of buying
goods of the like kind and use from nations that can afford them cheaper.
And in this point we are to consider, that the bulk of our woollen exports
does not consist in draperies made of the fine wool, peculiar to our
soil, but is composed of coarse broad cloths, such as Yorkshire cloths,
kerseys, which make a great part of our exports, and may be, and are
made of a coarser wool, which is to be had in other countries.
So that we are not singly to value ourselves upon the material, but
also upon the manufacture, which we should make as easy as we can, by
not laying over-heavy burdens upon the manufacturer. And our woollen
goods being two-thirds of our foreign exports, it ought to be the chief
object of the public care, if we expect to be gainers in the balance
of trade, which is what we hunt after in these inquiries.
Thirdly, as to the lower rank of all, which we compute at 2,825,000
heads, a majority of the whole people, their principal subsistence is
upon the degrees above them, and if those are rendered uneasy these
must share in the calamity, but even of this inferior sort no small
proportion contribute largely to excises, as labourers and out-servants,
which likewise affect the common seamen, who must thereupon raise their
wages or they will not have wherewithal to keep their families left
at home, and the high wages of seamen is another burden upon our foreign
traffic. As to the cottagers, who are about a fifth part of the
whole people, some duties reach even them, as those upon malt, leather,
and salt, but not much because of their slender consumption, but if
the gentry, upon whose woods and gleanings they live, and who employ
them in day labour, and if the manufacturers, for whom they card and
spin, are overburdened with duties, they cannot afford to give them
so much for their labour and handiwork, nor to yield them those other
reliefs which are their principal subsistence, for want of which these
miserable wretches must perish with cold and hunger.
Thus we see excises either directly or indirectly fall upon the whole
body of the people, but we do not take notice of these matters as receding
from our former opinion. On the contrary, we still think them
the most easy and equal way of taxing a nation, and perhaps it is demonstrable
that if we had fallen into this method at the beginning of the war of
raising the year’s expense within the year by excises, England
had not been now indebted so many millions, but what was advisable under
such a necessity and danger is not to be pursued in times of peace,
especially in a country depending so much upon trade and manufactures.
Our study now ought to be how those debts may be speedily cleared off,
for which these new revenues are the funds, that trade may again move
freely as it did heretofore, without such a heavy clog; but this point
we shall more amply handle when we come to speak of our payments to
the public.
Mr. King divides the whole body of the people into two principal classes,
viz.:-
Increasing the wealth of the kingdom 2,675,520 heads.
Decreasing the wealth of the kingdom 2,825,000 heads.
By which he means that the first class of the people from land, arts,
and industry maintain themselves, and add every year something to the
nation’s general stock, and besides this, out of their superfluity,
contribute every year so much to the maintenance of others.
That of the second class some partly maintain themselves by labour (as
the heads of the cottage families), but that the rest, as most of the
wives and children of these, sick and impotent people, idle beggars
and vagrants, are nourished at the cost of others, and are a yearly
burden to the public, consuming annually so much as would be otherwise
added to the nation’s general stock.
The bodies of men are, without doubt, the most valuable treasure of
a country, and in their sphere the ordinary people are as serviceable
to the commonwealth as the rich if they are employed in honest labour
and useful arts, and such being more in number do more contribute to
increase the nation’s wealth than the higher rank.
But a country may be populous and yet poor (as were the ancient Gauls
and Scythians), so that numbers, unless they are well employed, make
the body politic big but unwieldy, strong but unactive, as to any uses
of good government.
Theirs is a wrong opinion who think all mouths profit a country that
consume its produce, and it may be more truly affirmed, that he who
does not some way serve the commonwealth, either by being employed or
by employing others, is not only a useless, but a hurtful member to
it.
As it is charity, and what we indeed owe to human kind, to make provision
for the aged, the lame, the sick, blind, and impotent, so it is a justice
we owe to the commonwealth not to suffer such as have health, and who
might maintain themselves, to be drones and live upon the labour of
others.
The bulk of such as are a burden to the public consists in the cottagers
and paupers, beggars in great cities and towns, and vagrants.
Upon a survey of the hearth books, made in Michaelmas, 1685, it was
found that of the 1,300,000 houses in the whole kingdom, those of one
chimney amounted to 554,631, but some of these having land about them,
in all our calculations, we have computed the cottagers but at 500,000
families; but of these, a large number may get their own livelihood,
and are no charge to the parish, for which reason Mr. King very judiciously
computes his cottagers and paupers, decreasing the wealth of the nation
but at 400,000 families, in which account he includes the poor-houses
in cities, towns, and villages, besides which he reckons 30,000 vagrants,
and all these together to make up 1,330,000 heads.
This is a very great proportion of the people to be a burden upon the
other part, and is a weight upon the land interest, of which the landed
gentlemen must certainly be very sensible.
If this vast body of men, instead of being expensive, could be rendered
beneficial to the commonwealth, it were a work, no doubt, highly to
be promoted by all who love their country.
It seems evident, to such as have considered these matters, and who
have observed how they are ordered in nations under a good polity, that
the number of such who through age or impotence stand in real need of
relief, is but small and might be maintained for very little, and that
the poor rates are swelled to the extravagant degree we now see them
at by two sorts of people, one of which, by reason of our slack administration,
is suffered to remain in sloth, and the other, through a defect in our
constitution, continue in wretched poverty for want of employment, though
willing enough to undertake it.
All this seems capable of a remedy, the laws may be armed against voluntary
idleness, so as to prevent it, and a way may probably be found out to
set those to work who are desirous to support themselves by their own
labour; and if this could be brought about, it would not only put a
stop to the course of that vice which is the consequence of an idle
life, but it would greatly tend to enrich the commonwealth, for if the
industry of not half the people maintain in some degree the other part,
and, besides, in times of peace did add every year near two million
and a half to the general stock of England, to what pitch of wealth
and greatness might we not be brought, if one limb were not suffered
to draw away the nourishment of the other, and if all the members of
the body politic were rendered useful to it?
Nature, in her contrivances, has made every part of a living creature
either for ornament or use; the same should be in a politic institution
rightly governed.
It may be laid down for an undeniable truth, that where all work nobody
will want, and to promote this would be a greater charity and more meritorious
than to build hospitals, which very often are but so many monuments
of ill-gotten riches attended with late repentance.
To make as many as possible of these 1,330,000 persons (whereof not
above 330,000 are children too young to work) who now live chiefly upon
others get themselves a large share of their maintenance would be the
opening a new vein of treasure of some millions sterling per annum;
it would be a present ease to every particular man of substance, and
a lasting benefit to the whole body of the kingdom, for it would not
only nourish but increase the numbers of the people, of which many thousands
perish every year by those diseases contracted under a slothful poverty.
Our laws relating to the poor are very numerous, and this matter has
employed the care of every age for a long time, though but with little
success, partly through the ill execution, and partly through some defect
in the very laws.
The corruptions of mankind are grown so great that, now-a-days, laws
are not much observed which do not in a manner execute themselves; of
this nature are those laws which relate to bringing in the Prince’s
revenue, which never fail to be put in execution, because the people
must pay, and the Prince will be paid; but where only one part of the
constitution, the people, are immediately concerned, as in laws relating
to the poor, the highways, assizes, and other civil economy, and good
order in the state, those are but slenderly regarded.
The public good being therefore, very often, not a motive strong enough
to engage the magistrate to perform his duty, lawgivers have many times
fortified their laws with penalties, wherein private persons may have
a profit, thereby to stir up the people to put the laws in execution.
In countries depraved nothing proceeds well wherein particular men do
not one way or other find their account; and rather than a public good
should not go on at all, without doubt, it is better to give private
men some interest to set it forward.
For which reason it may be worth the consideration of such as study
the prosperity and welfare of England, whether this great engine of
maintaining the poor, and finding them work and employment, may not
be put in motion by giving some body of undertakers a reasonable gain
to put the machine upon its wheels.
In order to which, we shall here insert a proposal delivered to the
House of Commons last session of Parliament, for the better maintaining
the impotent, and employing and setting to work the other poor of this
kingdom.
In matters of this nature, it is always good to have some model or plan
laid down, which thinking men may contemplate, alter, and correct, as
they see occasion; and the writer of these papers does rather choose
to offer this scheme, because he is satisfied it was composed by a gentleman
of great abilities, and who has made both the poor rates, and their
number, more his study than any other person in the nation. The
proposal is as follows
A Scheme for Setting the Poor to Work.
First, that such persons as shall subscribe and pay the sum of £300,000
as a stock for and towards the better maintaining the impotent poor,
and for buying commodities and materials to employ and set at work the
other poor, be incorporated and made one body politic, &c.
By the name of the Governor and Company for Maintaining and Employing
the Poor of this Kingdom.
By all former propositions, it was intended that the parishes should
advance several years’ rates to raise a stock, but by this proposal
the experiment is to be made by private persons at their risk; and £300,000
may be judged a very good stock, which, added to the poor rates for
a certain number of years, will be a very good fund for buying commodities
and materials for a million of money at any time. This subscription
ought to be free for everybody, and if the sum were subscribed in the
several counties of England and Wales, in proportion to their poor rates,
or the monthly assessment, it would be most convenient; and provision
may be made that no person shall transfer his interest but to one of
the same county, which will keep the interest there during the term;
and as to its being one Corporation, it is presumed this will be most
beneficial to the public. For first, all disputes on removes,
which are very chargeable and burthensome, will be at an end - this
proposal intending, that wherever the poor are, they shall be maintained
or employed. Secondly, it will prevent one county which shall
be diligent, imposing on their neighbours who may be negligent, or getting
away their manufactures from them. Thirdly, in case of fire, plague,
or loss of manufacture, the stock of one county may not be sufficient
to support the places where such calamities may happen; and it is necessary
the whole body should support every particular member, so that hereby
there will be a general care to administer to every place according
to their necessities.
Secondly, that the said Corporation be established for the term of one-and-twenty
years.
The Corporation ought to be established for one-and-twenty years, or
otherwise it cannot have the benefit the law gives in case of infants,
which is their service for their education; besides, it will be some
years before a matter of this nature can be brought into practice.
Thirdly, that the said sum of £300,000 be paid in, and laid out
for the purposes aforesaid, to remain as a stock for and during the
said term of one-and-twenty years.
The subscription ought to be taken at the passing of the Act, but the
Corporation to be left at liberty to begin either the Michaelmas or
the Lady Day after, as they shall think fit. And XXX per cent.
to be paid at the subscribing to persons appointed for that purpose,
and the remainder before they begin to act; but so as £300,000
shall be always in stock during the term, notwithstanding any dividends
or other disposition: and an account thereof to be exhibited twice in
every year upon oath, before the Lord Chancellor for the time being.
Fourthly, that the said corporation do by themselves, or agents in every
parish of England, from and after the XXX day of XXX during the said
term of one-and-twenty years, provide for the real impotent poor good
and sufficient maintenance and reception, as good or better than hath
at any time within the space of XXX years before the said XXX day of
XXX been provided or allowed to such impotent poor, and so shall continue
to provide for such impotent poor, and what other growing impotent poor
shall happen in the said parish during the said term.
By impotent poor is to be understood all infants and old and decrepid
persons not able to work; also persons who by sickness or any accident
are for the time unable to labour for themselves or families; and all
persons (not being fit for labour) who were usually relieved by the
money raised for the use of the poor; they shall have maintenance, as
good or better, as within XXX years they used to have.
This does not directly determine what that shall be, nor is it possible,
by reason a shilling in one county is as much as two in another; but
it will be the interest of the Corporation that such poor be well provided
for, by reason the contrary will occasion all the complaints or clamour
that probably can be made against the Corporation.
Fifthly, that the Corporation do provide (as well for all such poor
which on the said XXX day of XXX shall be on the poor books, as for
what other growing poor shall happen in the said term who are or shall
be able to labour or do any work) sufficient labour and work proper
for such persons to be employed in. And that provision shall be
made for such labouring persons according to their labour, so as such
provision doth not exceed three-fourth parts as much as any other person
would have paid for such labour. And in case they are not employed
and set to work, then such persons shall, until materials or labour
be provided for them, be maintained as impotent poor; but so as such
persons who shall hereafter enter themselves on the poor’s book,
being able to labour, shall not quit the service of the corporation,
without leave, for the space of six months.
The Corporation are to provide materials and labour for all that can
work, and to make provision for them not exceeding three-fourth parts
as much as any other person would give for such labour. For example,
if another person would give one of these a shilling, the Corporation
ought to give but ninepence. And the reason is plain, first, because
the Corporation will be obliged to maintain them and their families
in all exigences, which others are not obliged to do, and consequently
they ought not to allow so much as others. Secondly, in case any
persons able to labour, shall come to the Corporation, when their agents
are not prepared with materials to employ them, by this proposal they
are to allow them full provision as impotent poor, until they find them
work, which is entirely in favour of the poor. Thirdly, it is
neither reasonable nor possible for the Corporation to provide materials
upon every occasion, for such persons as shall be entered with them,
unless they can be secure of such persons to work up those materials;
besides, without this provision, all the labouring people of England
will play fast and loose between their employers and the Corporation,
for as they are disobliged by one, they will run to the other, and so
neither shall be sure of them.
Sixthly, that no impotent poor shall be removed out of the parish where
they dwell, but upon notice in writing given to the churchwardens or
overseers of the said parish, to what place of provision he or she is
removed.
It is judged the best method to provide for the impotent poor in houses
prepared for that purpose, where proper provision may be made for several,
with all necessaries of care and maintenance. So that in some
places one house will serve the impotent poor of several parishes, in
which case the parish ought to know where to resort, to see if good
provision be made for them.
Seventhly, that in case provision be not made for the poor of each parish,
in manner as aforesaid (upon due notice given to the agents of the Corporation)
the said parish may order their poor to be maintained, and deduct the
sum by them expended out of the next payments to be made to the said
corporation by the said parish.
In case any accident happens in a parish, either by sickness, fall,
casualty of fire, or other ways; and that the agent of the Corporation
is not present to provide for them, or having notice doth not immediately
do it, the parish may do it, and deduct so much out of the next payment;
but there must be provision made for the notice, and in what time the
Corporation shall provide for them.
Eighthly, that the said Corporation shall have and receive for the said
one-and-twenty years, that is to say, from every parish yearly, so much
as such parish paid in any one year, to be computed by a medium of seven
years; namely, from the 25th of March, 1690, to the 25th of March 1697,
and to be paid half-yearly; and besides, shall receive the benefit of
the revenues of all donations given to any parish, or which shall be
given during the said term, and all forfeitures which the law gives
to the use of the poor; and to all other sums which were usually collected
by the parish, for the maintenance of the poor.
Whatever was raised for or applied to the use of the poor, ought to
be paid over to the Corporation; and where there are any donations for
maintaining the poor, it will answer the design of the donor, by reason
there will be better provision for the maintenance of the poor than
ever; and if that maintenance be so good, as to induce further charities,
no doubt the Corporation ought to be entitled to them. But there
are two objections to this article; first that to make a medium by a
time of war is unreasonable. Secondly, to continue the whole tax
for one-and-twenty years, does not seem to give any benefit to the kingdom
in that time. To the first, it is true, we have a peace, but trade
is lower now than at any time during the war, and the charge of the
poor greater; and when trade will mend is very uncertain. To the
second, it is very plain, that although the charge may be the same to
a parish in the total, yet it will be less to particular persons, because
those who before received alms, will now be enabled to be contributors;
but besides, the turning so many hundred thousand pounds a year (which
in a manner have hitherto been applied only to support idleness) into
industry; and the employing so many other idle vagrants and sturdy beggars,
with the product of their labour, will altogether be a present benefit
to the lands of England, as well in the rents as in the value; and further
the accidental charities in the streets and at doors, is, by a very
modest computation, over and above the poor rates, at least £300,000
per annum, which will be entirely saved by this proposal, and the persons
set at work; which is a further consideration for its being well received,
since the Corporation are not allowed anything for this service.
The greater the encouragement is, the better the work will be performed;
and it will become the wisdom of the parliament in what they do, to
make it effectual; for should such an undertaking as this prove ineffectual,
instead of remedying, it will increase the mischief.
Ninthly, that all the laws made for the provision of the poor, and for
punishing idle vagrant persons, be repealed, and one law made to continue
such parts as are found useful, and to add such other restrictions,
penalties, and provisions, as may effectually attain the end of this
great work.
The laws hereunto relating are numerous, but the judgment and opinions
given upon them are so various and contradictory, and differ so in sundry
places, as to be inconsistent with any one general scheme of management.
Tenthly, that proper persons be appointed in every county to determine
all matters and differences which may arise between the corporation
and the respective parishes.
To prevent any ill usage, neglect or cruelty, it will be necessary to
make provision that the poor may tender their complaints to officers
of the parish; and that those officers having examined the same, and
not finding redress, may apply to persons to be appointed in each county
and each city for that purpose, who may be called supervisors of the
poor, and may have allowance made them for their trouble; and their
business may be to examine the truth of such complaints; and in case
either the parish or corporation judge themselves aggrieved by the determination
of the said supervisors, provision may be made that an appeal lie to
the quarter sessions.
Eleventhly, that the corporation be obliged to provide for all public
beggars, and to put the laws into execution against public beggars and
idle vagrant persons.
Such of the public beggars as can work must be employed, the rest to
be maintained as impotent poor, but the laws to be severely put in execution
against those who shall ask any public alms.
This proposal, which in most parts of it seems to be very maturely weighed,
may be a foundation for those to build upon who have a public spirit
large enough to embrace such a noble undertaking.
But the common obstruction to anything of this nature is a malignant
temper in some who will not let a public work go on if private persons
are to be gainers by it. When they are to get themselves, they
abandon all sense of virtue; but are clothed in her whitest robe when
they smell profit coming to another, masking themselves with a false
zeal to the commonwealth, where their own turn is not to be served.
It were better, indeed, that men would serve their country for the praise
and honour that follow good actions, but this is not to be expected
in a nation at least leaning towards corruption, and in such an age
it is as much as we can hope for if the prospect of some honest gain
invites people to do the public faithful service. For which reason,
in any undertaking where it can be made apparent that a great benefit
will accrue to the commonwealth in general, we ought not to have an
evil eye upon what fair advantages particular men may thereby expect
to reap, still taking care to keep their appetite of getting within
moderate bounds, laying all just and reasonable restraints upon it,
and making due provision that they may not wrong or oppress their fellow
subjects.
It is not to be denied, but that if fewer hands were suffered to remain
idle, and if the poor had full employment, it would greatly tend to
the common welfare, and contribute much towards adding every year to
the general stock of England.
Among the methods that we have here proposed of employing the poor,
and making the whole body of the people useful to the public, we think
it our duty to mind those who consider the common welfare of looking
with a compassionate eye into the prisons of this kingdom, where many
thousands consume their time in vice and idleness, wasting the remainder
of their fortunes, or lavishing the substance of their creditors, eating
bread and doing no work, which is contrary to good order, and pernicious
to the commonwealth.
We cannot therefore but recommend the thoughts of some good bill that
may effectually put an end to this mischief so scandalous in a trading
country, which should let no hands remain useless.
It is not at all difficult to contrive such a bill as may relieve and
release the debtor, and yet preserve to his creditors all their fair,
just, and honest rights and interest.
And so we have in this matter endeavoured to show that to preserve and
increase the people, and to make their numbers useful, are methods conducing
to make us gainers in the balance of trade.
*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, MANKIND AND POLITICAL ARITHMETIC ***
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