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province, which the several colonies of which it is formed, contained fifty years before. During the period there was no remarkable emigration to other "colonies. There was vacant land sufficient to ex"tend settlements upon," (there is abundance still,) "and as easy to be procured as anywhere else. The same observation," he says, may be made from "1722 to 1762. The inhabitants have not doubled "their number1."

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(15) It is to the facts regarding the actual increase in the population of New England, to which the theorists have professed to appeal. They have now been detailed. As to any reasons why the augmentation should not have been greater, that is palpably wide of their argument: into such, however, I am not unwilling to enter; these certainly are not resolvable into any of the restraints to population, enumerated by the anti-populationists, respecting our own country. The principal one assigned by Governor Hutchinson, (for he was among those who had been instructed respecting the geometric theory of duplication,) was the annual average loss of 88 young men by war; an explanation which I hardly think will be urged by those who argue that a yearly accession of ten thousand such, by emigration, is "immaterial" to the increase of American population. I am aware of another cause, which Mr. Warden assigns for this defalcation in the American ratio of increase, regarding another of the States of New England, and which, as too amusing to be passed over unnoticed, will be attended to hereafter. In the mean time, I shall conclude these remarks by observing, that notwithstanding that part of the world

1 Hutchinson, Hist. of Massachusetts Bay, vol. i., pp. 202, 203.

has been selected as affording a full proof of the geometric theory of population, it is a notorious fact, open to casual and general observation, that " in most "of the New England States, the increase is extremely "small 1."

Hall, Travels in America, p. 464.

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CHAPTER III.

OF THE AMOUNT OF THE EARLY POPULATION OF THE NORTH AMERICAN COLONIES, NOW THE

UNITED STATES, GENERALLY.

(1) THE proof of the geometric ratio of human increase having entirely failed, even in the provinces from whence it was professedly deduced, that failure is now attempted to be accounted for, so as still to preserve the theory. It is attributed to emigrations from the States in question, to other parts of the Union. The same theory, however, demands that the effect of emigration in materially increasing population, should be peremptorily denied. In the very

same argument, therefore, the most palpable contradiction has to be maintained; namely, that emigration greatly diminishes the increase of the inhabitants from whom it proceeds, without equally augmenting those to whom it is added. It might be very properly objected, that such a mode of reasoning negatives itself. This, however, will not be persisted in. The argument shall be willingly transferred from the very ground the advocates of superfecundity have chosen, to a wider field, that of the whole of the United States. Error may a while escape detection, from a dexterous change of its position; but truth, however baffled and resisted, must be finally triumphant.

(2) To pursue the inquiry, therefore, regarding the original population of North America. After New England, the State of Virginia, prior, indeed, to

the former in its date, demands the first attention. This colony, on the authority of its governor, Sir William Berkley, contained in 1671, "above 40,000

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persons, men, women, and children, of which there "were 2000 blacks1." He adds, that 1500 servants came in annually, nor are we to suppose, that other accessions from the mother country had yet ceased; these, therefore, added to the former number, justify the account dated four years afterwards, which makes the inhabitants amount to 50,000. From a despatch of a subsequent governor, Lord Culpepper, in 1681, we learn the vast increase which was going forward. He makes the fighting men to have been augmented, in ten years, from about 8,000 to 15,000 men 3.

(3) Maryland, Ogilvy says, had been so effectually supplied with people and necessaries, by Lord Baltimore, that in the year 1671, there were then from 15,000 to 20,000 souls in it: certainly no exaggeration, as in the year 1665, several accounts concur in stating the English inhabitants as then amounting to 16,0005. In 1676, the Rev. John Yeo, in an official letter addressed, in behalf of the colony, to the Archbishop of Canterbury, stated the inhabitants to be "20,000 at least"."

(4) The inhabitants of the province of New York were about this time at least 15,000. In 1678, the governor, Sir Edward Andros, says, "We have about

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twenty-four towns, villages, or parishes, in six rid"ings or courts of session ";" the militia he states at about 2000, of which 140 were horse. These facts were probably understated, as eight years afterwards,

1 Chalmers, Polit. Annal., p. 601. 2 Ibid., vol. i., p. 336.

3 Ibid., pp. 326, 356.

4 Ibid., p. 375.

5 Universal Hist., Mod. Pt., vol. xl., p. 469. British Empire in N. America,

vol. iii., p. 4. Dr. Holmes, American Annals, vol. i., 331.

Chalmers, Polit. Annals, p. 375. 7 Ibid., p. 602.

8 Ibid., p. 601.

Dongan reported to the British government that the militia were 4000 foot and 300 horse, and one company of dragoons, and added, "I wish for more fortifi"cations, as the people grow every day more numerous, and are of a turbulent disposition 1."

(5) In Carolina, the titheables, as they were termed, amounted at about the same period to 1400 only; perhaps, therefore, the population did not much exceed 5000. A remark, indeed, in the History of Carolina would warrant me in stating it as much higher, which, however, I shall decline doing 2.

(6) The Jerseys3, and the tract afterwards called Pennsylvania, we may safely assume were inhabited at this period by at least 10,000 or 12,000 people. Both these regions had been settled early in that century. In the latter, particularly, Penn found on his arrival several thousand colonists*; and in the former, the population in which was then said to increase very slowly, owing to various causes, there were early in the ensuing century 16,000 inhabitants 5.

(7) Other territories, of which the United States are now in possession, were not without white inhabitants at the period in question. It may also be assumed that some of the preceding estimates are much understated, as will always be the case where censuses are founded upon fiscal data. Making, however, no addition to the total amount on either ground, and to keep far within the bounds of certainty, we may safely conclude, that the British colonies of North America, including the New England States, amounted, in the year 1676, to two hundred and fifty thousand