[45] Copy of the Report of Governor Hopkins to the Board of Trade, on the Numbers of People in Rhode-Island.
In obedience to your lordships' commands, I have caused the within account to be taken by officers under oath. By it there appears to be in this colony at this time 35,939 white persons, and 4697 blacks, chiefly negroes.
In the year 1730, by order of the then lords commissioners of trade and plantations, an account was taken of the number of people in this colony, and then there appeared to be 15,302 white persons, and 2633 blacks.
Again in the year 1748, by like order, an account was taken of the number of people in this colony, by which it appears there were at that time 29,755 white persons, and 4373 blacks.
Colony of Rhode Island, Dec. 24, 1755.
Stephen Hopkins.
[46] An Account of the Value of the Exports from England to Pensylvania, in one Year, taken at different Periods, viz.
| In 1723 | they amounted only to | £. 15,992 | 19 | 4 |
| 1730 | they were | 48,592 | 7 | 5 |
| 1737 | 56,690 | 6 | 7 | |
| 1742 | 75,295 | 3 | 4 | |
| 1747 | 82,404 | 17 | 7 | |
| 1752 | 201,666 | 19 | 11 | |
| 1757 | 268,426 | 6 | 6 |
N. B. The accounts for 1758 and 1759, are not yet completed; but those acquainted with the North American trade know, that the increase in those two years has been in a still greater proportion; the last year being supposed to exceed any former year by a third; and this owing to the increased ability of the people to spend, from the greater quantities of money circulating among them by the war.
[47] The aid Dr. Franklin alludes to must probably have consisted in early and full supplies of arms, officers, intelligence, and trade of export and of import, through the river St. Lawrence, on risques both public and private; in the encouragement of splendid promises and a great ally; in the passage from Canada to the back settlements, being shut to the British forces; in the quiet of the great body of Indians; in the support of emissaries and discontented citizens; in loans and subsidies to congress, in ways profitable to France; in a refuge to be granted them in case of defeat, in vacant lands, as settlers; in the probability of war commencing earlier between England and France, at the gulph of St. Lawrence (when the shipping taken, were rightfully addressed to Frenchmen) than in the present case. All this might have happened, as soon as America's distaste of the sovereign had exceeded the fear of the foreigner; a circumstance frequently seen possible in history, and which our ministers took care should not be wanting.