[127] Hillary, App. to Smallpox, 1740, pp. 57, 66.
[128] Mr Lecky (History of England in the 18th Century), II., says that the famine and fever of 1740-41, which he describes as an important event in the history of Ireland, “hardly excited any attention in England.” It was severely felt, however, in England; and if it excited hardly any attention, that must have been because there were so many superior interests which were more engrossing than the state of the poor.
[129] Gent. Magaz. X. (1740), 32, 35. Blomefield, for Norwich, says that many there would have perished in the winter of 1739-40 but for help from their richer neighbours.
[130] W. Allen, Landholder’s Companion, 1734. Cited by Tooke.
[131] An Inquiry into the Nature, Cause and Cure of the present Epidemic Fever ... with the difference betwixt Nervous and Inflammatory Fevers, and the Method of treating each, 1742, p. 54.
[132] John Altree, Gent. Magaz. Dec. 1741, p. 655.
[133] White, ibid. 1742, p. 43.
[134] Dunsford, Historical Memorials of Tiverton. The accounts of the great weaving towns of the South-west are not unpleasing until we come to the time when they were overtaken by decay of work and distress, from about 1720 onwards. The district, says Defoe, was “a rich enclosed country, full of rivers and towns, and infinitely populous, in so much that some of the market towns are equal to cities in bigness, and superior to many of them in numbers of people.” Taunton had 1100 looms. Tiverton in the seven years 1700-1706 had 331 marriages, 1116 baptisms, 1175 burials (a slight excess), and an estimated population of 8693, which kept nearly at that level for about twenty years longer (from 1720 to 1726 the marriages were 284, the baptisms 1070 and the burials 1175).
[135] Gent. Magaz. XI. (1742), p. 704.
[136] Blomefield, History of Norfolk III. 449.