[915] Convicts were sent to nine of the American settlements. According to one estimate about 2,000 had been for many years sent annually. 'Dr. Lang, after comparing different estimates, concludes that the number sent might be about 50,000 altogether.' Penny Cyclo. xxv. 138. X.
[916] This 'clear and settled opinion' must have been formed in three days, and between Grantham and London. For from that Lincolnshire town he had written to Temple on March 18:—'As to American affairs, I have really not studied the subject; it is too much for me perhaps, or I am too indolent or frivolous. From the smattering which newspapers have given me, I have been of different minds several times. That I am a Tory, a lover of power in monarchy, and a discourager of much liberty in the people, I avow; but it is not clear to me that our colonies are completely our subjects.' Letters of Boswell, p. 180. Four years later he wrote to Temple:—'I must candidly tell you that I think you should not puzzle yourself with political speculations more than I do; neither of us is fit for that sort of mental labour.' Ib 243. See post, Sept. 23, 1777, for a contest between Johnson and Boswell on this subject.
[917] See ante, ii. 134.
[918] Johnson's Works, vi. 261.
[919] Four years earlier he had also attacked him. Ante, ii. 134, note 4.
[920] Lord Camden, formerly Chief Justice Pratt. See ante, ii. 72, note 3; and post, April 14, 1775.
[921] 'Our people,' wrote Franklin in 1751 (Memoirs, vi. 3, 10), 'must at least be doubled every twenty years.' The population he reckoned at upwards of one million. Johnson referred to this rule also in the following passage:—'We are told that the continent of North America contains three millions, not of men merely, but of whigs, of whigs fierce for liberty and disdainful of dominion; that they multiply with the fecundity of their own rattlesnakes, so that every quarter of a century doubles their number.' Works, vi. 227. Burke, in his Speech of Concilitation with America, a fortnight after Johnson's pamphlet appeared, said, 'your children do not grow faster from infancy to manhood than they spread from families to communities, and from villages to nations.' Payne's Burke, i. 169.
[922] Dr. T. Campbell records on April 20, 1775 (Diary, p. 74), that 'Johnson said the first thing he would do would be to quarter the army on the cities, and if any refused free quarters, he would pull down that person's house, if it was joined to other houses; but would burn it if it stood alone. This and other schemes he proposed in the manuscript of Taxation no Tyranny, but these, he said, the Ministry expunged. See post, April 15, 1778, where, talking of the Americans, Johnson exclaimed, 'he'd burn and destroy them.' On June 11, 1781, Campbell records (ib. p. 88) that Johnson said to him:—'Had we treated the Americans as we ought, and as they deserved, we should have at once razed all their towns and let them enjoy their forests.' Campbell justly describes this talk as 'wild rant.'
[923]
'He errs who deems obedience to a prince
Slav'ry—a happier freedom never reigns
Than with a pious monarch.'
Stit. iii. 113. CROKER.