CHAP. XV.
Application of the above Principles to the State of Population in Great-Britain.
A letter from Dr. Brakenridge, F. R. S. addressed to George Lewis Scott, Esq; which I found in the Danish Mercury for March 1758, furnishes me with a very good opportunity of applying the principles we have been laying down to the state of population in Great-Britain. I shall therefore, according to my plan, pass in review that gentleman’s opinion, without entring upon any refutation of it. I shall extract the propositions he lays down, examine the conclusions he draws from them, and then shew wherein they differ from those which result from the theory established in this inquiry.
The author’s calculations and suppositions as to matters of fact shall be taken for granted, as I believe the first are as good as any that can be made, upon a subject where all the data required for solving the problem are quite a piece of guess-work.
I must follow the Mercury, not having the original.
Prop. I. After a very close examination, says our author, I find, that our islands gain, as to population, absolutely no more than what is requisite for repairing their losses, and that, in England itself, numbers would diminish, were they not recruited from Ireland and Scotland.
Prop. II. Men, able to carry arms, that is from 18 to 56 years, make, according to Dr. Halley, the fourth part of a people; and when a people increase in numbers, every denomination, as to age, increases in that proportion: consequently in England, where the number of inhabitants does not exceed six millions, if the annual augmentation upon the whole do not exceed 18,000, as I am pretty sure it does not, the yearly augmentation of those fit to carry arms will be only 4,500.
Prop. III. In England, burials are to births, as 100 is to 113. I suppose that, in Scotland and Ireland, they may be as 100 is to 124. And as there may be, in these two last kingdoms, about two millions and a half of inhabitants, the whole augmentation may be stated at 15,000; and consequently that, of such as are fit to carry arms, at 3,750. Add this number to those annually produced in England, and the sum total of the whole augmentation in the British isles will be about 8,250.
Prop. IV. The strangers, who arrive in England, in order to settle, are supposed to compensate those who leave the country with the same intent.
Prop. V. It is out of this number of 8,250, that all our losses are to be deduced. If the colonies, wars, and navigation, carry off from us annually 8,000 men, the British isles cannot augment in people: if we lose more, numbers must diminish.