Prop. VI. By calculations, such as they are, our author finds, that, upon an average of 66 years, from 1690 to 1756, this number of 8000 have been annually lost, that is, have died abroad in the colonies, in war, or on the account of navigation.
Prop. VII. That, since the inhabitants of Britain and Ireland are about 8,000,000, and that the augmentation is annually about 8000, we may conclude in general for all Europe, that, for every million of inhabitants, there is an annual augmentation of 1000; consequently, every thousand men slain in war must destroy all the augmentation of a million of inhabitants during a year. Consequently France, which contains 14 millions, according to Sir William Petty, having lost above 14,000 men a-year, during the same 66 years, cannot have augmented in population.
Prop. VIII. That the progress of trade and navigation augmenting the loss of people by sea, must consequently have diminished population over all Europe.
Prop. IX. The exportation of our corn proves what the above propositions have demonstrated. For supposing the progress of agriculture to compensate the additional quantity distilled of late years, there is still 1⁄6 of the crop exported, which proves that our numbers are small, and that they do not augment.
From these propositions our author concludes, that what stops multiplication in the British isles is, 1st, That living in celibacy is become a-la-mode: 2dly, That wars have been carried on beyond the nation’s force: 3dly, That the use of spirituous liquors destroys great numbers of inhabitants.
I shall now shortly apply the principles I have been laying down, in order to resolve every phenomenon here described, as to the population of Great Britain. These I shall willingly take for granted, as it is of no consequence to my reasoning, whether they be exact or not: it is enough that they may be so; and the question here is only to account for them.
England, says he, would diminish in numbers, were it not recruited from Scotland and Ireland. This, I say, is a contingent, not a certain consequence: for did those grown-up adventurers cease to come in, the inhabitants of England themselves would undoubtedly multiply, provided an additional number of breeders could be found, able to bring up their children. Now the importation of grown men into a country in so far resembles the importation of slaves into our colonies, that the one and the other diminishes the price of labour, and thereby prevents marriage among certain classes of the natives, whose profits are not sufficient for bringing up a family: and when any such do marry notwithstanding, they do not multiply, as has been said. Now were the Scots and Irish to come no more into England, the price of labour would rise; those who now cannot bring up children, might then be enabled to do it, and this would make the English multiply themselves; that is, it would augment the number of their own breeders. On the other hand, did the price of labour continue too low to prove a sufficient encouragement for an additional number of English breeders, the contingent consequence would take place; that is, numbers would diminish, according to our author’s supposition, and the exportation of grain would increase, in proportion to that diminution; and did foreign demand for grain also diminish, then agriculture would suffer, and every thing would decline: but of this more as we go along.
The representation he gives of the state of population in these countries, is one modification of what I have called a moral incapacity of a people’s increasing in numbers. It is just so in Africa, where the inhabitants are sold; just so in Switzerland, and in many mountainous countries, where inhabitants desert, in order to seek their fortunes elsewhere. The national stock remains at an equal standard, and the augmentation upon births above burials is constantly in proportion to the exportation of inhabitants. Let this proportion rise ever so high, an increase of national population is noways essentially to be implied from this phenomenon alone, but must proceed from other causes.
I can find nothing advanced by our author to prove, or even to induce one to believe, that had the lives of those eight thousands been yearly preserved from extraordinary dangers, numbers would have augmented. England enjoyed in a manner 26 years peace after the treaty of Utrecht. For many years before, a very destructive war had been carried on. Had the bills of births been produced from 1701 to 1713, had they been compared with those from this last period to 1739, when the Spanish war began, had we seen a gradual augmentation from year to year during those last 26 years, such as might be expected from the preservation of a considerable number at least of the 8,250 able healthy men, just in the period of life fit for propagation, one might be tempted to conclude, that the preceding war had done hurt to population, by interrupting the propagation of the species. But if, by comparing the bills of births for a considerable number of years, in war and in peace, one can discover no sensible difference, it is very natural to conclude, either that those wars did not destroy many breeders, or that others must have slipt in directly, and bred in the place of those who had been killed. What otherwise can be the reason why the number which our author supposes to have been destroyed abroad, should so exactly compensate the annual augmentation, but only that those nations are stocked to the full proportion of their subsistence: and what is the reason why, after a destructive war, which, by the suddenness of the revolution, sweeps off numbers of the grown men, and diminishes the original stock, numbers should in a few years get up to the former standard, and then stop a-new.
From our author’s representation of the bills of births and deaths, I should be apt to suspect, in consequence of my principles, that upon a proper examination it would be found, that, in those years of war, the proportion of births to deaths had been higher than in years of peace, because more had died abroad. And, had the slaughter of the inhabitants gone gradually on, increasing every year beyond the 8,250, I am of opinion, that the proportion of births might very possibly have kept pace with it. On the contrary, during the years of peace, the proportion should have diminished, and had nobody died out of the country at all, the births and deaths would have become exactly equal.