Reverend Sir,
Your affectionate Brother,
and very humble Servant,
Richard Forster.
LVIII. A Letter to the Right Honourable the Earl of Macclesfield, President of the Royal Society, from the Rev. William Brakenridge, D.D. F.R.S. containing an Answer to the Account of the Numbers and Increase of the People of England, by the Rev. Mr. Forster.
My Lord,
Read Mar. 16, 1758.
As I endeavoured, at a former meeting of the Society, to answer ex-tempore some objections offered by a Gentleman in the country, to what I have wrote concerning the number of people in England; I now presume to send you what I said then in writing, with some farther reflections. And this subject I never intended to have meddled with any more; but as I seem to be called upon, to defend what I have formerly wrote, I hope I shall be excused if I briefly attempt it. Your Lordship, I know, and our illustrious Body only desire a fair representation of facts, which is the ground of all philosophical inquiries; and therefore I shall endeavour to do this, as far as I can, without regarding any hypothesis.
My design, when I first entered on this subject, was to discover whether our people were in an increasing or decreasing state, with regard to their numbers; which I thought of great importance to be known, because of its influence on the affairs of Government, in determining our strength, in settling of taxes, and directing us in the œconomy and imployment of our people. Now, in order to proceed in this inquiry, it was evident to me, that if the number of houses were exactly known, the number of people would be nearly ascertained. And therefore I attended to this, to find out the number of houses, as the only thing that could with any certainty help us to judge of this matter. And accordingly, being resolved to depend only upon the most sure, and general observations, I applied to a public office, where I thought I might possibly get at their number. And I there found, that from the last survey that was made, since the year 1750, there were 690,700 houses in England and Wales that paid the window-tax, and the two-shilling duty on houses; besides cottages that paid nothing. By cottages are understood those who neither pay to church or poor, and are, by act of parliament in 1747, in consideration of the poverty of the people, declared to be exempted both from the tax and the two-shillings duty, and they only remain not accurately known, to ascertain the whole number of houses. However, they are so far known, that from all the accounts that are hitherto given in, they do not appear to be so many as 300,000; and from what I myself have seen, in the books of that office, I should think they were not much above 200,000; for in some places, that I was perfectly acquainted with, I found many of the day labourers rated to the two-shillings duty, and there did not appear to be one house in ten omitted. And therefore, if there are not 300,000 cottages, as seems plain to me, there cannot be a million of houses in the whole in England and Wales; and the rated houses are to the cottages more than two to one; of both which, according to the returns made, there is now about one in seventeen or 58,800 empty throughout the kingdom. But if we were to allow, that there are a million of houses in the whole; which is more than the Gentlemen in the above mentioned office believe, and then deduct those that are empty, there could not be above 941,200 inhabited houses; and consequently supposing six to a house, about 5,647,200 people, or near about five millions and an half; which at the utmost, is what I insist on to be the real number.
But now the Gentleman, who objects to my calculations, thinks, that I have made the number of houses too few, and that in the whole there are above 1,400,000 houses, of which he imagines there are more than 700,000 cottages; for he supposes them to be more than the rated houses; and from thence he infers, that there are about seven millions and an half of people, in England and Wales; which I wish, with all my heart, was the true number: But I am so far from thinking that I have under-rated them, that I suspect I have rather made them more than they are. However, this controversy will soon be determined, there being now orders given, as I am informed, to all the Officers concerned in the window-tax, to make an exact return of all the cottages, as well as the rated houses, in each of their several districts. In the mean time, the Gentleman and I differ in this, that he supposes above 400,000 cottages more than I can possibly imagine.
Let us now see upon what grounds, and by what method of reasoning he determines his numbers. He makes a division of the 690,000 taxed houses into three classes, placing 200,000 of them in the open country and villages, and 200,000 in the market and inferior towns, and the next, viz. 290,000, in the cities and great towns; for, which division he has nothing to direct him; no proof, nor even probability. And as it is a mere arbitrary supposition, all reasoning and calculations founded upon it are nothing to the purpose, and the number of houses or people comptued from thence must be false or uncertain. But yet, upon this supposition, as if it was absolutely certain, he goes on to compute the houses and people in each division.
As to the first, he says he has counted all the houses in nine contiguous parishes in Berkshire, in which, he has found the whole number to be 588, and those charged to the duty to be only 177; and therefore the cottages are to the rated houses as 411 to 177, or above, two to one. And from this he assumes, that the whole number of houses thro' the villages and open country in England will be to the cottages nearly in the same proportion. But here I am surprised, that he should reason in so loose and an inaccurate a manner. For, as there may be 7000 parishes in the villages and open country, to infer from the numbers in nine of them that are contiguous, and that all of them together do not make a very large parish, many being much larger as to the number of houses, and where there may be particular circumstances; I say, to infer from them what the proportion will be in all parishes, in the villages and open country, is the same way of reasoning as to say, because the poor in one parish are in such a proportion, therefore they are so in 1000 parishes, or thro' four or five counties: whereas it is plain, that the proportion differs almost in every parish, and in every county; and the sum of all must be added together, before we can know what the real proportion is. And nothing can be inferred from the circumstances of a few parishes, or even of a County, what the proportion will be in the whole. And yet, from such precarious and vague reasoning he presumes to compute, that there are above 460,000 cottages in the villages and open country; having assumed, without any hesitation, that there are 200,000 rated houses in that extent. Such reasoning is unusual in philosophical inquiries.