dually fowed and overfpread with one kind only; as for inftance, with fennel; and were it empty of other inhabitants, it might, in a few ages, be replenished from one nation only, as for inftance, with Englishmen. Thus there are fuppofed to be now upwards of one million of Englifh fouls in North America (though it is thought fcarce 80,000 have been brought over-fea *) and yet perhaps there is not one the fewer in Britain, but rather many more, on account of the employment the colonies afford to manufacturers at home. This million doubling, fuppofe but once in 25 years, will, in another century, be more than the people of England, and the greatest number of Englishmen will be on this fide the water. What an acceffion of power to the British empire by fea as well as land! What increase of trade and navigation! What numbers of ships. and feamen! We have been here but little more than a hundred years, and yet the force of our privateers in the late war, united, was greater both in men and guns, than that of the whole British navy in queen Elizabeth's time. How important an affair then to Britain, is the prefent treaty for fettling the bounds between her colonies and the French! and how careful should fhe be to fecure room enough, fince on the room depends fo much the increase of her people?

23. In fine, a nation well regulated is like a polypus; take away a limb, its place is foon

[N. B. This was written in the year 1751. E.]

+ In 1751.

An water-infect, well known to Naturalifts.

fup

1

supplied; cut it in two, and each deficient part shall speedily grow out of the part remaining. Thus, (if you have room and fubfiftence enough) as you may, by dividing, make ten polypufes out of one; you may, of one, make ten nations, equally populous and powerful; or rather, increase a nation tenfold in numbers and strength.

Extracts of a Letter from R. J. Efq; of London, to Benjamin Franklin, Efq; at Philadelphia; containing Remarks on fome of the foregoing Obfervations.

DEAR SIR,

T is now near three years fince I received your excellent Obfervations on the Increase of Mankind, &c. in which you have with fo much fagacity and accuracy fhewn in what manner, and by what causes, that principal means of political grandeur is best promoted; and have fo well fupported thofe juft inferences you have occafionally drawn, concerning the general state of our American colonies, and the views and conduct of fome of the inhabitants of Great Britain.

You have abundantly proved that natural fecundity is hardly to be confidered; because the vis generandi, as far as we know, is unlimited, and because experience fhews that the numbers of nations are altogether governed by collateral causes; and among these none is of fo much force as quantity of fubfiftence; whether arising from climate, foil, improvement of tillage, trade, fisheries, fecure property, conqueft of new countries, or other favourable circumstances.

As I perfectly concurred with you in your fentiments on thefe heads, I have been very defirous of building fomewhat on the foundation you have there laid; and was induced by your

hints in the twenty-firft fection, to trouble you with fome thoughts on the influence Manners have always had, and are always likely to have on the numbers of a people, and their political profperity in general *.

The powerful efficacy of Manners in encreafing a people, is manifest from the inftance you mention, the Quakers; among them industry and frugality multiplies and extends the ufe of the neceffaries of life. To manners of a like kind are owing the populousness of Holland, Switzerland, China, Japan, and most parts of Indoftan, &c. in every one of which the force of extent of territory and fertility of foil is multiplied, or their want compenfated by industry and frugality.

Neither nature nor art have contributed much to the production of fubfiftence in Switzerland, yet we fee frugality preferves, and even increases families that live on their fortunes, and which, in England, we call the Gentry; and the obfervation we cannot but make in the Southern part of this kingdom, that those families, including all fuperior ones, are gradually becoming extinct, affords the cleareft proof that luxury (that is, a greater expence of fubfiftence than in prudence a man ought to confume) is as deftructive as a proportionable want of it; but in Scotland, as in Switzerland, the Gentry, though one with ano

ther

[The following paffage ftands inferted at this place in the ⚫ original : "The end of every individual is its own private good. The rules it obferves in the purfuit of this good, are a fyftem of "propofitions,

ther they have not one-fourth of the income, increase in number.

propofitions, almost every one founded in authority, that is, "derive their weight from the credit given to one or more perfons, " and not from demonftration.

"And this, in the most important as well as the other affairs of life, is the cafe even of the wifeft and philofophical part of the "human fpecies; and that it fhould be fo is the less strange, when "we confider that it is, perhaps, impoffible to prove, that being, 66 or life itself, has any other value than what is fet on it by authority.

"A confirmation of this may be derived from the observation, "that in every country in the universe, happiness is fought upon a different plan; and, even in the fame country, we fee it placed "by different ages, profeffions, and ranks of men, in the attain"ment of enjoyments utterly unlike,

"Thefe propofitions, as well as others, framed upon them, "become habitual by degrees, and, as they govern the determina"tion of the will, I call them moral habits.

"There are another fet of habits that have the direction of the "members of the body, that I call therefore mechanical habits. "These compofe what we commonly call The Arts, which are more or less liberal or mechanical, as they more or lefs partake "of affiftance from the operations of the mind.

"The cumulus of the moral habits of each individual, is the man"ners of that individual; the cumulus of the manners of individuals "makes up the manners of a nation.

"The happiness of individuals is evidently the ultimate end of political fociety; and political welfare, or the ftrength, fplen"dour, and opulence of the ftate, have been always admitted, both "by political writers, and the valuable part of mankind in general, "to conduce to this end, and are therefore defirable.

"The caufes that advance or obftruct any one of these three "objects, are external or internal. The latter may be divided into

phyfical, civil, and perfonal, under which laft head I compre"hend the moral and mechanical habits of mankind. The phy"fical caufes are principally climate, foil, and number of subjects; "the civil are government and laws; and political welfare is al"ways in a ratio compofed of the force of thefe particular caufes; "a multitude of external caufes, and all these internal ones, not "only controul and qualify, but are conftantly acting on, and thereby infenfibly, as well as fenfibly, altering one another, both for the better and the worse, and this not excepting the climate itself."

66

And