An estimate of the comparative strength of Britain during the present and four preceding reigns; and of the losses of her trade from every war since the Revolution ... To which is added an essay on population / by the Lord Chief Justice Hale.
- George Chalmers
- Date:
- 1782
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: An estimate of the comparative strength of Britain during the present and four preceding reigns; and of the losses of her trade from every war since the Revolution ... To which is added an essay on population / by the Lord Chief Justice Hale. Source: Wellcome Collection.
155/210 page 141
![procure plefity: And mankind, like other animals, are therefore multiplied in the fame proportion as their labour is alked for, and their diligence is rewarded. That the excejjrue prices of work- men, mentioned by Mr. Morris, did in fad: procure a reinforce- ment of workmen, may be thus demonfLrated: It required a greater number of artificers to manufadure merchandizes of the value of 12,599,112, and to navigate 609,798 tons of /hip- ping, in 1751, than it did to fabricate produds of the value of jf. 11,141,202, and to fail 554,713 tons, in 1748. He who has celebrated any given epoch as a period of great profperrty in re- fped to hufbandry, manufadure, and commerce, yet labours to prove, that the induftrious clafies, from that epoch, declined in their numbers, is only diligent to Ihew, that caujes do ?iot pro- duce their effedis ; or to leave an example to the world how eafily even acute minds may be drawn into the mazes of contradidion, by an affedation of well-meaning fingularity. And it oug-ht to be moreover remarked, that the perfons who were born during that profperous effluxion of time from 1748 to 1760,, form at pre- £bnt [1782] the youth among the people. To tiiofe caufes of profperity, that having for years exi/ted, had produced the moil beneficial' effeds prior to the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, new enccu-ragements were immediately added. Owing afiuredly to an augmentation of indufirry, of manufadure, ©f hulbandry, of opulence, and of people, the rulers of that day were enabled to reduce, Confiftentl.y with j'uftice and public faith, upwards of fifty-feven millions of national debts, from, four to three per cent, interefir. That celebrated tranfa'dion not only fhev/ed the flourifhing condition of the kingdom, but. tended to make it fiourifih dill more; by producing all thofe i&lutary confequences, with refped to domeftic diligence and fo- reign enterprizc, which Sir Jofiah Child fiippofed to refult from a lownefs of interefi:. An additional encouragement was at the fame time given to the whale-fifhery, partly by bounties, and partly by the naturalization of foreigners who engaged in that beneficial bufinefs,. The eftablifhment of the Corporation of the Free-BritiJh-FiJJjery, \n 1750, mud have promoted population, by giving employment to the indudrious,. hawe-ver- unprofitable the projed may have been, to-the undertakers, wffl.ofe fuccefs. was unhappily fo unequal to. their -good intentions and expence. The voluntary fociety entered into in ij for the Bncom'agement of Arts,. I* Maniifadiiires,.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b28757671_0155.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
