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.
166/210 page 152
![[ ‘5^ ] allowance, the number of inhabitants mufl be flioft ofj^ve millkns.' What fort of arithmetic is that, which allows an error in the mul- tiplicand of 47,266, yet, by applying a multiplier derived equally from fpeculatioUi pretends to the honour of geometrical dcmonflra- tion ? If an error of 47,000 is allowed, becaufc a faulty return could _not be fupported, wdiy may not an error of 57,000 be in the fame manner fuppofed j or why acknowledge a million of houfes, more than any other fum ? If no rule can be given whereby we may fet bounds to conjedlure, we are left to wander unguided in the wilds of uncertainty. Might not a candid inveftigator of truth with a fxmilar fpirit infift, that, having found by a fair dedudlion of caufes 'and effedis, a gradual augmentation of numbers during fix hundred years, it was jufl to infer, fince there were in England and Wales, during 1690, 1,319,215 houfes, the number of dwellings muft ne- cefiarily have increafed in proportion to the progrefs of popula- tion ? And to thofe general reafonings Mr. Howlet has added demonftration, by contrafling the faulty returns of the officers with precife enumeration. That gentleman, wdth a diligence of refearch and an ingenuity of application which give him a high place among political calculators, has framed a table, without the pre- ference of feledfion or the art of defign ; fhewing the number of houfes returned by the furveyors, and the total number of houfes in more than a hundred towns and parifhes diicovered by real enume- rations. By thus contraffing the houfes adlually returned, with the houfes actually enumerated, we perceive that the firft were to the laft as 17,225 to 29,261 and the whole number returned in 1777 muff: “Confequently have been to the whole number exiffing in the nation nearly asfeventeen is to twenty-?ime. He who examines Mr. How- let’s fails and deduilions, will find no difficulty in believing, that Dr. Price had as little reafon to conje&tire, that we had 1,000,000 of houfes, rather than 9 52,73 4, as there is now room to doubt there were at leafl: two thirds more than appeared in the return of 1777; and confequently that there muff: have probably been in England and Wales, » Examiii. of the EfTay on Population, p. 58—61. ’ Ibid. p. 138—43.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b28757671_0166.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
