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.
179/210 page 165
![Item to have been overlooked by Dr. Price, owing to whatever caufe. MelTrs. Wales and Howlet may have therefore ftudied them with the greater attention ; and their diligence of refearch, as well as pertinence of application to an important queftion, merit the high praifes which are always due to the detedtion of error and to the eftablifhment of truth. In whatever diredlion thofe gentlemen turned their inquiries, without the preference of feledtion, they found-the moll unequi- vocal proofs of augmentation of numbers, with few ligns of depo- pulation. Our overgrown capital feems to have engaged, becaufe it was the moll confpicuous objedl, the earliell notice of our con- templators of births and burials. He who has fhed a tear over the difmal devaftation of the human fpecies, which Mr. Corbyn Morris found in London during the year 1750, before the removal’ of obdrudlions and nuifances, mull fee with fatisfadlion, in the do- cuments of Mr. Wales, that it is now the healthieft capital in Europe, and by further improvement may be rellored to its former healthfulnefs of a country parida. That candid invefti- gator has fliewn, by accurate obfervations, that the increafe of London lince the Revolution is nearly as nine is to ten. By a ilill more minute inveftigation, becaufe he thought that a compu- tation from the imperfe5i hills of mortality alone 7nuf fall fiort of the truth more than a third, Mr. Howlet has clearly evinced, that London and its fuburbs have increafed lince the Revolution nearly onethird^. From the city, Mr. Howlet walked out into ‘‘ the immediate vicinity, to the diftance of eight or ten milesand by an examination of feven-and-twenty regillers, and by taking ave- rages of twenty years fcom the Revolution, and twenty years from 1758. Inquiry int« Population, p. 13—33. ® Examin. p. 83—95.—It may be here proper to obferve, that the number of houfes in London, Middlefex, and Weftminfter, as ftated from the hearth-books of 1690, by Davenant [vol. i. p. 76. J and adopted by Dr. Price, was 111,215 • the number returned for the fame diftrifts in 177.7, and prefented by the tax officers to *he Commiffioners of Accounts, on which Dr. Price relies, was 62,123. Now, who ran believe thefe accounts to have contained even the femblance of truth ? Mait^ land found, by a careful furvey in 1737, that, exclufive of Middlefex, there were 95,968 dwellings; and there have been.added fince 4,032. [Inquiry into Popula- tion, p. 13.] Here then is a demonftration, how infufficient the hearth-books and returns are, whereon to form any juft comparifon of the number of houfes in 1690 and in 1777.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b28757671_0179.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
