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Population.] The following table fhews the number of perfons imported for the establishment of our colony in its infant ftate, and the cen fus of inhabitants at different periods, extracted from our hiftorians and public records, as particularly as I have had opportunities and leifure to examine them. Succeffive lines in the fame year fhew fucceffive periods of time in that year. I have stated the cenfus in two different columns, the whole inhabitants having been fometimes numbered, and fometimes the tythes only. This term, with us, includes the free males above 16 years of age, and slaves above that age of both fexes.

TAB B L E.

Settlers Cenfus of

Settlers

Cenfus of Cenfus of

Years imported. Inhabitants. Years imported. Inhabitants. Tythes.

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A further examination of our records would render this hiftory of our population much more fatisfactory and perfect, by furnishing a greater

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number of intermediate terms. Thofe however which are here ftated will enable us to calculate, with a confiderable degree of precifion, the rate at which we have increased. During the infancy of the colony, while numbers were fmall, wars, importations, and other accidental circumftances, render the progreffion fluctuating and irregular. By the year 1654, however, it becomes tolerably uniform, importations having in a great measure ceased from the diffolution of the company, and the inhabitants become too numerous to be fenfibly affected by Indian wars. Beginning at that period, therefore, we find that from thence to the year 1772, our tythes had increased from 7209 to 153,000. The whole term being of 118 years, yields a duplication once in every 27 years. The intermediate enumerations taken in 1700, 1748, and 1759, furnish proofs of the uniformity of this progreffion. Should this rate of increafe continue, we shall have between fix and feven millions of inhabitants within .95 years. If we fuppofe our country to be bounded, at fome future day, by the meridian of the mouth of the Great Kanhaway, (within which it has been before conjectured are 64,491 fquare miles) there will then be 100 inhabitants for every fquare mile, which is nearly the ftate of population in the British islands.

Here I will beg leave to propofe a doubt. The prefent defire of America is to produce rapid population by as great importations of foreigners as poffible. But is this founded in good policy? The advantage propofed is the multiplication of numbers. Now let us fuppofe (for example only) that, in this ftate, we could double our numbers in one year by the importation of foreigners; and this is a greater acceffion than the moft fanguine advocate for emigration has a right to expect. Then I fay, beginning with a double ftock, we shall attain any given degree of population only 27 years and 3 months fooner, than if we proceed on our fingle ftock. If we propose 4,500,000 as a competent population for this state, we fhould be 54 years attaining it, could we at once double our numbers; and 814 years, if we rely on natural propagation, as may be seen by the following table,

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In the first column are stated periods of 27 years; in the fecond are our numbers, at each period, as they will be if we proceed on our actual ftock; and in the third are what they would be, at the fame periods, were we to fet out from the double of our prefent ftock. I have taken the term of 4,500,000 inhabitants for example's fake only. Yet I am perfuaded it is a greater number than the country fpoken of, confidering how much inarable land it contains, can clothe and feed, without a mate

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Tial change in the quality of their diet. But are there nc inconveniencies to be thrown into the fcale against the advantage expected from a multiplication of numbers by the importation of foreigners? It is for the happinefs of thofe united in fociety to harmonize as much as poffible in matters which they muft of neceffity tranfact together. Civil government being the fole object of forming focieties, its administration must be conducted by common confent. Every fpecies of government has its specific principles. Ours perhaps are more peculiar than thofe of any other in the univerfe. It is a compofition of the freeft principles of the English conftitution, with others derived from natural right and natural reafon. To thefe nothing can be more oppofed than the maxims of abfolute monarchies. Yet, from fuch, we are to expect the greatest number of emigrants. They will bring with them the principles of the governments they leave, imbibed in their early youth; or, if able to throw them off, it will be in exchange for an unbounded licentioufnefs, paffing, as is ufual, from one extreme to another. It would be a miracle were they to stop precifely at the point of temperate liberty. Thefe principles, with their language, they will tranfmit to their children. In proportion to their numbers, they will fhare with us the legislation. They will infufe into it their fpirit, warp and bias its direction, and render it a heterogeneous, incoherent, distracted mafs.

I may appeal to experience, during the prefent conteft, for a verification of thofe conjectures. But, if they be not certain in event, are they not poffible, are they not probable? Is it not fafer to wait with patience 27 years and three months longer, for the attainment of any degree of population defired, or expected? May not our government be more homogeneous, more peaceable, more durable? Suppofe 20 millions of republican Americans thrown all of a fudden into France, what would be the condition of that kingdom? If it would be more turbulent, lefs happy, lefs ftrong, we may believe that the addition of half a million of foreigners to our prefent numbers would produce a fimilar effect here. If they come of themfelves, they are entitled to all the rights of citizenship: But I doubt the expediency of inviting them by extraordinary encouragements, I mean not that thefe doubts fhould be extended to the importation of ufeful artificers. The policy of that measure depends on very different confiderations. Spare no expence in obtaining them. They will after a while go to the plough and the hoe; but, in the mean time, they will teach us fomething we do not know. It is not fo in agriculture. The indifferent ftate of that among us does not proceed from a want of knowledge merely; it is from our having fuch quantities of land to wafte as we pleafe. In Europe the object is to make the most of their land, labour being abundant; here it is to make the most of our labour, land being abundant.

It will be proper to explain how the numbers for the year 1782 have been obtained; and it was not from a perfect cenfus of the inhabitants. It will at the fame time develope the proportion between the free inhabitants and flaves. The following return of taxable articles for that year was given in.

Free.

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There were no returns from the 8 counties of Lincoln, Jefferson, Fayette, Monongalia, Yohogania, Ohio, Northampton, and York. To find the number of flaves which fhould have been returned instead of the 23,766 titheables, we muft mention that fome obfervations on a former cenfus had given reafon to believe that the numbers above and below 16 years of age were equal. The double of this number, therefore, to wit, 47,532, must be added to 211,698, which will give us 259,230 flaves of all ages and fexes. To find the number of free inhabitants, we must repeat the obfervation, that those above and below 16 are nearly equal. But as the number 53,289 omits the males between 16 and 21, we must fupply them from conjecture. On a former experiment it had appeared that about one-third of our militia, that is, of the males between 16 and 50, were unmarried. Knowing how early marriage takes place here, we fhall not be far wrong in fuppofing that the unmarried part of our militia are those between 16 and 21. If there be young men who do not marry till after 21, there are as many who marry before that age. But as the men above 50 were not included in the militia, we will fuppofe the unmarried, or those between 16 and 21, to be one-fourth of the whole number above 16, then we have the following calculation:

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In thefe 8 counties in the years 1779 and 1780 were

3,161 militia. Say then,

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12,644

To find the number of flaves, fay, as 284,208 to 259,230, fo is 12,644

to 11,532. Adding the third of thefe numbers to the firft, and the fourth to the fecond, we have,

Free

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567,614

But 296,852, the number of free inhabitants, are to 270,762, the number of flaves, nearly as 11 to 10. Under the mild treatment our flaves experience, and their wholefome, though coarse, food, this blot in our country increafes as faft, or fafter, than the whites. During the regal government, we had at one time obtained a law, which impofed fuch a duty on the importation of flaves, as amounted nearly to a prohibition, when one inconfiderate affembly, placed under a peculiarity of circumftance, repealed the law. This repeal met a joyful fanction from the then fovereign, and no devices, no expedients, which could ever after be attempted by fubfequent affemblies, and they feldom met without attempting them, could fucceed in getting the royal affent to a renewal of the duty. In the very first feflion held under the republican government, the affembly paffed a law for the perpetual prohibition of the importation of flaves. This will in fome meafure ftop the increase of this great political and moral evil, while the minds of our citizens may be ripening for a complete emancipation of human nature.'

Climate,] In an extenfive country, it will be expected that the climate is not the fame in all its parts. It is remarkable that, proceeding on the fame parallel of latitude weftwardly, the climate becomes colder in like manner as when you proceed northwardly. This continues to be the cafe till you attain the fummit of the Allegany, which is the highest land between the ocean and the Miffifippi. From thence, defcending in the fame latitude to the Miffifippi, the change reverfes; and, if we may believe travellers, it becomes warmer there than it is in the fame latitude on the fea fide. Their teftimony is ftrengthened by the vegetables and animals which fubfift and multiply there naturally, and do not on our fea coaft. Thus catalpas grow. fpontaneously on the Miffifippi, as far as the latitude of 37°, and reeds as far as 38°. Parroquets even winter on the Sioto, in the 39th degree of latitude. In the fummer of 1779, when the thermometer was at 90°, at Monticello, and 96° at Williamsburgh, it was 110° at Kafkafkia. Perhaps the mountain, which overhangs this village on the north fide, may, by its reflection, have contributed somewhat to produce this heat.'

Militia.

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