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Hence cities do not, by natural generation, supply themselves with inhabitants; the deaths are more than the births.

4. In countries full settled, the case must be nearly the same, all lands being occupied and improved to the height; those who cannot get land, must labour for others that have it; when labourers are plenty, their wages will be low; by low wages a family is supported with difficulty; this difficulty deters many from marriage, who therefore long continue servants and single. Only, as the cities take supplies of people from the country, and thereby make a little more room in the country, marriage is a little more encouraged there, and the births exceed the deaths.

5. Great part of Europe is fully settled with husbandmen, manufacturers, &c. and therefore cannot now much increase in people. America is chiefly occupied by Indians, who subsist mostly by hunting. But as the hunter, of all men, requires the greatest quantity of land from whence to draw his subsistence, (the husbandman subsisting on much less, the gardener on still less, and the manufacturer requiring least of all) the Europeans found America as fully settled as it well could be by hunters; yet these, having large tracts, were easily prevailed on to part with portions of territory to the new comers, who did not much interfere with the natives in hunting, and furnished them with many things they wanted.

6. Land being thus plenty in America, and so cheap, as that a labouring man that understands husbandry, can, in a short time, save money enough to purchase a piece of new land, sufficient for a

plantation, whereon he may subsist a family; such are not afraid to marry; for if they even look far enough forward to consider how their children, when grown up, are to be provided for, they see that more land is to be had at rates equally easy, all circumstances considered.

7. Hence marriages in America are more general, and more generally early, than in Europe. And if it is reckoned there, that there is but one marriage per annum among one hundred persons, perhaps we may here reckon two; and if in Europe they have but four births to a marriage, (many of their marriages being late), we may here reckon eight, of which, if one half grow up, (and our marriages are made, reckoning one with another, at twenty years of age) our people must at least be doubled every twenty years.

8. But notwithstanding this increase, so vast is the territory of North America, that it will require many ages to settle it fully; and till it is fully settled labour will never be cheap here, where no man continues long a labourer for others, but gets a plantation of his own; no man continues long a journeyman to a trade, but goes among those new settlers, and sets up for himself, &c. Hence labour is no cheaper now in Pennsylvania, than it was thirty years ago, though so many thousand labouring people have been imported from Germany and Ireland.

9. The danger therefore of these colonies interfering with their mother country, in trades that depend on labour, manufactures, &c. is too remote to require the attention of Great Britain.

10. But, in proportion to the increase of the colonies, a vast demand is growing for British manu

factures; a glorious market, wholly in the power of Britain, in which foreigners cannot interfere, which will increase, in a short time, even beyond her power of supplying, though her whole trade should be to her colonies.

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12. It is an ill-grounded opinion, that, by the labour of slaves, America may possibly vie in cheapness of manufactures with Britain. The labour of slaves can never be so cheap here as the labour of working men is in Britain. Any one may compute it. Interest of money is in the colonies from six to ten per cent. Slaves, one with another, cost 30%. sterling per head. Reckon then the interest of the first purchase of a slave, the insurance or risk on his life, his clothing and diet, expenses in his sickness, and loss of time, loss by his neglect of business, (neglect is natural to the man who is not to be benefited by his own care or diligence) expense of a driver to keep him at work, and his pilfering from time to time, (almost every slave being, from the nature of slavery, a thief,) and compare the whole amount with the wages of a manufacturer of iron or wool in England, you will see that labour is much cheaper there than it ever can be by negroes here. Why then will Americans purchase slaves? Because slaves may be kept as long as a man pleases, or has occasion for their labour, while hired men are continually leaving their master (often in the midst of his business) and setting up for themselves.

13. As the increase of people depends on the encouragement of marriages, the following things must diminish a nation; viz. 1. The being conquered; for the conquerors will engross as many offices, and exact as much tribute or profit on the

labour of the conquered, as will maintain them in their new establishment; and this diminishing the subsistence of the natives, discourages their marriages, and so gradually diminishes them, while the foreigners increase. 2. Loss of territory. Thus the Britons, being driven into Wales, and crowded together in a barren country, insufficient to support such great numbers, diminished, till the people bore a proportion to the produce; while the Saxons increased on their abandoned lands, till the island became full of English; and were the English now driven into Wales by some foreign nation, there would, in a few years, be no more Englishmen in Britain than there are now people in Wales. 3. Loss of trade. Manufactures, exported, draw subsistence from foreign countries for numbers, who are thereby enabled to marry and raise families. If the nation be deprived of any branch of trade, and no new employment is found for the people occupied in that branch, it will soon be deprived of so many people. 4. Loss of food. Suppose a nation has a fishery, which not only employs great numbers, but makes the food and subsistence of the people cheaper: if another nation becomes master of the seas, and prevents the fishery, the people will diminish in proportion as the loss of employ and dearness of provision makes it more difficult to subsist a family. 5. Bad government and insecure property. People not only leave such a country, and, settling abroad, incorporate with other nations, lose their native language, and become foreigners; but the industry of those that remain being discouraged, the quantity of subsistence in the country is lessened, and the support of a family be

comes more difficult. So heavy taxes tend to diminish a people. 6. The introduction of slaves. The negroes, brought into the English sugar islands, have greatly diminished the whites there; the poor are by this means deprived of employment, while a few families acquire vast estates, which they spend on foreign luxuries; and, educating their children in the habit of those luxuries, the same income is needed for the support of one that might have maintained one hundred. The whites, who have slaves, not labouring, are enfeebled, and therefore not so generally prolific; the slaves being worked too hard and ill fed, their constitutions are broken, and the deaths among them are more than the births; so that a continual supply is needed from Africa. The northern colonies having few slaves, increase in whites. Slaves also pejorate the families that use them; the white children become proud, disgusted with labour, and, being educated in idleness, are rendered unfit to get a living by industry.

14. Hence the prince that acquires new territory, if he finds it vacant, or removes the natives to give his own people room;-the legislator that makes effectual laws for promoting of trade, increasing employment, improving land by more or better tillage, providing more food by fisheries, securing property, &c.-and the man that invents new trades, arts, or manufactures, or new improvements in husbandry, may be properly called fathers of their nation, as they are the cause of the generation of multitudes, by the encouragement they afford to marriage.

15. As to privileges granted to the married, (such

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