ample: If Sword or Peftilence fhould deftroy all the People of this Metropolis, (God forbid there fhould be Room for fuch a Suppofition! but if this should be the Cafe) the Queen must needs lofe a great Part of her Revenue, or, at least, what is charged upon the City must encrease the Burthen upon the rest of her Subjects. Perhaps the Inhabitants here are not above a Tenth Part of the whole; yet as they are better fed, and cloath'd, and lodg'd, than her other Subjects, the Cuftoms and Excifes upon their Confumption, the Imposts upon their Houfes, and other Taxes, do very probably make a fifth Part of the whole Revenue of the Crown. But this is not all; the Confumption of the City takes off a great Part of the Fruits of the whole Ifland; and as it pays fuch a Proportion of the Rent or Yearly Value of the Lands in the Country, so it is the Caufe of paying fuch a Proportion of Taxes upon thofe Lands. The Lofs then of fuch a People muft needs be fenfible to the Prince, and visible to the whole Kingdom.

On the other Hand, if it should please God to drop from Heaven a new People equal in Number and Riches to the City, I fhould be ready to think their Excises, Cuftoms, and Houfe-Rent, would raise as great a Revenue to the Crown as would be loft in the former Cafe. And as the Confumption of this new Body would be a new Market for the Fruits of the Country, all the Lands, efpecially those most adjacent, would rife in their yearly Value, and pay greater yearly Taxes to the Publick. The Gain in this Cafe would be as fenfible as the former Lofs.

WHATSOEVER is affefs'd upon the General, is levied upon Individuals. It were worth the while then to confider what is paid by, or by means of, the meanest Subjects, in order to compute the Value of every Subject to the Prince.

FOR my own Part, I fhould believe that Seven Eighths of the People are without Property in themfelves or the Heads of their Families, and forced to work for their daily Bread; and that of this Sort there are Seven Millions in the whole Ifland of Great-Bri

tain:

tain: And yet one would imagine that feven Eighths of the whole People fhould confume at least three Fourths of the whole Fruits of the Country. If this is the Cafe, the Subjects without Property pay three Fourths of the Rents, and confequently enable the landed Men to pay three Fourths of their Taxes. Now if fo great a Part of the Land-Tax were to be divided by Seven Millions, it would amount to more than three Shillings to every Head. And thus as the Poor are the Caufe, without which the Rich could not pay this Tax, even the poorest Subject is upon this Account worth three Shillings yearly to the Prince.

AGAIN: One would imagine the Confumption of feven Eighths of the whole People fhould pay two Thirds of all the Cuftoms and Excifes. And if this Sum too fhould be divided by feven Millions, viz. the Number of poor People, it would amount to more than feven Shillings to every Head: And therefore with this and the former Sum every poor Subject, without Property, except of his Limbs or Labour, is worth at least ten Shillings yearly to the Sovereign. So much then the Queen lofes with every one of her old, and gains with every one of her new Subjects.

WHEN I was got into this way of thinking, I prefently grew conceited of the Argument, and was just pro paring to write a Letter of Advice to a Member of Parliament, for opening Freedom of our Towns and Trades, for taking away all manner of Distinctions between the Natives and the Foreigners, for repealing our Laws of Parish Settlements, and removing every other Obstacle to the Increase of the People. But as foon as I had recollected with what inimitable Eloquence my Fellow-Labourers had exaggerated the Mischiefs of felling the Birth-right of Britons for a Shilling, of spoiling the pure British Blood with foreign Mixtures, of introducing a Confusion of Languages and Religions, and of letting in Strangers to eat the Bread out of the Mouths of our own People, I became fo humble as to let my Project fall to the Ground, and leave my Country to increase by the ordinary Way of Generation.

AS I have always at Heart the Publick Good, fo I am ever contriving Schemes to promote it; and I think I may without Vanity pretend to have contrived fome as wife as any of the Caftle-builders. I had no fooner given up my former Project, but my Head was presently full of draining Fens and Marfhes, banking out the Sea, and joining new Lands to my Country; for fince it is thought impracticable to encrease the People to the Land, I fell immediately to confider how much would be gained to the Prince by encreafing the Land to the People.

IF the fame omnipotent Power which made the World, fhould at this time raife out of the Ocean and join to Great Britain an equal Extent of Land, with equal Buildings, Corn, Cattle, and other Conveniences and Neceffaries of Life, but no Men, Women, nor Children, I fhould hardly believe this would add either to the Riches of the People, or Revenue of the Prince; for fince the prefent Buildings are fufficient for all the Inhabitants, if any of them fhould forfake the old to inhabit the new Part of the Ifland, the Increase of House-Rent in this would be attended with at least an equal Decreafe of it in the other: Befides, we have fuch a Sufficiency of Corn and Cattle, that we give Bounties to our Neighbours to take what exceeds of the former off our Hands, and we will not fuffer any of the latter, to be imported upon us by our Fellow-Subjects; and for the remaining Product of the Country 'tis already equal to all our Markets. But if all thefe Things fhould be doubled to the fame Buyers, the Owners muft be glad with half their prefent Prices, the Landlords with half their prefent Rents; and thus by fo great an Enlargement of the Country, the Rents in the whole would not encrease, nor the Taxes to the Publick.

ON the contrary, I fhould believe they would be very much diminished; for as the Land is only valuable for its Fruits, and these are all perishable, and for the most part muft either be used within the Year, or perifh without Ufe, the Owners will get rid of them at any rate, rather than they fhould wafte in their Pof

tefiion:

feffion: So that 'tis probable the annual Production of thofe perishable things, even of one tenth Part of them, beyond all Poffibility of Ufe, will reduce one Half of their Value. It feems to be for this Reason that our Neighbour Merchants who ingrofs all the Spices, and know how great a Quantity is equal to the Demand, deftroy all that exceeds it. It were natural then to think that the Annual Production of twice as much as can be ufed, must reduce all to an Eighth Part of their present Prices; and thus this extended Island wou'd not exceed one fourth Part of the prefent Tax.

IT is generally obferved, That in Countries of the greatest Plenty there is the pooreft Living; like the Schoolmen's Afs, in one of my Speculations, the People almoft ftarve between two Meals. The Truth is, the Poor, which are the Bulk of a Nation, work only that they may live; and if with two Days Labour they can get a wretched Subfiftance for a Week, they will hardly be brought to work the other four: But then with the Wages of two Days they can neither pay fuch Prices for their Provifions, nor fuch Excifes to the Govern

ment.

THAT Paradox therefore in old Hefiod πλέον ήμισυ Tarlós, or Half is more than the Whole, is very applica ble to the prefent Cafe; fince nothing is more true in political Arithmetick, than that the fame People with half a Country is more valuable than with the Whole. I begin to think there was nothing abfurd in Sir W. Petty, when he fancied if all the Highlands of Scotland and the whole Kingdom of Ireland were funk in the Ocean, fo that the People were all faved and brought into the Lowlands of Great-Britain; nay, though they were to be reimburst the Value of their Eftates by the Body of the People, yet both the Sovereign and the Subjects in general would be enriched by the very

Lofs.

IF the People only make the Riches, the Father of ten Children is a greater Benefactor to his Country, than he who has added to it 10000 Acres of Land and no People. It is certain Lewis has joyn'd vaft Tracts of

G 2

Land

No 201! Land to his Dominions But if Philarithmus fays true that he is not now Mafter of fo many Subjects as before; we may then account for his not being able to bring fuch mighty Armies into the Field, and for their being neither fo well fed, nor cloathed, nor paid as formerly. The Reafon is plain, Lewis muft needs have been impoverished not only by his Lofs of Subjects, but by his Acquifition of Lands.

T

N° 201. Saturday, October 20.

I

Religentem effe oportet, Religiofum nefas.

Incerti Autoris apud Aul. Gell.

T is of the laft Importance to feafon the Paffions of a Child with Devotion, which feldom dies in a Mind that has received an early Tincture of it. Though it may feem extinguifhed for a while by the Cares of the World, the Heats of Youth, or the Allurements of Vice, it generally breaks out and difcovers it felf again as soon as Difcretion, Confideration, Age, or Misfortunes have brought the Man to himself. The Fire may be covered and overlaid, but cannot be entirely quenched and fmothered.

A State of Temperance, Sobriety, and Juftice, without Devotion, is a cold, lifeless, infipid Condition of Virtue; and is rather to be ftiled Philofophy than Religion. Devorion opens the Mind to great Conceptions, and fills it with more fublime Ideas than any that are to be met with in the most exalted Science; and at the fame Time warms and agitates the Soul more than fenfual Pleasure.

IT has been obferved by fome Writers, that Man is more diftinguished from the Animal World by Devotion than by Reason, as feveral Brute Creatures difcover in their Actions fomething like a faint Glimmering of Reason, though they betray in no fingle Circumftance

of