have been brought over sea) and yet perhaps there is not one the fewer in Britain, but rather many more, on account of the employment the colonies afford to manufacturers at home. This million doubling, suppose but once in 25 years, will, in another century, be more than the people of England, and the greatest number of Englishmen will be on this side the water. What an accession of power to the British empire by sea as well as land! What increase of trade and navigation! What numbers of ships and seamen! We have been here but little more than a hundred years, and yet the force of our privateers in the late war, united, was greater, both in men and guns, than that of the whole British navy in queen Elizabeth's time. How important an affair then to Britain is the present treaty for settling the bounds between her colonies and the French! and how careful should she be to secure room enough, since on the room depends so much the increase of her people? 23. In fine, a nation well regulated is like a polypus †, take away a limb, its place is soon supplied; cut it in two, and each deficient part shall speedily grow out of the part remaining. Thus, if you have room and subsistence enough, as you may, by dividing, make ten polypuses out of one, you may, of one, make ten nations, equally populous and powerful; or, rather, increase a nation tenfold in numbers and strength. * In 1751. +A water insect, well known to naturalists. 2 C4 R. L. ESO. OF LONDON, TO BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, Remarks on some of the foregoing Observations, showing particularly the Effect which manners have on Population. DEAR SIR, IT is now near three years since I received your excellent Observations on the Increase of Mankind, &c. in which you have with so much sagacity and accuracy shwon in what manner, and by what causes, that prin cipal means of political grandeur is best promoted; and have so well supported those just inferences you have occasionally drawn, concerning the general state of our American colonies, and the views and conduct of some of the inhabitants of Great Britain. You have abundantly proved, that natural fecundity is hardly to be considered, because the vis generandi, as far as we know, is unlimited, and because experience shwos, that the numbers of nations is altogether governed by collateral causes, and among these none of so much force as quantity of subsistence, whether arising from climate, soil, improvement of tillage, trade, fisheries, secure property, conquest of new countries, or other favourable circumstances. As I perfectly concurred with you in your sentiments on these heads, I have been very desirous of building somewhat on the foundation you have there laid; and was induced, by your hints in the twenty-first section, to trouble you with some thoughts on the influence manners have always had, and are always likely to have, * Richard Jackson, an English barrister. Editor. on the numbers of a people, and their political prosperity in general. The end of every individual is its own private good. The rules it observes in the pursuit of this good are a system of propositions, almost every one founded in authority, that is, derive their weight from the credit given to one or more persons, and not from demonstration. And this, in the most important as well as the other affairs of life, is the case even of the wisest and philosophical part of the human species; and that it should be so is the less strange, when we consider, that it is perhaps impossible to prove, that being, or life itself, has any other value than what is set on it by authority. A confirmation of this may be derived from the observation, that, in every country in the universe, happiness is sought upon a different plan; and, even in the same country, we see it placed by different ages, professions, and ranks of men, in the attainment of enjoyments utterly unlike. These propositions, as well as others framed upon them, become habitual by degrees, and, as they govern the determination of the will, I call them moral habits. There are another set of habits, that have the direction of the members of the body, that I call therefore mechanical habits. These compose what we commonly call the arts, which are more or less liberal or mechanical, as they more or less partake of assistance from the operations of the mind. The cumulus of the moral habits of each individual is the manners of that individual; the cumulus of the manners of individuals makes up the manners of a nation. The happiness of individuals is evidently the ultimate end of political society; and political welfare, or the strength, splendour, and opulence of the state, have been always admitted, both by political writers, and the valuable part of mankind in general, to conduce to this end, and are therefore desirable. The causes, that advance or obstruct any one of these three objects, are external or internal. The latter may be divided into physical, civil, and personal, under which last head I comprehend the moral and mechanical habits of mankind. The physical causes are principally climate, soil, and number of subjects; the civil, are government and laws; and political welfare is always in a ratio composed of the force of these particular causes; a multitude of external causes, and all these internal ones, not only control and qualify, but are constantly acting on, and thereby insensibly, as well as sensibly, altering one another, both for the better and the worse, and this not excepting the climate itself. The powerful efficacy of manners in encreasing, a people is manifest from the instance you mention, the Quakers; among them industry and frugality multiply and extend the use of the' necessaries of life; to manners of a like kind are owing the populousness of Holland, Switzerland, China, Japan, and most parts of Indostan, &c. in every one of which, the force of extent of territory and fertility of soil is multiplied, or their want compensated by industry and frugality. Neither nature nor art have contributed much to the production of subsistence in Switzerland, yet we see frugality preserves and even increases families, that live on their fortunes, and which, in England, we call the gentry; and the observation we cannot but make in the the southern part of this kingdom, that those families, including all superior ones, are gradually becoming extinct, affords the clearest proof, that luxury (that is, a greater expence of subsistence than in prudence a man ought to consume) is as destructive as a proportionable want of it; but in Scotland, as in Switzerland, the gentry, though one with another they have not one-fourth of the income, increase in number. And here I cannot help remarking, by the by, how well founded your distinction is between the increase of mankind in old and new settled countries in general, and more particularly in the case of families of condition. In America, where the expences are more confined to necessaries, and those necessaries are cheap, it is common to see above one hundred persons descended from one living old man. In England, it frequently happens, where a man has seven, eight, or more children, there has not been a descendant in the next generation, occasioned by the difficulties the number of children has brought on the family, in a luxurious dear country, and which have prevented their marrying. That this is more owing to luxury than mere want appears from what I have said of Scotland, and more plainly from parts of England remote from London, in most of which the necessaries of life are nearly as dear, in some dearer than London, yet the people of all ranks marry and breed up children. Again; among the lower ranks of life, none produce so few children as servants. This is, in some measure, to be attributed to their situation, which hinders marriage, but is also to be attributed to their luxury and corruption of manners, which are greater than among any other set of people in England, and is the consequence |