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would diffufe life and vigour through every corner of the island.

To execute fuch a plan, would, I acknowledge, require great penetration and much perseverance. I fhall fuggest what occurs at present. The first step must be, to mark proper fpots for the nine towns, the most advantageous for trade, or for manufactures. If any of these spots be occupied already with fmall towns, fo much the better. The next step is a capitation-tax on the inhabitants of London ; the fum levied to be appropriated for encouraging the new towns. One encouragement would have a good effect; which is, a premium to every man who builds in any of these towns, more or lefs, in proportion to the fize of the house. would banish from London, every

This tax

manufac

ture but of the most lucrative kind. When by this means, the inhabitants of London are reduced to a number not much above 100,000, the near profpect of being relieved from the tax, will make householders active to banifh all above that number: and to prevent a renewal of the tax, a greater number will never again be permitted. It would require much political

skill to proportion the fums to be levied and distributed, fo as to have their proper effect, without overburdening the capital on the one hand, or giving too great encouragement for building on the other, which might tempt people to build for the premium merely, without any further view. Much will depend on an advantageous fituation: houfes built there will always find inhabitants.

The two great cities of London and Westminster are extremely ill fitted for local union. The latter, the feat of government and of the nobleffe, infects the former with luxury and with love of fhow. The former, the feat of commerce, infects the latter with love of gain. The mixture of these oppofite paffions, is productive of every groveling vice.

SKETCH

SKETCH

XII.

Origin and Progrefs of American Nations,

HAving no authentic materials for a natural hiftory of all the Americans, the following obfervations are confined to a few tribes, the best known; and to the kingdoms of Peru and Mexico, as they were at the date of the Spanish conquest.

As there has not been discovered any paffage by land to America from the old world, no problem has more embarraffed the learned, than to account for the origin of American nations: there are as many different opinions as there are writers. Many attempts have been made for difcovering a paffage by land; but hitherto in vain. Kamfkatka, it is true, is divided from America by a narrow ftrait, full of iflands and M. Buffon, to render the paffage ftill more eafy than by these iflands, conjectures, that thereabout there may formerly have been a land-paffage, fwallowed up in later times by the ocean.

There

There is indeed great appearance of truth in this conjecture; as all the quadrupeds of the north of Afia feem to have made their way to America; the bear, for example, the roe, the deer, the rain-deer, the beaver, the wolf, the fox, the hare, the rat, the mole. He admits, that in America there is not to be feen a lion, a tiger, a panther, or any other Afiatic quadruped of a hot climate: not, fays he, for want of a land-paffage; but because the cold climate of Tartary, in which such animals cannot fubfift, is an effectual bar against them *.

But to give fatisfaction upon this fubject, more is required than a paffage from Kamskatka to America, whether by land or fea. An inquiry much more decifive is totally overlooked, relative to the people on the two fides of the ftrait; particularly, whether they have the fame language.

* Our author, with fingular candor, admits it as a strong objection to his theory, that there are no rain-deer in Afia. But it is doing no more but juftice to so fair a reafoner, to obferve, that according to the latest accounts, there are plenty of raindeer in the country of Kamfkatka, which of all is the nearest to America.

Now

Now by late accounts from Ruffia we are informed, that there is no affinity between the Kamskatkan tongue, and that of the Americans on the oppofite fide of the strait. Whence we may affuredly conclude, that the latter are not a colony of the former.

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But further. There are feveral cogent arguments to evince, that the Americans are not defcended from any people in the north of Afia or in the north of Europe. Were they defcended from either, Labrador, or the adjacent countries, must have been first peopled. And as favages are remarkably fond of their natal foil, they would have continued there, till compelled by over-population to fpread wider for food. But the fact is directly contrary. When America was discovered by the Spaniards, Mexico and Peru were fully peopled; and the other parts lefs and lefs, in proportion to their distance from thefe central countries. Fabry reports, that one may travel one or two hundred leagues north- weft from the Miffifippi, without feeing a human face, or any veftige of a houfe. And fome French officers fay, that they travelled more than a hundred leagues from the delicious country watered

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