Book II. temptation of high wages, making every one flock to the capital, robs the country of its beft hands. And as they who refort to the capital are commonly young people, who remove as foon as they are fit for work, diftant provinces are burdened with their maintenance, without reaping any benefit by their labour.

But of all, the most deplorable effect of a great city, is the preventing of population, by shortening the lives of its inhabitants. Does a capital fwell in proportion to the numbers that are drained from the country? Far from it. The air of a populous city is infected by multitudes crouded together; and people there feldom make out the ufual time of life. With refpect to London in particular, the fact is but too well afcertained. The burials in that immenfe city greatly exceed the births: the difference fome affirm to be no lefs than ten thoufand yearly by the moft moderate computation, not under feven or eight thoufand. As London is far from being on the decline, the confumption of fo many inhabitants must be supplied from the country; and the annual fupply amounts probably to a greater number than were needed annually for recruiting our armies and navies in the late war with France. If fo, London is a greater enemy to population, than a bloody war would be, fuppofing it even to be perpetual. What an enormous tax is Britain thus fubjected to for fupporting her capital! The rearing and educating yearly for London 7 or 8000 perfons, require an immenfe fum.

In Paris, if the bills of mortality can be relied on, the births and burials are nearly equal, being each of them about 19,000 yearly; and according to that computation, Paris fhould need no recruits from the country. But in that city, the bills of mortality cannot be depended on for burials. It is there univerfally the practice of high and low, to have their infants nurfed in the country, till they be three years of age; and confequently those who die before that age, are not inlifted. What proportion these bear to the whole is uncertain. But a guefs may be made from fuch as die in London; which are computed to be one half of the whole that die («). Now giving the utmost allowance

(a) See Dr. Price, p. 362.

for

of

for the healthinefs of the country above that of a town, Paris children that die in the country before the age three, cannot be brought fo low as a third of those that die. On the other hand, the London bills of mortality are lefs to be depended on for births than for burials. None are inlifted but infants baptized by clergymen of the English church; and the numerous children of Papifts, Diffenters, and other fectaries, are left out of the account. Upon the whole, the difference between the births and burials in Paris and in London, is much less than it appears to be on comparing the bills of mortality of thefe two cities.

At the fame time, giving full allowance for children that are not brought into the London bills of mortality, there is the highest probability that a greater number of children are born in Paris than in London; and confequently that the former requires fewer recruits from the country than the latter. In Paris, domeftic fervants are encouraged to marry: they are obferved to be more fettled than when batchelors, and more attentive to their duty. In London, fuch marriages are difcouraged, as rendering a fervant more attentive to his own family, than that of his master. At any rate, is he not more to be depended on, than a fervant who continues a batchelor? What can be expected of idle and pampered batchelors, but debauchery, and every fort of corruption? Nothing reftrains them from abfolute profligacy, but the eye of the mafter, who for that reafon is their averfion not their love. If the poor-laws be named the folio of corruption, batchelor-fervants in London may well be confidered as a large appendix. And this attracts the eye to the poor-laws, which indeed make the chief difference between Paris and London, with respect to the prefent point. In Paris, certain funds are established for the poor, the yearly produce of which adınits but a limited number. As that fund is always pre-occupied, the low people who are not on the lift, have little or no profpect of bread, but from their own industry; and to the induftrious, marriage is in a great meafure neceffary. In London, a parish is taxed in proportion to the number of its poor;

and

and every person who is pleased to be idle, is entitled to maintenance. Moft things thrive by encouragement, and idleness above all. Certainty of maintenance, renders the low people in England idle and profligate; efpecially in London, where luxury prevails, and infects every rank. So infolent are the London poor, that fcarce one of them will condescend to eat brown bread. There are accordingly in London, a much greater number of idle and profligate wretches, than in Paris, ors in any other town in proportion to the number of inhabitants. These wretches, in Doctor Swift's style, never think of pofterity, because pofterity never thinks of them: men who hunt after pleasure, and live from day to day, have no notion of being burdened with a family. Thefe caufes produce a greater number of children in Paris than in London; though probably they, differ not much in populoufnefs..

I fhall add but one other objection to a great city, which is not flight. An overgrown capital, far above a rival, has, by numbers and riches, a diftreffing influence in public affairs. The populace are ductile, and eafily miffed by ambitious and defigning magiftrates. Nor are there wanting critical times, in which fuch magiftrates, acquiring artificial influence, may have power to difturb the public peace. That an overgrown capi- tal may prove dangerous to fovereignty, has more than once been experienced both in Paris and London.

It would give one the spleen, to hear the French and English zealously difputing about the extent of their capitals, as if the profperity of their country depended on that circumftance. To me it appears like one glorying in the king's-evil, or in any contagious diftemper. Much better employed would they be, in contriving means for leffening thofe cities. There is not a political meafure, that, in my opinion, would tend more to aggran dize the kingdom of France, or of Britain, than to split its capital into several great towns. My plan would be, to confine the inhabitants of London to 100,000, compofed of the king and his household, fupreme courts of juftice, government-boards, prime nobility and gentry, with neceffary fhop-keepers, artists, and other dependents. Let the reft of the inhabitants be diftributed in

to

to nine towns properly fituated, fome for internal commerce, fome for foreign. Such a plan would diffuse life and vigour through every corner of the island.

To execute fuch a plan, would, I acknowledge, require the deepest political skill, and much perfeverance. I fhall fuggeft what occurs at prefent. 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 ftep 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 thefe towns, more or lefs, in proportion to the fize of the houfe, This tax would banish from London, every manufacture but 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 every householder active to banish all above that number: and to prevent a renewal of the tax, a greater number will never again be permitted. It would require great penetration to proportion the fuins 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 inha

bitants.

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 show. The former, the feat of commerce, infects the latter with love of gain. The mixture of thefe oppofite paffions, is productive of every groveling vice.

SKETCH

SKETCH XII.

Origin and Progress of AMERICAN NATIONS.

H

AVING no authentic materials for a natural hiftory of all the Americans, the following obfervations fhall be confined to a few tribes the best known ; and to the kingdom of Peru and Mexico, as they were at the date of the Spanish conqueft.

As there appears no paffage by land to America from the old world, no problem has more embarraffed. the learned, than to give an account from whence the Americans fprang: there are as many different opinions, as there are writers. Many attempts have been made for discovering a paffage by land; but hitherto in vain. Kamikatka, it is true, is divided from America by a narrow ftrait, full of islands: and M. Buffon, to render the paffage ftill more eafy than by fea, conjectures, that thereabout there may formerly have been a landpaffage, though now washed away by violence of the ocean. 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 fuch anunals cannot fubfift, is an effectual bar against them *.

But in my apprehenfion, much more is required to give fatisfaction upon this fubject, than a paffage from Kamskatka to America, whether by land or fea. An enquiry much more decifive is totally overlooked, relative to the people on the two fides of the ftreight; particularly,

* Our author, with a 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 justice to fo fair a reafoner, to obferve, that according to the lateft accounts, there are plenty of raindeer in the country of Kamskatka, which of all is the nearest to America.