very admissions of those who are anxious to demonstrate to the contrary, that emigration has been the main cause of that rapid increase in the population of America, on which alone they build their entire system.

(12) Do I deny, then, that the inhabitants of the colonies of America, now the United States, have also increased rapidly by internal generation, as well as by these foreign accessions? By no means: on the contrary, such a supposition would be adverse to the principle of population, which, it will be seen in the sequel, I wish to establish. I may express my opinion in the words of the philosopher of that country, that American increase is, undoubtedly, very rapid, but that" it becomes more so by the accession of

strangers1;" or of its geographer, who says, "that their numbers rapidly increase, both by emi"grations from Europe, and by natural population 2;" and that the community, therefore, "is composed of "people of almost all nations, languages, characters, "and religions3;" or, lastly, in the language of one of the first and best of its statistical writers, who, in replying to the very query we are now answering, says, that the vast increase in their population has been derived," in great numbers, from various parts "of Europe, by incessant streams of emigration *."

1 Dr. Franklin, Works, vol. ii., p. 157.

Dr. Morse, Geog., p. 63.

3 Ibid.

Coxe, View of the United States,

P-202.

586

CHAPTER XV.

OF THE POPULATION OF CHINA: THE GENERAL ARGUMENTS FOUNDED ON ITS SUPPOSED DENSITY,

STATED AND DISPROVED.

(1) I COME now to the consideration of China, which, of all countries in the world, is supposed to present the strongest evidence of the superfecundity of human beings. Nay, so frequently and so confidently have the advocates of that doctrine appealed to China in its support, that the very mention of its name brings with it the idea of extensive population, with its supposed concomitants, universal vice and misery. In America, their geometric theory of human duplication is represented as being in full progress; in China, as being consummated;-checked and arrested by those terrible correctives, the very mention of which fills the heart with mingled horror and disgust. Happily, however, neither representation is true. That regarding America has been already shewn to be otherwise; it will be an easier task to prove that respecting China to be a still grosser fiction.

(2) It is a curious, though a painful, subject, to reflect upon the uses which the very imperfect information we have had, at least till of late, regarding the latter country has been eagerly applied. A number of persons from the heart of Europe, as MalteBrun has well oberved, have busied themselves in raising encomiums upon China'; generally, however,

1 Malte-Brun, 1. xliv., p. 607.

in order to further some favourite view. One while it was the constant theme of infidelity, because it was supposed to afford a standing refutation of the Mosaic records, and, by consequence, of Christianity. Its history was stated to stretch out some fifteen thousand years beyond the biblical era of the creation; and the absurdity of supposing that the rest of mankind remained so many millenniums without advancing in knowledge, or either inventing or acquiring the means of perpetuating historical facts, was wholly overlooked in favour of the preposterous pretensions of one of the most ignorant and mendacious people upon earth. This delusion has passed away, though it is to be doubted whether the effects it produced, when urged by such men as Voltaire, have subsided, Now, however, the same country has become the very paradise of our anti-populationists, in which, as they suppose, their theory luxuriates in its full vigour and maturity. Hence the very mention of China is held sufficient to prove that the starving wretch, whose sole crime is that of having a family, has not the least claim, as of right, to the smallest portion of food, and that the law which concedes it to him is absurd in itself, and mischievous in its consequences. The encouragements to marriage are pointed out in that empire, and brought home to our own; and the consequences are so represented, as to shew that, whether the institution be that of Nature and of God, or otherwise, it is wholly irreconcileable with human happiness, except so repressed as to comport with the views of these writers. It were superfluous to shew the unhappy influence which this perpetual appeal to the experience of so vast a portion of the human race must have upon the principles and feelings of those who credit it, or to assert the duty of dispelling so gross and pernicious a delusion. At all

events, the present work would be obviously incomplete without attempting to do so.

(3) If any department of knowledge accessible to human beings has been progressively enlarged and illustrated, it is, undoubtedly, geography; and at the very outset of an inquiry like the present, and concerning a country which, though hitherto inadequately known, is still far more so than it was till very recently, it seems not a little suspicious, that the early accounts are relied upon, and false as many, and marvellous as the whole of them are, that they should be preferred to much later and more authentic information. The author to whom I shall still principally attend has, indeed, made a few references to Sir George Staunton, who had, confessedly, very limited means of information, and was greatly imposed upon by the representations of the natives; but to this hour he has made not the slightest mention of Barrow, Ellis, Abel, and others, who have rectified many of the statements made by the former author. But even Staunton is only quoted in proof of the great fertility and general and judicious cultivation of the soil, and of the universal encouragement of marriage; of agriculture; and a few other similar topics. But when the evils of the principle of population have to be demonstrated from this empire, other authorities are exclusively consulted. The writers of the "Edifying and Curious Letters," published, as we are told, to fan the devotions of a Maintenon, are still to pourtray to us an empire which many of our own scientific countrymen have traversed and described within these few years past. Even before better information was obtained, no one thought theirs was worthy of implicit credit. Duhalde himself, whose history was principally made up of a careful selection from them, mentions in the

outset their want of exactness and precision, and accuses them elsewhere of exaggeration, which Lord Macartney particularly notices3. The former, however, presents in their behalf this most weighty excuse: "They had," he said, "only seen the finest and most "populous provinces, and hence their exaggerations "as to the number of the inhabitants. Barrow speaks of these "reverend gentlemen 5" and "their pleasant stories" in less exculpatory terms; though not so plainly as does Adam Smith, who denominates them, at once, "stupid and lying missionaries'," who, nevertheless, as another author observes, "contrived to impose upon Europeans their absurd and ridiculous "notions." Perhaps, however, they were generally "weak and credulous"," as Malte-Brun describes them, rather than wilfully mendacious. And they had the apology frequently of knowing little of the subject on which they wrote; thus, one of them, F. Attiret, describing his journey, thus expresses himself: "Half the way we came by water, and both ate "and lodged in our boats. We were not allowed to

"

go ashore, or even to look out of the windows of our "covered boats to observe the face of the country as "we passed along. We made the latter part of our journey in a sort of cage, which they were pleased "to call a litter. In this, too, we were shut up all "the day long, and, at night, carried to our inns,

(and very wretched inns they are,) and thus we got "to Pekin, with our curiosity quite unsatisfied, and "with seeing but very little more than if one had been