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" other periods, when their population was very " low, have lived in continual poverty and want, " and have been obliged to import corn. Egypt, "Palestine, Rome, Sicily, and Spain are cited " as particular exemplifications of this fact; and " it has been inferred, that an increase of popu"lation in any state, not cultivated to the ut" most, will tend rather to augment than dimi"nish the relative plenty of the whole society," &c. After contradicting this inference without giving any reasons against it, he goes on, "Scar" city and extreme poverty, therefore, may or

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may not accompany an increasing population, "according to circumstances. But they must "always accompany a permanently declining "population; because there has never been, "nor probably ever will be, any other cause "than want of food, which makes the popu"lation of a country permanently decline. In "the numerous instances of depopulation which " occur in history, the causes of it may always bė " traced to the want of industry, or the ill-di"rection of that industry, arising from violence, "bad government, ignorance, &c. which first " occasions a want of food, and of course depo. "pulation follows. When Rome adopted the "custom of importing all her corn, and laying "all Italy into pasture, she soon declined in " population. The causes of the depopulation " of Egypt and Turkey have already been al"luded to; and in the case of Spain, it was " certainly not the numerical loss of people, " occasioned by the expulsion of the Moors; " but the industry and capital thus expelled, "which permanently injured her population." [I do not myself see, how the expulsion of capital could permanently injure the population.] "When a country has been depopulated by " violent causes, if a bad government, with its " usual concomitant, insecurity of property,

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ensue, which has generally been the case in "all those countries which are now less peopled "than formerly; neither the food nor the po"pulation, will recover themselves, and the in" habitants will probably live in severe want." &c. Yet Mr. Malthus elsewhere affects to consider all human institutions and contrivances as perfectly indifferent to the question. We have here, however, a truer account of the matter. The state of population is evidently no proof of what it might be : to judge whether it is more or less than it might or ought to be, we must take into consideration good and bad government, the progress of civilization, &c. It is a thing de facto, not. de jure. It is not that rock, against which whosoever sets himself shall be dashed to pieces, but the clay moulded by the potter into vessels of honour or dishonour.

With respect to Spain, it is allowed that her po. pulation is deficient, or short of what it might be. The problem of political economy I take to be, how far this is the case with respect to all other countries, and how to remedy the defect ; or how to support the greatest number of people in the greatest degree of comfort. But I have said this more than once before.

To the same purpose I might quote Algernon Sydney, who in his Discourses on government gives the following account of the decline and weakness of many of the modern states from the loss of liberty.*

" I take Greece to have been happy and glo"rious, when it was full of populous cities, " flourishing in all the arts that deserve praise

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among men; when they were courted and "feared by the greatest kings, and never as"saulted by any but to his own loss and confu"sion; when Babylon and Susa trembled at the "motion of their arms: and their valour, exer"cised in those wars and tumults, which our "author [Filmer] looks upon as the greatest “evils, was raised to such a power, that nothing

* This is a work which I would recommend to every reader of whatever party, not only for the knowledge it contains, but for the purity, simplicity, and noble dignity of the style. It smacks of the old Roman elevation.

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upon earth was found able to resist them. " And I think it now miserable, when peace " reigns within their empty walls, and the poor " remains of those exhausted nations, sheltering " themselves under the ruins of the desolated " cities, have neither any thing that deserves to " be disputed among them, nor spirit or force to "repel the injuries they daily suffer from a

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" proud and insupportable master."

"The like may be said of Italy. Whilst it "was inhabited by nations governing them"selves by their own will, they fell sometimes " into domestic seditions, and had frequent " wars with their neighbours. When they were " free, they loved their country and were always "ready to fight in its defence. Such as suc"ceeded well, increased in vigour and power; "and even those which were the most unfortu"nate in one age, found means to repair their " losses, if their government continued. While " they had a property in their goods, they would "not suffer the country to be invaded, since "they knew they could have none, if it were "lost. This gave occasion to wars and tumults; "it sharpened their courage, kept up a good "discipline, and the nations that were most ex"ercised by them, always increased in power

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" and number: so that no country seems ever " to have been of greater strength than Italy " was when Hannibal invaded it, and after his "defeat the rest of the world was not able to " resist their valour and power. They some"times killed one another; but their enemies "never got any thing but burying-places within " their territories. All things are now brought "into a very different method by the blessed "governments they are under. The fatherly "care of the king of Spain, the pope, and "other princes has established peace among "them. We have not in many ages heard " of any sedition among the Latins, Sabines, "Volsci, Equi, Samnites, and others. The "thin, half-starved inhabitants of walls sup"ported by ivy fear neither popular tumults " nor foreign alarms; and their sleep is only in"terrupted by hunger, the cries of their chil"dren, or the howling of wolves. Instead of

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many turbulent, contentious cities, they have " a few scattered, silent cottages; and the " fierceness of those nations is so tempered, that

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every rascally collector of taxes extorts, with" out fear, from every man, that which should " be the nourishment of his family. And if

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any of those countries are free from these

" pernicious vermin, it is through the extremity " of their poverty."

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