ed by Dr Price, and the latter by Mr Eden,+ afterwards Lord Aukland; and it is not easy to say which of them is right. But little, therefore, as this account can be depended upon, those that have been prepared since the Revolution, from the returns of the collectors of the house and window duties, are still less worthy of credit. The collectors were only required to make out and return to the commissioners of assessed taxes, lists of the houses within their respective collections, chargeable with the duties in question. But all cottages exempted from the usual taxes to church and poor, were also exempted from the house and window duties; and there was no obligation on the officers to return an account of their numbers. Some of them no doubt imposed this task upon themselves, and performed it gratuitously; but it was either wholly neglected, or but very imperfectly performed by many more. There is also great reason to think that there have always been, and still are, very considerable errors in the accounts of the houses actually chargeable to the assessed taxes. In making out militia lists, at least in country parishes, where every individual is known to every other individual, it is not easy for the officers making the return to commit any error without its being detected; for if, either through accident or design, they omit any individuals that ought to be inserted, the chances of the ballot falling on those returned being proportionally increased, it becomes every one's interest to get the list amended, and the deficiencies supplied. But this is not the case in imposing assessed or other taxes. These are charges which every one is naturally desirous to escape altogether, or to get reduced below what they ought to be; and as no one else has any interest in the prevention of this sort of fraud, there is nothing to correct either the carelessness or connivance of the officers. Under these circumstances, there can be no doubt that the lists obtained by the collectors of the house and window duty must be inaccurate; and that but little reliance can be placed on any inferences drawn from them.

A famous controversy was carried on, during the latter part of the American war, between Dr Price on the one side, and Mr Wales and Mr Howlett on the other, with respect to the population of England. Dr Price maintained that the population had gradually decreased from the Revolution down to the period referred to; and that the ratio of decrease had increased during the twenty years ending with 1780. The Doc

Essay on the Population of England, p. 18.

+ Letters to Lord Carlisle, 3d edition, Appendix, p. 23.

tor principally relied, in supporting this opinion, on the returns of houses by the window-light surveyors. According to the interpretation given by him to the statement of Dr Davenant, already referred to, it appeared that there were 1,319,215 houses in England and Wales in 1690; and it appeared by the returns of the window-light surveyors that there were only 952,734 in 1777; so that Dr Price concluded, supposing five to be the average number of persons to a house, that the population must have declined in the course of 87 years, or in the interval between 1690 and 1777, from 6,596,075 to 4,763,670.* There were some collateral circumstances on which Dr Price founded; and he further endeavoured to show, that the diminution of population was not only directly proved, in the way now mentioned, but that though such direct proof had not been obtainable, there were circumstances in the condition of the country from which it might have been confidently inferred ;-the increased emigrations to the colonies, the drains occasioned by foreign wars, the increase of enclosures and of the size of farms, the overgrown magnitude of the metropolis, the progress of luxury, and so forth, being, as he affirmed, at once causes and consequences of a decrease of population. Had Dr Price been at all aware of the laws which really govern the increase of population, he would not, it is plain, have drawn any such inferences. The circumstances from which he deduced the conclusion that population must have diminished, were all of them in truth either quite immaterial, or went to show that it had really increased. But as the circumstances which determine the amount of population were then very imperfectly known, the statements and reasonings of the learned author, enforced as they were with very considerable talent, made an impression, and excited a good deal of attention and discussion. Various replies were made to Dr Price; but those by Mr Wales, who had accompanied Captain Cook in the capacity of astronomer in some of his voyages; and Mr Howlett, vicar of Dunmow in Essex, were by far the best. The Essay of the latter is indeed a very able one. Mr Howlett examines both the facts and collateral reasonings on which Dr Price built his theory; and shows that no reliance can be placed on the former, and that the latter are founded on mistaken and erroneous notions. But

* See Dr Price's Essay on the Population of England from the Revolution to the present time. Lond. 1781; and his Treatise of Annuities. † An Enquiry into the present Population of England and Wales. Lond. 1781.

An Examination of Dr Price's Essay on the Population of England and Wales. Maidstone, 1781.

Mr Howlett does not stop here: he gives accounts of the births and burials in a great number of parishes in all parts of the country, for two periods of twenty years each, the first beginning with the Revolution, and the latter with 1758 or 1760; and he shows by this comparison, that the number of births and deaths, and consequently the population, had been nearly doubled since the Revolution. Mr Howlett also procured accounts of the actual number of houses in different places of the country; and by comparing the enumerations so obtained with those given in the returns by the window-duty collectors, he formed a general estimate of the deficiencies in the latter, and consequently of the total number of houses; and multiplying this number by 5%, which he supposed he had ascertained, by actual investigation, to be the average number of persons in a house, he estimated the population in 1780 at 8,691,600, being nearly four millions more than the estimate made by Dr Price. The accounts of births and deaths obtained under Parliamentary authority, and the more careful examination that the registers have since undergone, have occasioned the population in 1780 to be estimated, in the Parliamentary Reports, at somewhat less than eight millions. But Mr Howlett's estimate, though apparently a little exaggerated, was infinitely more accurate than any that had previously been made. His Essay displays great sagacity in the application of principles, and great patience and industry in the investigation of facts. It was supposed at the time, by those qualified to form an opinion, completely to overthrow the principles and statements advanced by Dr Price; and the census of 1800 showed that that supposition had been well founded.

The details into which we have now entered, not only furnish some account of a controversy that excited a great deal of attention at the time, but they also serve to show the extreme difficulty of forming any close approximation to the population of a country otherwise than by actual enumeration. The Registers of Births and Burials that are kept in most countries, have frequently been resorted to as means by which to estimate the magnitude of the population. In applying them to this purpose, districts in various parts of the country are selected, forming as nearly as possible a fair average of the whole, and a census being taken of the population in them, we learn, by dividing that population by the number of births and the number of deaths, the proportion which they respectively bear to the whole number of inhabitants in the districts that have been surveyed; and hence it follows, that to learn the population of the entire kingdom, we have only to multiply the total number of births, or the total number of burials, as given in the registers,

by the proportion which either of them has been thus proved to bear to the whole population. Thus, supposing that the average proportion of deaths to the population had been ascertained, by examinations made in different parishes, situated in different parts of a country, to be as one to 45 or 50; the entire population of the country would plainly be equal to the entire number of deaths in a year multiplied by 45 or 50; or, if the proportion of births to the whole population had been ascertained, in the same way, to be one in 28 or 30, the population would be the product of the yearly births by 28 or 30. It is plain, therefore, that if the registers of births and deaths could be relied on as accurate, this would form a compendious and not unsatisfactory mode of forming an estimate of the population. But the registers are in almost all cases very far indeed from being accurate. In England, for example, very many dissenters, none of whom baptize according to the forms of the Church of England, neglect to register their children; some clergymen are averse to register any but those that are publicly baptized; and in the great towns, the ceremony of baptism is not unfrequently dispensed with altogether. An act passed in 1812 obviated some of the previous sources of error in the Registers; but other and more efficient regulations are indispensably necessary to give them adequate accuracy.

The same causes of error, though not to an equal extent, affect the registers of burials. Some classes of dissenters, such as the Jews, Quakers, and Roman Catholics, in London and elsewhere, have their own burial grounds; and many persons, some from poverty, and others through choice, inter their dead without any religious ceremony. No great reliance can therefore be placed on the register of burials; though there does not certainly seem to be any very serious obstacle in the way of rendering it correct.

But though the registers of births and deaths were kept with the most perfect accuracy, it would still be no easy matter to determine the exact amount of the population by their means. What may be considered the average and ordinary rate of mortality in a country-and the same thing is true of the average and ordinary proportion of births-is liable to be deeply affected by the occurrence of scarce or calamitous years, and conversely. In 1801, for example, which was a year of extreme scarcity, the number of registered births in England and Wales was 237,000, and the number of registered burials 204,000; whereas in 1804, which was a year of plenty, there were no fewer than 294,000 registered births, and only 181,000 registered burials; being an excess in the latter year of 57,000 births, and a diminution of 23,000 burials, although out of a larger population. The effects

of any sudden and considerable increase or diminution of the prices of the principal articles of subsistence are always similar. And it is therefore obvious, that in estimating the population by the number of births or deaths, we might fall into very great errors were we to proceed merely on the births or deaths of particular years; and it is not very easy to determine what number of years should be selected as an average, or whether years of extraordinary abundance and extraordinary scarcity had not better be left wholly out of view.

Although, therefore, the methods of estimating the population now described, may be advantageously resorted to when a census cannot be carried into effect, still it is plain that they only give approximating results, and that a census is the only method of measuring population that can be safely depended upon. But even in the case of a census, many precautions are required. If it be not taken throughout the country nearly at the same time, individuals travelling from place to place are apt either to be overlooked or counted twice; and unless the individuals employed to take the census be placed under some sort of control, and made to exert themselves, it must always be more or less inaccurate. There is good reason to think that no one of the censuses taken in this country is nearly so accurate as it might have been. In England, the overseers of the poor, and in Scotland, the parochial schoolmasters, have been selected to take the census; and perhaps no description of persons could be selected better qualified to perform the principal part of this important duty. At the same time, it is quite certain, that amongst the very large number of overseers and schoolmasters employed to make the returns, many were not sufficiently impressed with the importance of the duty devolved on them by the Legislature, and many were quite incompetent to its proper performance. It must, indeed, have been evident that this would be the case: And our only wonder is, not that the census, in many extensive parishes, was taken in the most careless and slovenly manner; but that it was, on the whole, executed with the care and attention bestowed upon it. But to give it the desirable degree of accuracy, it is essential that the proceedings of the overseers and schoolmasters should be subjected to some sort of supervision and control. This might perhaps be effected were government to direct the Lords Lieutenant to place it under the superintendence of a small committee of the most active and intelligent magistrates in each county; this committee being, at the same time, instructed to select some of theinhabitants best acquainted with the state of their respective parishes, to assist in the work, and who might afterwards be questioned by the magistrates as to the mode in which they had proceed