152 Actual State of the British Empire, 



which usually attend the formation of a new settlement may 

 be avoided or mitigated by that degree of prudence and fore- 

 sight, without which no difficult undertaking can be expected 

 to prosper. As the relief of an excessive population is a na- 

 tional affair, all governments are bound to consider it as such, 

 and no expenditure of their revenues can be more useful and 

 legitimate than that which is employed to maintain the due 

 proportion between the number of the people and the means 

 of their subsistence. It ought, therefore, to be a standing 

 object of national policy, to provide the resources, and facili- 

 tate the means of a periodical emigration. Being thus in con- 

 stant readiness, whenever the symptoms of a redundant popu- 

 lation begin to manifest themselves, they can be promptly ap- 

 plied, before the positive checks, with all their horrible train, 

 have made much progress. Most of the disasters which 

 Mr. Malthus enumerates were the necessary effect of insuffi- 

 cient means, defective information, or rash enterprise. Many 

 of the obstacles, moreover, which oppose or retard the esta- 

 blishment of new colonies, have disappeared, by the progress 

 of colonization itself In those parts of the world which admit 

 and demand the greatest increase of inhabitants, the difficul- 

 ties which attend a first settlement are already subdued. These 

 communities then become strengthened by the admixture of 

 new settlers, and the population diff'uses itself by the mere 

 expansive force of additional numbers. 



It is sufficiently demonstrated that there exists in mankind 

 a power of increase far beyond what was wanting to keep up 

 their numbers to any stationary amount. Mr. Malthus not 

 only admits but maintains that this prodigious power was 

 given for the purpose of replenishing the earth ; which, from 

 reason and revelation, we have every reason to believe was 

 originally peopled from a very small number. He there- 

 fore cannot deny that the command of " increase and multi- 

 ply" is of human as well as of divine obligation, so long as any 

 considerable parts of the earth remain unpeopled. Yet so 

 imperfectly has this command been hitherto obeyed, that there 

 is reason to suspect that no progress whatever in replenishing 

 the earth has been made for the last 2000 years. Is not this 

 U; palpable contravention of the plainest designs of Nature ?ind 



