1 8oo. "Sheep ami Great Far ?7ts favourable to Population 7 39 



efTe^l to depopulate the country ; it is not a little curious, 

 that the direcSl contrary is the truth, as now completely 

 afcertained from the recent numeration of the people by- 

 Sir John Sinclair, in the Statiftical Account of Scotland, 

 compared with a fimilar muder by Dr Webller in 



Thus, in the extenfive Hic^hland counties of Argyle^ 

 Invernefs, and Rofs, (thetdiftricls, of all others, wherein 

 (heep have been more extenfively introduced, the farms 

 more enlarged, and from whence, on thefe accounts, 

 the greatefl: clamour has been raifed), the population 

 in 1755 was 170,440; yet, in fpite of the alleged de- 

 population, from flieep and great farms, the number of 

 people, in 1792-8, is 200,226 ; being an increafe, In the 

 fliort period of about forty years, of 29,786, from a ter- 

 ritory poffening almofl neither towns nor manufailures, 

 hardly even agriculture, (Iriclly fpeaking; the whole 

 being, in general, a paftoral country, applied almolt ex- 

 clufively to the rearing and feeding of llock. 



In like manner, the counties in the fout«i of Scotland, 

 Berwick^ Roxburgh^ Dumfries^ Kirkcudbright, and JVigtony 

 where flocks of iheep have increafsd much, as well as 

 the fize of farms, the population has alfo been augmented 

 confiderably. Thus, in 1755, the number of people was 

 135,183; it is now- 163,166. I do not here ftate the 

 vaft increafe of population that has, in the fame period, 

 taken place in the counties of Ayr^ Renfrew, and Lanark ^ 

 as in thefe it has, in a confiderable meafure, been ovi^ins: 

 to the increafe of towns and m.anufaclures, neither of 

 which have had much efFedl in the counties firfl men- 

 tioned. ' 



But this is not all. Population is on the DECREASE^ 

 where the farms are fill fmall, and the number of f jeep 

 inconfiderable ! Thus, in the three contiguous counties 

 of Aberdeen, Banff, and Elgin, ftill remarkable for fmall 

 tenantry and diminutive flocks, the population in 1755 

 (exclufive of the city of Aberdeen) was 172,225 ; it is 

 now only 163,261 ! Can any ftrongcr evidence be re- 

 quired ? 



One would have thought the bare faft, that Scotland 

 has increafed in population, in the couife of forty years, 

 from 1,265,380 to 1,527,892, would have convinced 



Iv 2 every 



