[ x50 ] 
houfes may certainly be added to the number conjeQured in 
the paper, and together with the inhabitants of the public build- 
ings, they would make up for confiderable deficiencies. 
I coutp have wifhed to have marked the proportionate pro- 
grefs of building and of population in the different parts of the 
kingdom, and to have traced the effe€ts of the linen manufaature, 
and of encouraged or neglected agriculture ; but after much exa- 
mination I find myfelf more capable of warning others againft 
falfe conclufions, than of leading them to true ones. The increafes 
which appear on the face of the paper are’ no evidence whatever 
of the proportionate increafe of each county; they depend prin- 
cipally on the accident of having had lefs faithful offtcers in a 
particular diftri@t in 1777, or on being more fortunate in 1788. 
The reader who {hall conclude that the county of Monaghan, 
where the houfes appear to have almoft been doubled in num- 
ber fince 1777, has made a greater progrefs in population than. 
the county of Limerick has made in the fame period, will draw 
kis conclufion from very uncertain premifes.. 
Accorprne to Sir William Petty, the houfes amounted in 
1672 to but 200,000, of which 160,000 had no fixed hearth, 
24,000 had but one chimney, and 14,000 had more chimnies than 
one, and the people were but 1,100,000. If we can believe that 
under a variety of difadvantages which are now removed, Ireland 
did in an hundred and fixteen years more than treble her popu- 
lation, our expectations of future increafe may be great indeed. 
But I cannot give implicit credit to the returns of the number 
of 
