S.J' on the Highlands. Sept.^, 



structlve enterprises ; the population of Spain has gradual- 

 ly diminiflied from twenty-five to lefs than eight millions of 

 people ♦. That country, which was once a paradise, is now 

 a desert + •, and the pittance of money that the crown can 

 squeeze from a deprefsed people, by forced and injudicious 

 taxes, affords to it a revenue of not one-tenth of the 

 sum it might now have enjoyed, had wisdom direc- 

 ted the councils of the nation, at the time that their 

 phrcnzy made them believe that the lofs of a few of their 

 poor people was of little consequence. 



* The twenty-five millions of pople here mentioned, respects the time 

 ofPhilip II. of Spain. From the time of Augustus, till that last period, 

 the co.iquest of Spain by the Goths and the Moars, and the continual 

 wars carried on in that kingdom, had diminilhid the population from fifty 

 to twenty-eight millions 



•f On few subjectsdo mankind in general juigs more fallaciously than in 

 what respects the fertility of countries, or their capability of sustaining 2 

 great number of people. Places that at present produce next to nothing, not 

 even for the sustenance of domestic animalsj'may be made by human in- 

 dustry, where a numerous people are collected togsther, to produce in a 

 /hort time as abundant <rops as can be found in any part of the globe. 

 There are many and extensive fields in the neighbourhood of Aberdeen, 

 whose whole produce, only a few years ago, was not worth sixpence an 

 acre, that now afford the most abundant crops, and let from three to six 

 pounds an acre, of rent. This is an undeniable proof of the power of fer- 

 tilizing a country, by means of concentered population. 



It is more wonderful still that land, which has been by human industry 

 rendered fertile and pioJuctive, fliould, by the absence of man, and the 

 slacken'ng of his indjstry, kecome once more barren a.nd steril as at first. 

 The land ©f Palestine that once supported such a nunnber of people, as 

 must have covered even its hills with habltarions, is now sd completely 

 barren, that not a hundredth part of its then population, can find a scanty 

 subsistence from its tingracious soil. 



In like manner, Spain, which by all ancient authors has been celebra- 

 ted for its amazing fertility, and which, while it contained a population in 

 ittelf, alo e, of fifty millions of people, easily found subsistence., and to 

 spare, for immense fore. gn armies ; now that its people are dwindled to 

 ei^ht miilions; it has lost its fertility in a yet higher degree; so that these 



