464, STATURAL AND CIVIL 



of their oldest towns, that the number of years 

 in which the inhabitants by their naitural increas^ 

 would double their numbers, did not amount to 

 more than twenty four, or at most twenty five 

 years. Such observations lead to the most flat- 

 tering calculations, respecting the future popu- 

 lation and number of the people ; but in most 

 of the colonies, these calculations entirely failed. 

 In none of the provinces were the people more 

 industrious, sober, or agricultural, than in Mas- 

 sachusetts and New Hampshire. In the year 

 1713, it was found that there was not double the 

 number of people in Massachusetts to what 

 there was in 1675. The same was found to be 

 the case in 1762 ; at that time the number of 

 inhabitants had not doubled from the year 

 1722.* The same observation applied with still 

 greater force to New Hampshire. The cause 

 could not be found in emigration ; nor did it 

 arise from any uncommon mortality or sickness. 

 Nothing of this nature had taken place in cither 

 of those provinces, except the losses occasioned 

 among the children by the disorder called the 

 throat distemper, in 1735 and 1736 ; and this 

 was local, and of a short duration. The cause 

 was in the constant state of war, in which those 

 provinces were involved. From 1675, when 

 the Indian war under Philip first began, to 1713, 

 five Or six thousand of the youth of the country 

 perished by the enemy, or by sickness con- 

 tracted in the service. From that time to the 

 conquest of Canada, there were constant calls 

 TQpon the young men to engage either in offen- 



iSive or defensive service. The numbers that 



f- . . . • . 



* Hntcbinson's Hist. Matsachasctts, Vol. a, p. l8j. 



