Chap. V. ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. 27-1 



As to the country on the other fide of the Pyrennees, I mean 

 France ; — When I was there, about 30 years ago, the poUtical arith- 

 meticians computed that they were decrcafed two milUons fmce the 

 death of Lewis the XIV : And fmce I left France I have feen a book 

 entitled, Les Inttrtts de la France 7nal Entendus^ in which the author 

 fays, that the depopulation is fo great, that if it go on at the fame rate 

 for any confiderahle number of years, it may be computed when there 

 fhall be no inhabitants at all in i'lmce. But what I truil to, more than 

 to the computations of the author of this book, or to thofe of the politi- 

 cal arithmeticians in France, is what 1 learned from a- man, originally 

 of Manchefter, whom I law in F»-ance, and with whom i had a great 

 deal of converfation upon the fubjedl of the population of France, in- 

 to which he had imported the Manchefter manutadures, and for that 

 fervice was made faperintendant of cili the manufidures of France. 

 He told me, w~hat was very true^ that men who travelled, as 1 did, 

 on the high roads^ from one town to another, and in clofe carriages, 

 could know nothing of the population of the country in general : 



* But 1,* fays he, ' who, in difcharge of my office, travel over the whole 

 ' country, and go to parts of it the moft remote from public roads, can 



* alTure you, that the country is very thinly peopled, being divided into 



* great farms, with very few cottages or fmall farms, and the rent fo 



* high, that the tenants cannot afford to bring up taimlies ; and, there- 



* fore, many of them are not married, and thole that are, contrive it fo, 



* that they have few or no children.' 



Of its prefent population I fhall only obferve, that after the con- 

 fufions, that, for thefe five or fix years paft, have prevailed there, 

 producing fuch unexampled deftrudion of men, by every poffible 

 means of intef^ine and foreign wars, malfacres and executions, (not 

 to mention the number-^ of hofe who have emigrated to every other 

 country of Europe), I believe no perfon will advance fo abfurd a 

 paradox, as that they have cf late increafed in numbers. 



CHAP. 



