274 AMTIl^NT METAPHYSICS. Book VL 



they would, In not many years, be depopulated if they were not 

 recruited by numbers from the country. 1 have heard it com- 

 puted, that London confumes every year 10,000 men, which are 

 fupplied from the country, though Dr Price, I obferve, makes the 

 number to be only 7000 * : And I am informed, by fome corref- 

 pondents whom I have in England, thit other towns, (and they 

 mention Briftol particularly) would be depopulated in not many 

 years, if they were not recruited from the country. 1 think it, 

 therefore, evident, that as Csefar, in defcribing the whole appear- 

 ance of the country, fays, that it was infinitely populous, it mud 

 have been more populous in his time than it is now with the addi- 

 tion of greater and more towns, which, as I have faid, rather con- 

 fume men than add to their numbers. 



In later times, when England was under the dominion of the 

 Saxons, we do not know enough of the ftate of the country 

 to be able to judge, whether it was more or lefs populous than 

 at prefent. But after the Normans got pofleffion of it, and intro- 

 duced the feudal lav/, 1 am of opinion, that it was then more po- 

 pulous than it is now ; for though there were not in it thofe great 

 towns that are nov^r, I hold that the country, which is the true mo- 

 ther and nurfe of men, was much better peopled than it is au prefent. 

 According to the feudal fyftem, the country was divided into great 

 baronies and lordlliips ; for the fiefs in all the countries of Europe, 

 when the feudal law was firft introduced, were very extenfive. 

 Thefe fiefs were all held of the crown for military fervice, or by ca- 

 pital tenure^ as the Normans call it f . This military fervice was 

 performed on horfeback, and the mjn who fought in that way were 

 called knights ; and the whole land of F.ngland was divided, by 

 William the Conqueror, into Tenancies of that kind, which were 



called 



* In his Effjy en the Population of Engbnd. 



+ In the language of the Nornnan law, this holding is faid to be en chef, which in 

 Scotland we have tranflated into I.atin, and n:akc it to be a tenure in capite. 



