Chap. VIII. ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. 313 



out health and morals the people cannot be happy ; but without 

 numbers they cannot be a great and powerful nation, nor even ex- 

 ift for any confiderable time. So that if a nation be decreafed in the 

 number of its inhabitants, and is in fuch a ftate as to continue to de- 

 creafe, it is certainly true what the French author, that I have quo- 

 ted *, fays, that the nation muft at laft be entirely difpeopled, and, 

 confequently, ceafe to be a nation. 



That the numbers in Britain are not fo great now as they were in 

 more antient times, I think is certain. But our great exertions, both 

 by fea and land, for thefe two or three years paft, fhow that the 

 country is yet not depopulated to any great degree. And if we fhall 

 be fo wife as the legiflature of England was in the days of Henry 

 the VII. and make a ftatute for the prefervation of fmall farms f , I 

 think the country will be ftill more peopled, than it is, by farmers 

 and cottagers : And if we were to prevent, as I have obferved J, by 

 fome kind of Agrarian law, the accumulation of the eftates of the fmal- 

 ler gentry in the perfons of great and rich proprietors, the race of 

 our gentry, or at leaft what remains of that race, might ftill be pre- 

 ferved ; fo that the King fhould not want officers for his army and 

 navy. 



But even as we are peopled at prefent, I am of opinion, that we 

 are more populous, for the extent of our country, than France is ; 

 which, I think, I have fhown from very good authority §. And this 

 muft be a great comfort to every Briton, who wifhes well to his 

 country, at a time when we are engaged in a war with France, 

 which appears to be brought to this melancholy ifl'ue, which of the 

 two nations, if the war continue, fhall be firft exhauftcd of money 

 and of men, that is, be lirft beggard and then depopulated. As to 

 money, I think, no body can doubt that our finances are in very 

 Vol. V. R r much 



* Page 271. f Sec p. 293 of this vol, X l^'i<'^- p- 303. § Page 271. 



