FROM 1583 TO 1702. 77 



Wales, two of Scotland and Ireland respectively, made in 

 1657, in order to show what was the proportion which these 

 parts of the Commonwealth contributed. That of Scotland 

 is exceedingly minute, each of the royal burghs, to appearance, 

 being separately assessed. But there is only one city, Dublin, 

 rated in the Irish valuation. After Edinburgh, by far the 

 richest Scotch city, comes Dundee, then Aberdeen, Glasgow 

 taking the fourth place. Again, if this assessment is accurate, 

 Edinburgh was richer than any English city after London, 

 though every other Scottish town is inferior to Hull in point 

 of resources. 



The tables of the number of houses and hearths in the several 

 counties, and of the poor-rate collected in the same manner, 

 are in the highest degree instructive. I have taken them from 

 Davenant's essay on Ways and Means l . Had this acute writer 

 been able with any accuracy to have known the area of 

 England and Wales and the several counties, I have no doubt 

 that he would have been able to draw many of the inferences 

 which a modern writer can who deals with such statistics. 



In the first place with regard to population. Macaulay, in 

 a well-known passage at the commencement of his celebrated 

 third chapter, has shown that there are three sources from 

 which calculations have been made as to the population of 

 igland and Wales at or about the time of the Revolution, 

 of them being contemporaneous, and one modern, 

 inferences seem to me conclusive, though I am disposed 

 lean towards the lowest estimate. The return of the hearth 

 mey is of course of habitable houses, whether they were liable 

 the tax or not, which was remitted when the rent was under 

 r. a year, and I presume when the house was not inhabited 

 all. That it was payable when the house was temporarily 

 >itcd is manifest from the payments made by the Oxford 



1 \Vhitworth's edition, 1771. Davenant says, vol. i. p. 39, that the number 

 ' houses and hearths in each county was returned by the hearth-books on March 35, 

 reckons that the annual rental of the houses in London, Westminster, 

 Middlesex, is at an average of 13 9*. yd. 



