136 INCREASE OF COIN AND CHAP. XXI. 



sand, calculate that it had increased at the rate of 

 fifty per cent, in 1600, which is near enough to 

 the estimation of Mr. Rickman for the purpose 

 to which it is here applied. 



As far as a slight but not thoughtless examina- 

 tion can be depended on, it appears that the other 

 portions of Europe must during the same period 

 have experienced a similar but probably not an 

 equal augmentation. It is fair to suppose that 

 France had kept nearly an equal pace with England. 

 Spain, if she had increased her inhabitants, must 

 have done so, from the expulsion of the Moors and 

 Jews, and from the emigrations to America, at a 

 much slower rate. Germany could scarcely have 

 more than recovered in the last fifty years of the 

 century the desolation and depopulation occasioned 

 by the thirty years' war, which occupied the greater 

 part of the first half of that century. Hungary, 

 Poland, Prussia, and Switzerland had certainly in- 

 creased, and probably nearly at a rate approaching 

 that of England ; whilst Italy, Holland, and the 

 Netherlands had proceeded with a pace equal to 

 our own. The northern kingdoms of Denmark 

 and Sweden, and the eastern empire of Russia, 

 had in some measure, but to what extent must be 

 doubtful, probably also been getting more densely 

 peopled. 



On the whole we venture to assume, that in the 

 period of one hundred years from 1 600 to 1700 

 the mass of inhabitants in Europe had received an 



