074 -^- ^- ^^95' 



XVIl) Convex lights, and others of that kind, are ufeful inventions : 

 but other pretenders, befides the firfl, difcouraged this bufinefs ; and 

 London ftreets were not fo well Hghted as was to be wiOied for. 



XVIIT) New fettlements in Carohna, Pennfylvania, Tobago, &c. 

 make a great noife in the world. The firft planters fared but ill, leav- 

 ing wafted their fubftance, without being able to reap the benefit, lay- 

 ing only a foundation for the next comer, who may fucceed better ; 

 yet here, he complains, that thofe plantations drain England of its peo- 

 ple, already too much exhaufted by the unnatural and imprudent per- 

 lecutions in the late reigns, and the long war in the prefent one. 



XIX) Our royal, Greenland, Newfoundland, and other fifheries are 

 worthy of our care and application. The royal-fifliery company has 

 been long talked of, and fome fteps taken to make it fuccefsful ; but 

 ftill one ill accident or another has damped it : and it is now again fet 

 on foot. 



The Greenland fifliery is like to flourifh, notwithftanding fome lolles 

 already fuftained *. 



The reader needs not to be told how ufeful fuch remarks and notices 

 may prove to every one who is inquifitive, and may point out to all, the 

 the danger of being too credulous in rcfpeft of new projeds. 



An ad of parliament [6, 7 Gul. Ill, c. 6] feems to have been injudi- 

 cioufly framed, in refpett to commerce and the propagation of people, 

 viz. the act for granting certain rates and duties upon marriages, births, 

 and burials, and upon bachelors and widowers, for the term of five 

 years ; more efpecially that part of it relating to marriages, births, and 

 burials ; and even the later part, relating to bachelors and widowers, 

 feemingly intended for the encouragement of virtuous propagation, was, 

 in fome refpeds judged obvloufly unreafonable ; wherefor, this law was 

 not revived at the end of the five years. 



D'Avenant, in his Eflay on ways and means of fupplying the war, 

 publiQied this year, [p. 34] fays, it appeared from the books of hearth- 

 money, that there were not above 1,300,000 families in England ; and 

 allowing fix per'ons to a houfe, one with another, which is the moll 

 common way of computing, it is not quite eight millions of people. It 

 thereby alfo appears, that there were 500,000 of thofe families who 

 were poor, living in cottages, who contribute little to the public ex- 

 penfe. 



In that fame ingenious work, \^p. 1 15] the author combats a vulgar opi- 

 nion, that the growth of London is pernicious to England, and that the 

 kingdom is like a rickety body, with a head too big for the other mem- 

 bers. To which he replies, ir; general, that fome people, who have thought 

 much on this fubjed, are mclined to believe, that the growth of that 



* Here our author has failed in his remarks, which, however, arc generally jud. -<f. 



