QAI PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1765. 



a natural tendency to render the defence of the country against foreign invaders, 

 and their savage enemies despicably infamous. A signal instance of this hap- 

 pened during the French war, A. D. 1745. The colony of Connecticut having 

 just before finished the settlement of their new lands, adjoining to the Manor 

 of Livingston, in the province of New York, being on the north-west frontiers 

 of this colony, some skulking parties of Indians being seen in the manor afore- 

 said, the tenants left their settlements, which had been made almost a centurj^^ 

 before, and fled over into this country to our new-made settlements, which 

 then had not been made more than 7 years, where they thought themselves 

 safe and secure; a convincing proof that no men will face an enemy like those 

 who fight pro aris et focis. The southern colonies in particular, have been 

 driven before a despicable enemy like sheep; this never was the case, even in the 

 infant state of these colonies. 



The census of the inhabitants of this colony, transmitted by governor Fitch, 

 A. D. 1756, by order of the Lords of Trade, was 128,218 souls whites, and 

 3587 blacks; that of the year 1762, 141,000 souls whites, 459O blacks, of 

 which 930 were Indians. The levies of our fencible men diminished the in- 

 crease, so that the last 7 years the colony only increased 1 3,000. On the peace, 

 doubtless the rapidity of population will recover; and in how short a space of 

 time the well settling the new acquisitions may be effected, from all the Ameri- 

 can colonies collectively, he leaves every one to determine; and he cannot but 

 think, that whenever the state of public affairs will permit the parliament of 

 Great Britain to advert to the peopling and securing the acquisitions iilade in 

 America, they will judge it best efixjcted, as much as may be, from her colonies 

 in America; and that the law prohibiting inoculation in America will be accord- 

 ingly annulled, by their superintending authority, as prejudicial to the 

 population of the colonies. 



It appears from Dr. Douglas's account of the small-pox in the town of 

 Boston, where he lived, and made critical observations, the last 3 times that it 

 was epidemic there, viz. a. d. 1721, 1730, and 1732, that the number of 

 persons visited with the small-pox, in the natural way, was 1 6,047, of which 

 1,858 died; and that in 1752, the number of those who received the infection 

 by inoculation, before mercury was made use of in Boston in inoculaticn, 

 amounted to 2,1 13 persons, of which 30 died (blacks in both being included;) 

 granting tliat those who had the disease in the natural way stood an equal chance 

 for life with those who were inoculated, it appears that, in those 3 years, there 

 died 1,831, in the town of Boston only, for want of inoculation; by which 

 deaths, according to the longest term of doubling the number of inhabitants in 

 America, in one century from those periods, the number will be diminished by 

 29/296, which is, from the best calculation, a number far superior to those who 



