[ 4°5 ] 

 or domeftic improvement, nor do I remem- 

 ber reading any fuch cafe in hiftory. 



Some politicians, from very fallacious 

 materials, published, before the lad war, 

 accounts of the progrefs of pop^ation in 

 this kingdom, in which they attempted to 

 prove, that we had loft above a million of 

 fouls iince the Revolution : That war fuc- 

 ceeded ; they faw near half a million of 

 men taken into the pay of the public ; they 

 law, at the fame time, an agriculture more 

 flourishing than had ever been known be- 

 fore ; they faw our manufactures carried 

 on with more fpirit than any preceding pe- 

 riod could boaft -, they beheld the commerce 

 of Britain extended to a degree almoft in- 

 conceivable. At the fame time that agri- 

 culture, manufactures, and commerce 

 made fuch ftrides, that the public fervice 

 reckoned her men by hundreds of thoufands; 

 they faw all kinds of public and private un- 

 dertakings conducted with a fpirit unknown 

 before; they viewed turnpikes, inclofures, 

 and navigations making on every fide ; 

 harbours opening where fcarcely boats had 

 failed before ; fortifications erecting in every 

 quarter; every city, town, and village in 

 Britain receiving additions to her buildings ; 

 in a word, all the marks of an amazing iyf- 

 tem of employment, which feemed to call 

 for frefh millions of people to fupply fuch 

 D d 3 immenfe 



