278 British Association for the Advancement of Seience. 
1749 the number of inhabitants in the provinces was stated to be 
1,046,000, and the official value of exports and imports. was 
£2,117,845. Assuming that the population between 1749 and 
and 1774 increased steadily at the rate afterwards exhibited by the 
census of 1790, the number of inhabitants in 1774 must have been 
2,803,625. If the trade had increased in an equal ratio, the im- 
ports and exports in 1774 would have amounted to £5,676,528 ; 
whereas the actual amount was only £3,964,288, showing a defi- 
ciency of 30 per cent. 
Another table exhibited the official value of our imports and ex- 
ports from and to the United States collectively, in each year from 
1784 to 1835. 
The earliest census for the United States was taken in 1790, 
when the population was found to be 3,929,328. The official value 
of our trade with the United States in that year was £4,622,851. 
In 1800 the population was found to have increased to 5,809,758. 
At the same rate of increase the trade in that year should have been 
£6,246,925; but as it actually amounted to £9,243,432, the in- 
crease was greater than that of the population by 48 per cent. In 
1810, the population was 7,239,903, and the trade £10,427,722. 
If the proportion of 1790 had been preserved, the amount would 
have been £8,517,739. ‘The excess, after allowing for the increas- 
ed population, was therefore 22 per cent. ; but if the comparison is 
made with 1800, it appears that the increased trade is not quite 13 
per cent., while the population was augmented at the rate of 36 per 
cent.; there is therefore a virtual deficiency of 23 per cent., which 
Mr. Porter considered ought to be ascribed to the operation of the 
Orders in Council issued in retaliation of the Milan and Berlin De- 
crees of Napoleon. Pursuing the comparison to 1820, we find that 
the population was then 9,638,166, showing an increase over 1810 
of 33% per cent. ; on the other hand, there is a falling off in the offi- 
cial value of the trade between the two countries at the rate of 27 
percent. This circumstance Mr. Porter attributed to causes of a 
temporary nature, capable of easy explanation. On the renewal of 
the intercourse between England and America, after the peace in 
1815, our merchants and manufacturers, stimulated doubly by the 
deficiency of British goods in the American market, and their super- 
abundance and consequent low price at home, made such large ship- 
ments of manufactures to the United States, that a glut was there 
produced, and as this occurred simultaneously with a considerable 
