292 Of the Checks to Population Bk. ii. 



2,229,661.* In 1799, according to an account 

 which I received in Stockholm from Professor 

 Nicander, the successor to M. Wargentin, it was 

 3,043,731. This is a very considerable addition 

 to the permanent population of the country, which 

 has followed a proportional increase in the pro- 

 duce of the soil, as the imports of corn are not 

 greater than they were formerly, and there is no 

 reason to think that the condition of the people is, 

 on an average, worse. 



This increase, however, has not gone forwards 

 without periodical checks, which, if they have not 

 for a time entirely stopped its progress, have 

 always retarded the rate of it. How often these 

 checks have recurred during the last fifty years, I 

 am not furnished with sufficient data to be able 

 to say; but I can mention some of them. From 

 the paper of M. Wargentin,-f" already quoted in 

 this chapter, it appears that the years 1757 and 

 1758 were barren, and comparatively mortal years. 

 If we were to judge from the increased importa- 

 tion of 1768, X this would also appear to be an 

 unproductive year. According to the additional 

 tables with which M. Wargentin furnished Dr. 

 Price, the years 1771, 1772 and 1773, were par- 

 ticularly mortal. § The year 1789 must have 

 been very highly so, as in the accounts which I 



* Memoires du Royaume de Suede, ch. vi. p. 184. 

 t Memoires de l'Academie de Stockholm, p. 29. 

 X Memoires du Royaume de Suede, table xlii. 

 § Price's Observ. on Revers. Pay. vol. ii. p. 125. 



