420 Of the Checks to Population Bk. ii. 



good reason to believe, that it has increased con- 

 siderably. 



In the Observations on the Results of the Popu- 

 lation Act* a table is given of the population of 

 England and Wales throughout the last century, 

 calculated from the births ; but for the reasons 

 given above, little reliance can be placed upon it; 

 and for the population at the revolution, I should 

 be inclined to place more dependence on the old 

 calculations from the number of houses. 



It is possible, indeed, though not probable, that 

 these estimates of the population at the different 

 periods of the century may not be very far from 

 the truth, because opposite errors may have cor- 

 rected each other; but the assumption of the 

 uniform proportion of births on which they are 

 founded is false on the face of the calculations 

 themselves. According to these calculations, the 

 increase of population was more rapid in the period 

 from 1760 to 1780, than from 1780 to 1800; yet 

 it appears, that the proportion of deaths about 

 the year 1780 was greater than in 1800 in the 

 ratio of 1 17 to 100. Consequently the proportion 

 of births before 1780 must have been much greater 

 than in 1800, or the population in that period 

 could not possibly have increased faster. This 

 overthrows at once the supposition of any thing- 

 like uniformity in the proportion of births. 



I should indeed have supposed from the ana- 

 logy of other countries, and the calculations of 



* P. 9. 



