502 Effects of Epidemics 07i Registers of Bk. ii. 



effect, we may suppose that almost all who were 

 at the age of puberty were induced, from the 

 demand for labour and the number of vacant em- 

 ployments, immediately to marry. This immense 

 number of marriages in the year could not pos- 

 sibly be accompanied by a great proportional 

 number of births, because we cannot suppose 

 that the new marriages could each yield more 

 than one birth in the year, and the rest must come 

 from the marriages which had continued unbroken 

 through the plague. We cannot therefore be 

 surprised that the proportion of births to mar- 

 riages in this year should be only 2-7 to 1, or 27 to 

 10. But though the proportion of births to mar- 

 riages could not be great ; yet, on account of the 

 extraordinary number of marriages, the absolute 

 number of births must be great ; and as the 

 number of deaths would naturally be small, the 

 proportion of births to deaths is prodigious, being 

 320 to 100; an excess of births as great, perhaps, 

 as has ever been known in America. 



In the next year, 1712, the number of marriages 

 must of course diminish exceedingly; because, 

 nearly all who were at the age of puberty 

 having married the year before, the marriages 

 of this year would be supplied principally by 

 those who had arrived at this age, subsequent to 

 the plague. Still, however, as all who were mar- 

 though as the deaths are carefully separated, it seems very strange 

 that it should be so. It is however a matter of no great import- 

 ance The other years are sufficient to illustrate the general prin- 

 ciple. 



