LIVES Jhortened by TEA. 
2 33 
VrcE is the cause of this evil, and ignorance and indolence 
are the effects, and the confequence of both muft be highly 
injurious to the ftate. 
No body can doubt that within thefe thirty years pad: our 
manufactures have been increafed ; wafte lands have been 
cultivated ; a number of good houfes have been built ; and in 
general, commerce has been improved. Thefe are undeniable 
indications that we are improved in skill and industry : but 
at the fame time it is obvious to thofe who have an opportunity 
of feeing into things, that the number of inhabitants is de- 
creased. Are we alfo lkilful and induftrious, to fhorten our 
lives ? The queen’s war coft this nation at lead 80 or 100,000 
men ; the laft war 50 or 60,000 men, in the prime of life : 
but the intemperance and debauchery which have attended 
the improvements juft mentioned, have made much greater 
havock than war. Some fanguine calculators reckon that 
within thirty years paft our numbers have decreafed near a mil- 
lion ! If they mean that the king might have had a million of 
fubje&s more than he has, had we all married and lived, ex- 
cept penances, the lives of faints, it may be true as far as I 
know ; but this is but a vague kind of calculation. With re- 
gard to excefs, in fenfual gratifications, there are many of the 
polite parts of Europe, where the higher ranks of the people 
are yet worfe than amongft us : but, I believe, the common 
people of no country are fo intemperate and debauched as 
ours, efpecially in London. If the diminution of our numbers 
by extraordinary caufes reaches to a hundred, or even to eighty 
H h thoufand, 
