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my heart, was the true number : But I am fo far from 
thinking that I have under-rated them, that I fufpedt 
I have rather made them more than they are. How- 
ever, this controverfy will foon be determined, there 
being now orders given, as I am informed, to all the 
Officers concerned in the window-tax, to make an 
exadt return of all the cottages, as well as the rated 
houfes, in each of their feveral diflridts. In the 
mean time, the Gentleman and I differ in this, that 
he fuppofes above 400,000 cottages more than I 
can pofnbly imagine. 
Let us now fee upon what grounds, and by what 
method of reafoning he determines his numbers. 
He makes a divifion of the 690,000 taxed houfes in- 
to three claffes, placing 200,000 of them in the open 
country and villages, and 200,000 in the market and 
inferior towns, and the next, viz. 290,000, in the 
the cities and great towns ; for which divifion he has 
nothing to diredt him ; no proof, nor even probability. 
And as it is a mere arbitrary fuppofition, all rcafoning 
and calculations founded upon it are nothing to the 
purpofe, and the number of houfes or people com- 
ptued from thence muff be falfe or uncertain. But 
yet, upon this fuppolition, as if it was abfolutely 
certain, he goes on to compute the houfes and people 
in each divifion. 
As to the firft, he fays he has counted all the 
houfes in nine contiguous parifhes in Berkfhire, in 
which he has found the whole number to be 588, 
and thofe charged to the duty to be only 177 > 
and therefore the cottages are to the rated houfes 
as 411 to 177, or above two to one. And from 
this he affumes, that the whole number of houfes 
thro’ the villages and open country in England will 
be 
