for these fears & jealousies. For when men meet together, they will make business if they have none; they will collate their grievances, some real, some imaginary, all highly painted; they will communicate to each other the sparks of discontent; & this may engender a flame which will consume their particular, as well as the general, happiness. 2. The charitable part of the institution is still more likely to do mischief, as it perpetuates the dangers apprehended in the preceding clause. For here is a fund provided of permanent existence. To whom will it belong? To the descendants of American officers of a certain description. These descendants then will form a body, having sufficient interest to keep up an attention to their description, to continue meetings, & perhaps, in some moment, when the political eye shall be slumbering, or the firmness of their fellowcitizens realized, to replace the insignia of the order & revive all its pretensions. What good can the officers propose which may weigh against these possible evils? The securing their descendants against want? Why afraid to trust them to the same fertile soil, & the same genial climate which will secure from want the descendants of their other fellow citizens? Are they afraid they will be reduced to labour the earth for their sustenance? They will be rendered thereby both honester and happier. An industrious farmer occupies a more dignified place in the scale of beings, whether moral or political, than a lazy lounger, valuing himself on his family, too proud to work, & drawing out a miserable existence by eating on that surplus of other men's labour which is the sacred fund of the helpless poor. A pitiful annuity will only prevent them from exerting that industry & those talents which would soon lead them to better fortune.

How are these evils to be prevented? 1. At their first general meeting let them distribute the funds on hand to the existing objects of their destination, & discontinue all further contributions. 2. Let them declare at the same time that their meetings general & particular shall henceforth cease. 3. Let them melt up their eagles & add the mass to the distributable fund that their descendants may have no temptation to hang them in their button holes.

These reflections are not proposed as worthy the notice of M. de Meusnier. He will be so good as to treat the subject in his

own way, & no body has a better. I will only pray him to avail us of his forcible manner to evince that there is evil to be apprehended even from the ashes of this institution, & to exhort the society in America to make their reformation complete; bearing in mind that we must keep the passions of men on our side even when we are persuading them to do what they ought to do. Pa. 268. "Et en effet la population "&c. 270. confiance."

270. "Plus de

To this we answer that no such census of the numbers was ever given out by Congress nor ever presented to them and further that Congress never has at any time declared by their vote the number of inhabitants in their respective states. On the 22d of June 1775 they first resolved to remit paper money. The sum resolved on was 2. millions of dollars. They declared then that the 12 confederate colonies (for Georgia had not yet joined them) should be pledged for the redemption of these bills. ascertain in what proportion each state should be bound, the members from each were desired to say as nearly as they could what was the number of the inhabitants of their respective states. They were very much unprepared for such a declaration. They guessed however as well as they could. The following are the numbers, as they conjectured them, & the subsequent apportionment of the 2. millions of dollars.

Georgia having not yet acceded to the measures of the other

states, was not quotaed; but their numbers were generally esti

VOL. IV.-12

mated at about 30,000 & so would have made the whole 2,448,000 persons of every condition. But it is to be observed that tho Congress made this census the basis of their apportionment, yet they did not even give it a place on their journals; much less publish it to the world with their sanction. The way it got abroad was this. As the members declared from their seats the number of inhabitants which they conjectured to be in their state, the secretary of Congress wrote them on a piece of paper, calculated the portion of 2 millions of dollars accordingly & entered the sum only in the journals. The members however for their own satisfaction and the information of their states, took copies of this enumeration & sent them to their states. From thence they got into the public papers: and when the English newswriters found it answered their purpose to compare this with the numeration of 1783, as their principle is "to lie boldly that they may not be suspected of lying" they made it amount to 3,137,809 and ascribed it's publication to Congress itself.

In April 1785, Congress being to call on the states to raise a million & a half of dollars annually for 25 years, it was necessary to apportion this among them. The states had never furnished them with their exact numbers. It was agreed too that in this apportionment 5 slaves should be counted as 3 freemen only. The preparation of this business was in the hands of a Committee. They applied to the members for the best information they could give them of the numbers of their states. Some of the states had taken pains to discover their numbers. Others had done nothing in that way, & of course were now where they were in 1775 when their members were first called on to declare their numbers. Under these circumstances, & on the principle of counting threefifths only of the slaves, the Committee apportioned the money among the states & reported their work to Congress. In this they had assessed S. Carolina as having 170,000 inhabitants. The delegate for that state however prevailed on Congress to assess them on the footing of 150,000 only, in consideration of the state of total devastation in which the enemy had left their country. The difference was then laid on the other states, and the following was the result.

Still however Congress refused to give the numeration the sanction of a place on their journals, because it was not formed on such evidence as a strict attention to accuracy & truth required. They used it from necessity, because they could get no better rule, and they entered on their journals only the apportionment of money. The members, however, as before, took copies of the numeration which was the groundwork of the apportionment, sent them to their states, & thus this second numeration got into the public papers, & was by the English ascribed to Congress, as their declaration of the present numbers. To get at the real numbers which this numeration supposes, we must add 20.000 to the number on which S. Carolina was quoted; we must consider that 700.000 slaves are counted but as 420.000 persons, & add on that account 280.000. This will give us a total of 2.639.300 inhabitants of every condition in the 13 states, being 221.300 more than the numeration of 1775, instead of 798.509 loss, which the English papers asserted to be the diminution of numbers in the United States according to the confession of Congress itself.

Pa. 272.

millions."

"Comportera peut etre une population de thirty

The territories of the United States contain about a million of square miles, English. There is in them a greater proportion of fertile lands than in the British dominions in Europe. Suppose the territory of the U. S. then to attain an equal degree of

population with the British European dominions, they will have an hundred millions of inhabitants. Let us extend our views to what may be the population of the two continents of North & South America supposing them divided at the narrowest part of the isthmus of Panama. Between this line and that of 50° of north latitude the northern continent contains about 5 millions of square miles, and South of this line of division the Southern continent contains about 7 millions of square miles. I do not pass the 50th degree of northern latitude in my reckoning, because we must draw a line somewhere, & considering the soil & climate beyond that, I would only avail my calculation of it, as a make weight, to make good what the colder regions within that line may be supposed to fall short in their future population. Here are 12 millions of square miles then, which at the rate of population before assumed, will nourish 1200 millions of inhabitants, a number greater than the present population of the whole globe is supposed to amount to. If those who propose medals for the resolution of questions, about which nobody makes any question, those who have invited discussions on the pretended problem Whether the discovery of America was for the good of mankind? if they, I say, would have viewed it only as doubling the numbers of mankind, & of course the quantum of existence & happiness, they might have saved the money & the reputation which their proposition has cost them. The present population of the inhabited parts of the U. S. is of about 10. to the square mile; & experience has shown us, that wherever we reach that the inhabitants become uneasy, as too much compressed, and go off in great numbers to search for vacant country. Within 40 years the whole territory will be peopled at that rate. We may fix that then as the term beyond which the people of those states will not be restrained within their present limits; we may fix it too as the term of population, which they will not exceed till the whole of those two continents are filled up to that mark, that is to say, till they shall contain 120 millions of inhabitants. The soil of the country on the western side of the Mississippi, it's climate, & it's vicinity to the U. S. point it out as the first which will receive population from that nest. The present occupiers will just have force enough to re