Wesley Corpus

I believe they contain about two millions. But, allowing they did, I make no doubt but the English (beside three millions of Scots and Irish) are ten millions at this day. “How can that be, when there are only six hundred thousand in London?” Believe it who can, I cannot believe there are so few as fifteen hundred thousand in London and its environs, allowing only two miles every way from the walls of the city. “But we know there were no more than six hundred thousand, when the computation was made in the late reign; allowing that there were, at an average, five in each house.” They who make this allowance, probably fix their computa tion at their own fire-side. They do not walk through every tart of the town, up to the garrets, and down to the cellars. I do; and by what I have seen with my own eyes, frequently fifteen, eighteen, or twenty in one house, I cannot believe there are fewer, at an average, than ten under one roof; and the same I believe of Bristol, Birmingham, Sheffield, and most other trading towns. Besides, how many thousand houses have been added to London within these thirty or forty years? 13. “But the people of England are continually decreas ing.” So it has been confidently affirmed; but it is a total mistake. I know the contrary, having an opportunity of seeing ten times more of England, every year, than most men in the nation. All our manufacturing towns, as Birmingham, Sheffield, Manchester, Liverpool, increase daily. So do very many villages all over the kingdom, even in the mountains of Derbyshire. And, in the mean time, exceeding few, either towns or villages, decrease. And it is no wonder the people should increase, considering the amazing increase of trade which has been lately, not in London only, but much more in Bristol, Birmingham, Sheffield, Leeds, Manchester, and indeed all parts of the kingdom, which I have had the opportunity of observing. There was a considerable decay of trade before; but the tide is turned, and it now pours in abundantly. So greatly were our American friends mistaken, who hoped, by shutting up their ports, to ruin most of the manufacturers in England, and so starve us into compliance with their demands.