Part 2 (2/2)

4. As to the administration of justice. If in this great city shall dwell the owners of all the lands, and other valuable things in England; if within it shall be all the traders, and all the courts, offices, records, juries, and witnesses; then it follows that justice may be done with speed and ease.

5. As to the equality and easy levying of taxes. It is too certain that London hath at some time paid near half the excise of England, and that the people pay thrice as much for the hearths in London as those in the country, in proportion to the people of each, and that the charge of collecting these duties have been about a sixth part of the duty itself. Now in this great city the excise alone according to the present laws would not only be double to the whole kingdom, but also more equal. And the duty of hearths of the said city would exceed the present proceed of the whole kingdom. And as for the customs we mention them not at present.

6. Whether more would be gained by foreign commerce? The gain which England makes by lead, coals, the freight of s.h.i.+pping, &c., may be the same, for aught I see, in both cases. But the gain which is made by manufactures will be greater as the manufacture itself is greater and better. For in so vast a city manufactures will beget one another, and each manufacture will be divided into as many parts as possible, whereby the work of each artisan will be simple and easy. As, for example, in the making of a watch, if one man shall make the wheels, another the spring, another shall engrave the dial- plate, and another shall make the cases, then the watch will be better and cheaper than if the whole work be put upon any one man.

And we also see that in towns, and in the streets of a great town, where all the inhabitants are almost of one trade, the commodity peculiar to those places is made better and cheaper than elsewhere.

Moreover, when all sorts of manufactures are made in one place, there every s.h.i.+p that goeth forth can suddenly have its loading of so many several particulars and species as the port whereunto she is bound can take off. Again, when the several manufactures are made in one place, and s.h.i.+pped off in another, the carriage, postage, and travelling charges, will enhance the price of such manufacture, and lessen the gain upon foreign commerce. And lastly, when the imported goods are spent in the port itself, where they are landed, the carriage of the same into other places will create no further charge upon such commodity; all which particulars tend to the greater gain by foreign commerce.

7. As for arts of delight and ornament. They are best promoted by the greatest number of emulators. And it is more likely that one ingenious curious man may rather be found out amongst 4,000,000 than 400 persons. But as for husbandry, viz., tillage and pasturage, I see no reason, but the second state (when each family is charged with the culture of about twenty-four acres) will best promote the same.

8. As for lessening the fatigue of carriage and travelling.

The thing speaks for itself, for if all the men of business, and all artisans, do live within five miles of each other, and if those who live without the great city do spend only such commodities as grow where they live, then the charge of carriage and travelling could be little.

9. As to the preventing of beggars and thieves.

I do not find how the differences of the said two states should make much difference in this particular; for impotents (which are but one in about 600) ought to be maintained by the rest. 2. Those who are unable to work, through the evil education of their parents, ought (for aught I know) to be maintained by their nearest kindred, as a just punishment upon them. 3. And those who cannot find work (though able and willing to perform it), by reason of the unequal application of hands to lands, ought to be provided for by the magistrate and landlord till that can be done; for there need be no beggars in countries where there are many acres of unimproved improvable land to every head, as there are in England. As for thieves, they are for the most part begotten from the same cause; for it is against Nature that any man should venture his life, limb, or liberty, for a wretched livelihood, whereas moderate labour will produce a better. But of this see Sir Thomas More, in the first part of his ”Utopia.”

10. As to the propagation and improvement of useful learning.

The same may be said concerning it as was above said concerning manufactures, and the arts of delight and ornaments; for in the great vast city there can be no so odd a conceit or design whereunto some a.s.sistance may not be found, which in the thin, scattered way of habitation may not be.

11. As for the increase of people by generation. I see no great difference from either of the two states, for the same may be hindered or promoted in either from the same causes.

12. As to the plague.

It is to be remembered that one time with another a plague happeneth in London once in twenty years, or thereabouts; for in the last hundred years, between the years 1582 and 1682, there have been five great plagues--viz., A.D. 1592, 1603, 1625, 1636, and 1665. And it is also to be remembered that the plagues of London do commonly kill one-fifth part of the inhabitants. Now if the whole people of England do double but in 360 years, then the annual increase of the same is but 20,000, and in twenty years 400,000. But if in the city of London there should be 2,000,000 of people (as there will be about sixty years hence), then the plague (killing one-fifth of them, namely, 400,000 once in twenty years) will destroy as many in one year as the whole nation can re-furnish in twenty; and consequently the people of the nation shall never increase. But if the people of London shall be above 4,000,000 (as in the first of our two extravagant suppositions is premised), then the people of the whole nation shall lessen above 20,000 per annum. So as if people be worth 70 pounds per head (as hath elsewhere been shown), then the said greatness of the city will be a damage to itself and the whole nation of 1,400,000 pounds per annum, and so pro rata for a greater or lesser number; wherefore to determine which of the two states is best--that is to say, towards which of the said two states authority should bend the present state, a just balance ought to be made between the disadvantages from the plague, with the advantages accruing from the other particulars above mentioned, unto which balance a more exact account of the people, and a better rule for the measure of its growth is necessary than what we have here given, or are yet able to lay down.

POSTSCRIPT.

It was not very pertinent to a discourse concerning the growth of the city of London to thrust in considerations of the time when the whole world will be fully peopled; and how to justify the Scriptures concerning the number of people mentioned in them; and concerning the number of the quick and the dead that may rise at the last day, &c. Nevertheless, since some friends, liking the said digressions and impertinences (perhaps as sauce to a dry discourse) have desired that the same might be explained and made out, I, therefore, say as followeth:-

1. If the number of acres in the habitable part of the earth be under 50,000,000,000; if 20,000,000,000 of people are more than the said number of acres will feed (few or no countries being so fully peopled), and for that in six doublings (which will be in 2,000 years) the present 320,000,000 will exceed the said 20,000,000,000.

2. That the number of all those who have died since the Flood is the sum of all the products made by multiplying the number of the doubling periods mentioned in the first column of the last table, by the number of people respectively affixed to them in the third column of the same table, the said sum being divided by 40 (one dying out of 40 per annum out of the whole ma.s.s of mankind), which quotient is 12,570,000,000; whereunto may be added, for those that died before the Flood, enough to make the last-mentioned number 20,000,000,000, as the full number of all that died from the beginning of the world to the year 1682, unto which, if 320,000,000, the number of those who are now alive, be added, the total of the quick and the dead will amount but unto one fifth part of the graves which the surface of Ireland will afford, without ever putting two bodies into any one grave; for there be in Ireland 28,000 square English miles, each whereof will afford about 4,000,000 of graves, and consequently above 114,000,000,000 of graves, viz., about five times the number of the quick and the dead which should arise at the last day, in case the same had been in the year 1682.

3. Now, if there may be place for five times as many graves in Ireland as are sufficient for all that ever died, and if the earth of one grave weigh five times as much as the body interred therein, then a turf less than a foot thick pared off from a fifth part of the surface of Ireland, will be equivalent in bulk and weight to all the bodies that ever were buried, and may serve as well for that purpose as the two mountains aforementioned in the body of this discourse. From all which it is plain how madly they were mistaken who did so petulantly vilify what the Holy Scriptures have delivered.

FURTHER OBSERVATION UPON THE DUBLIN BILLS; Or, Accounts of the Houses, Hearths, Baptisms, and Burials in that City.

THE STATIONER TO THE READER.

I have not thought fit to make any alteration of the first edition, but have only added a new table, with observation upon it, placing the same in the front of what was before, which, perhaps, might have been as well placed after the like table at the eighth page of the first edition.

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