Mankind and Political Arithmetic | Page 5

not
able to procure the essay itself, only I have obtained from a gentleman,
who sometimes corresponded with Sir W. Petty, an extract of a letter
from Sir William to him, which I verily believe containeth the scope
thereof; wherefore, I must desire the reader to be content therewith, till
more can be had.
The extract of a letter concerning the scope of an essay intended to
precede another essay concerning the growth of the City of London, &c.
An Essay in Political Arithmetic, concerning the value and increase of
People and Colonies.
The scope of this essay is concerning people and colonies, and to make
way for "Another Essay" concerning the growth of the city of London.
I desire in this first essay to give the world some light concerning the
numbers of people in England, with Wales, and in Ireland; as also of
the number of houses and families wherein they live, and of acres they
occupy.

2. How many live upon their lands, how many upon their personal
estates and commerce, and how many upon art, and labour; how many
upon alms, how many upon offices and public employments, and how
many as cheats and thieves; how many are impotents, children, and
decrepit old men.
3. How many upon the poll-taxes in England, do pay extraordinary
rates, and how many at the level.
4. How many men and women are prolific, and how many of each are
married or unmarried.
5. What the value of people are in England, and what in Ireland at a
medium, both as members of the Church or Commonwealth, or as
slaves and servants to one another; with a method how to estimate the
same, in any other country or colony.
6. How to compute the value of land in colonies, in comparison to
England and Ireland.
7. How 10,000 people in a colony may be planted to the best
advantage.
8. A conjecture in what number of years England and Ireland may be
fully peopled, as also all America, and lastly the whole habitable earth.
9. What spot of the earth's globe were fittest for a general and universal
emporium, whereby all the people thereof may best enjoy one another's
labours and commodities.
10. Whether the speedy peopling of the earth would make
(1) For the good of mankind.
(2) To fulfil the revealed will of God.
(3) To what prince or State the same would be most advantageous.
11. An exhortation to all thinking men to solve the Scriptures and other
good histories, concerning the number of people in all ages of the
world, in the great cities thereof, and elsewhere.
12. An appendix concerning the different number of sea-fish and
wild-fowl at the end of every thousand years since Noah's Flood.
13. An hypothesis of the use of those spaces (of about 8,000 miles
through) within the globe of our earth, supposing a shell of 150 miles
thick.
14. What may be the meaning of glorified bodies, in case the place of
the blessed shall be without the convex of the orb of the fixed stars, if
that the whole system of the world was made for the use of our earth's

men.

THE PRINCIPAL POINTS OF THIS DISCOURSE

1. That London doubles in forty years, and all England in three hundred
and sixty years.
2. That there be, A.D. 1682, about 670,000 souls in London, and about
7,400,000 in all England and Wales, and about 28,000,000 of acres of
profitable land.
3. That the periods of doubling the people are found to be, in all
degrees, from between ten to twelve hundred years.
4. That the growth of London must stop of itself before the year 1800.
5. A table helping to understand the Scriptures, concerning the number
of people mentioned in them.
6. That the world will be fully peopled within the next two thousand
years.
7. Twelve ways whereby to try any proposal pretended for the public
good.
8. How the city of London may be made (morally speaking) invincible.
9. A help to uniformity in religion.
10. That it is possible to increase mankind by generation four times
more than at present.
11. The plagues of London is the chief impediment and objection
against the growth of the city.
12. That an exact account of the people is necessary in this matter.

OF THE GROWTH OF THE CITY OF LONDON: And of the
Measures, Periods, Causes, and Consequences thereof

By the city of London we mean the housing within the walls of the old
city, with the liberties thereof, Westminster, the Borough of Southwark,
and so much of the built ground in Middlesex and Surrey, whose
houses are contiguous unto, or within call of those aforementioned. Or
else we mean the housing which