Chapter 3

First, as to practicable, we say, that although our said extravagant proposals are both in nature possible, yet it is not obvious to every man to conceive how London, now seven times bigger than in the beginning of Queen Elizabeth’s reign, should be seven times bigger than now it is, and forty-nine times bigger than A.D. 1560. To which I say, 1. That the present city of London stands upon less than 2,500 acres of ground, wherefore a city seven times as large may stand upon 10,500 acres, which is about equivalent to a circle of four miles and a half in diameter, and less than fifteen miles in circumference. 2. That a circle of ground of thirty-five miles semidiameter will bear corn, garden-stuff, fruits, hay, and timber, for the 4,690,000 inhabitants of the said city and circle, so as nothing of that kind need be brought from above thirty-five miles distance from the said city; for the number of acres within the said circle, reckoning two acres sufficient to furnish bread and drink-corn for every head, and two acres will furnish hay for every necessary horse; and that the trees which may grow in the hedgerows of the fields within the said circle may furnish timber for 600,000 houses. 3. That all live cattle and great animals can bring themselves to the said city; and that fish can be brought from the Land’s End and Berwick as easily as now. 4. Of coals there is no doubt: and for water, 20s. per family (or £600,000 per annum in the whole) will serve this city, especially with the help of the New River. But if by practicable be understood that the present state may be suddenly changed into either of the two above-mentioned proposals, I think it is not practicable. Wherefore the true question is, unto or towards which of the said two extravagant states it is best to bend the present state by degrees, viz., Whether it be best to lessen or enlarge the present city? In order whereunto, we inquire (as to the first question) which state is most defensible against foreign powers, saying, that if the above-mentioned housing, and a border of ground, of three-quarters of a mile broad, were encompassed with a wall and ditch of twenty miles about (as strong as any in Europe, which would cost but a million, or about a penny in the shilling of the house-rent for one year) what foreign prince could bring an army from beyond seas, able to beat—1. Our sea-forces, and next with horse harassed at sea, to resist all the fresh horse that England could make, and then conquer above a million of men, well united, disciplined, and guarded within such a wall, distant everywhere three-quarters of a mile from the housing, to elude the granadoes and great shot of the enemy? 2. As to intestine parties and factions, I suppose that 4,690,000 people united within this great city could easily govern half the said number scattered without it, and that a few men in arms within the said city and wall could also easily govern the rest unarmed, or armed in such a manner as the Sovereign shall think fit. 3. As to uniformity in religion, I conceive, that if St. Martin’s parish (may as it doth) consist of about 40,000 souls, that this great city also may as well be made but as one parish, with seven times 130 chapels, in which might not only be an uniformity of common prayer, but in preaching also; for that a thousand copies of one judiciously and authentically composed sermon might be every week read in each of the said chapels without any subsequent repetition of the same, as in the case of homilies. Whereas in England (wherein are near 10,000 parishes, in each of which upon Sundays, holy days, and other extraordinary occasions there should be about 100 sermons annum, making about a million of sermons per annum in the whole) it were a miracle, if a million of sermons composed by so many men, and of so many minds and methods, should produce uniformity upon the discomposed understandings of about 8,000,000 of hearers.

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 shipping, &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 ship 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 shipped 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 assistance 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 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 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 mass 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.

* * * * *

DUBLIN, 1682.

Parishes. Houses. Fireplaces. Baptised. Buried. St. James’s 272 836 } 122 306 St. 540 2,198 } Katherine’s St. 1,064 4,082 145 414 Nicholas Without and St. Patrick’s St. 395 1,903 68 149 Bridget’s St. 276 1,510 56 164 Audone’s St. 174 884 34 50 Michael’s St. John’s 302 1,636 74 101 St. 153 902 26 52 Nicholas Within and Christ Church Lib. St. 240 1,638 45 105 Warburgh’s St. 938 3,516 124 389 Michan’s St. 864 3,638 131 300 Andrew’s St. Kevin’s 554 2,120 } 87 233 Donnybrook 253 506 } 6,025 25,369 912 2,263

The table hath been made for the year 1682, wherein is to be noted—

1. That the houses which A.D. 1671 were but 3,850 are, A.D. 1682, 6,025; but whether this difference is caused by the real increase of housing, or by fraud and defect in the former accounts, is left to consideration. For the burials of people have increased but from 1,696 to 2,263, according to which proportion the 3,850 houses A.D. 1671 should A.D. 1682 have been but 5,143, wherefore some fault may be suspected as aforesaid, when farming the hearth-money was in agitation.

2. The hearths have increased according to the burials, and one-third of the said increase more, viz., the burials A.D. 1671 were 1,696, the one-third whereof is 563, which put together makes 2,259, which is near the number of burials A.D. 1682. But the hearths A.D. 1671 were 17,500, whereof the one-third is 5,833, making in all but 23,333; whereas the whole hearths A.D. 1682 were 25,369, viz., one-third and better of the said 5,833 more.

3. The housing were A.D. 1671 but 3,850, which if they had increased A.D. 1682 but according to the burials, they had been but 5,143, or, according to the hearths, had been but 5,488, whereas they appear 6,025, increasing double to the hearths. So as it is likely there hath been some error in the said account of the housing, unless the new housing be very small, and have but one chimney apiece, and that one-fourth part of them are untenanted. On the other hand, it is more likely that when 1,696 died per annum there were near 6,000; for 6,000 houses at 8 inhabitants per house, would make the number of the people to be 48,000, and the number of 1,696 that died according to the rule of one out of 30, would have made the number of inhabitants about 50,000: for which reason I continue to believe there was some error in the account of 3,850 houses as aforesaid, and the rather because there is no ground from experience to think that in eleven years the houses in Dublin have increased from 3,850 to 6,025.

Moreover, I rather think that the number of 6,025 is yet short, because that number at 8 heads per house makes the inhabitants to be but 48,200; whereas the 2,263 who died in the year 1682, according to the aforementioned rule of one dying out of 30 makes the number of people to be 67,890, the medium betwixt which number and 48,200 is 58,045, which is the best estimate I can make of that matter, which I hope authority will ere long rectify, by direct and exact inquiries.

4. As to the births, we say that A.D. 1640, 1641, and 1642, at London, just before the troubles in religion began, the births were five-sixths of the burials, by reason I suppose of the greaterness of families in London above the country, and the fewer breeders, and not for want of registering. Wherefore, deducting one-sixth of 2,263, which is 377, there remains 1,886 for the probable number of births in Dublin for the year 1682; whereas but 912 are represented to have been christened in that year, though 1,023 were christened A.D. 1671, when there died but 1,696, which decreasing of the christening, and increasing of the burials, shows the increase of non-registering in the legal books, which must be the increase of Roman Catholics at Dublin.

The scope of this whole paper therefore is, that the people of Dublin are rather 58,000 than 32,000, and that the dissenters, who do not register their baptisms, have increased from 391 to 974: but of dissenters, none have increased but the Roman Catholics, whose numbers have increased from about two to five in the said years. The exacter knowledge whereof may also be better had from direct inquiries.

OBSERVATIONS UPON THE DUBLIN BILLS OF MORTALITY, 1681: AND THE STATE OF THAT CITY.

THE observations upon the London bills of mortality have been a new light to the world, and the like observation upon those of Dublin may serve as snuffers to make the same candle burn clearer.

The London observations flowed from bills regularly kept for near one hundred years, but these are squeezed out of six straggling London bills, out of fifteen Dublin bills, and from a note of the families and hearths in each parish of Dublin, which are all digested into the one table or sheet annexed, consisting of three parts, marked A, B, C; being indeed the A, B, C of public economy, and even of that policy which tends to peace and plenty.

_Observations upon the Table A_.

1. The total of the burials in London (for the said six straggling years mentioned in the Table A) is 120,170, whereof the medium or sixth part is 20,028, and exceeds the burials of Paris, as may appear by the late bills of that city.

2. The births, for the same time, are 73,683, the medium or sixth part whereof is 12,280, which is about five-eighth parts of the burials, and shows that London would in time decrease quite away, were it not supplied out of the country, where are about five births for four burials, the proportion of breeders in the country being greater than in the city.

3. The burials in Dublin for the said six years were 9,865, the sixth part or medium whereof is 1,644, which is about the twelfth part of the London burials, and about a fifth part over. So as the people of London do hereby seem to be above twelve times as many as those of Dublin.

4. The births in the same time at Dublin are 6,157, the sixth part or medium whereof is 1,026, which is also about five-eighth parts of the 1,644 burials, which shows that the proportion between burials and births are alike at London and Dublin, and that the accounts are kept alike, and consequently are likely to be true, there being no confederacy for that purpose; which, if they be true, we then say—

5. That the births are the best way (till the accounts of the people shall be purposely taken) whereby to judge of the increase and decrease of people, that of burials being subject to more contingencies and variety of causes.

6. If births be as yet the measure of the people, and that the births (as has been shown) are as five to eight, then eight-fifths of the births is the number of the burials, where the year was not considerable for extraordinary sickness or salubrity, and is the rule whereby to measure the same. As for example, the medium of births in Dublin was 1,026, the eight-fifths whereof is 1,641, but the real burials were 1,644; so as in the said years they differed little from the 1,641, which was the standard of health, and consequently the years 1680, 1674, and 1668 were sickly years, more or less, as they exceeded the said number, 1,641; and the rest were healthful years, more or less, as they fell short of the same number. But the city was more or less populous, as the births differed from the number 1,026, viz., populous in the years 1680, 1679, 1678, and 1668, for other causes of this difference in births are very occult and uncertain.

7. What hath been said of Dublin, serves also for London.

8. It hath already been observed by the London bills that there are more males than females. It is to be further noted, that in these six London bills, also, there is not one instance either in the births or burials to the contrary.

9. It hath been formerly observed that in the years wherein most die fewest are born, and _vice versa_. The same may be further observed in males and females, viz., when fewest males are born then most die: for here the males died as twelve to eleven, which is above the mean proportion of fourteen to thirteen, but were born but as nineteen to eighteen, which is below the same.

_Observations upon the Table B_.

1. From the Table B it appears that the medium of the fifteen years’ burials (being 24,199) is 1,613, whereas the medium of the other six years in the Table A was 1,644, and that the medium of the fifteen years’ births (being in all 14,765) is 984, whereas the medium of the said other six years was 1,026. That is to say, there were both fewer births and burials in these fifteen years than in the other six years, which is a probable sign that at a medium there were fewer people also.

2. The medium of births for the fifteen years being 984, whereof eight-fifths (being 1,576) is the standard of health for the said fifteen years; and the triple of the said 1,576 being 4,728, is the standard for each of the ternaries of the fifteen years within the said table.

3. That 2,952, the triple of 984 births, is for each ternary the standard of people’s increase and decrease from the year 1666 to 1680 inclusive, viz., the people increased in the second ternary, and decreased from the same in the third and fourth ternaries, but re-increased in the fifth ternary beyond any other.

4. That the last ternary was withal very healthful, the burials being but 4,624, viz., below 4,728, the standard.

5. That according to this proportion of increase, the housing of Dublin have probably increased also.

_Observations upon the Table C_.