(21) Thus is the assertion, that emigration is immaterial to the increase of the population in America, disposed of, when divested of the false facts and reasonings by which it has been accompanied, and reduced to a mere arithmetical calculation. The former of the two preceding tables shews that a community, placed under the circumstances predicated, more favourable to increase, perhaps, than any in existence, independently of foreign accessions, would not double its numbers in less than five-and-thirty years; the latter, which continues the very same computations, shews that an annual addition of little more, on the average, than a three-hundredth part, would double, thus replenished, in five-and-twenty years. I may repeat, that the amount thus added is the precise proportion dictated by Mr. Malthus; and when it is recollected, that of the 10,000 emigrants who are said to remove to America annually, it is also agreed by him, in a passage quoted in this chapter, that above 7000 would be males, in assigning to the entire number little more than four thousand marriages, it will not be thought that I can have erred on the side of excess. My opinion is, that these proportions give too small an increase to the population as the effect of emigration, exemplified in the latter of the two preceding tables; and that, in the former one, the period of doubling, protracted as it is, compared with the one so confidently assumed, is still far too rapid to result from procreation only; a conclusion, which, I think, will be demonstrated hereafter.

(22) In conclusion: the foregoing proportions are not, as has been already observed, arbitrary assumptions of my own, to answer the purpose of this particular argument; on the contrary, as it respects those which concern natural increase, they have been taken

from authorities who are quite eager enough to prove that their "country possesses, in a superior degree, an inherent, radical, and lasting source of national vigour and greatness'," to quote the language of one of them. Then again, regarding emigration, another class of writers, as fully bent as the Americans in shewing it to be "immaterial" to the present increase of their population, have themselves dictated the facts which have been made the basis of the calculation, as to its effects; only that I think I have kept far within the proportion of marriages resulting from that cause, (and that is the point of chief importance,) which their own admissions and assertions warrant. All uncertainties, however, would have been avoided, had the statistics of the United States afforded the necessary information. If the authorities there had been as anxious to record the importations of men as of merchandise, the present dispute could never have existed. Had the due performance of the rites of Christianity been provided for by law, without (if it so pleased them) prescribing uniformity in their celebration, the registry of marriages, births, and burials would have decided the most important of the points at issue. An establishment, moreover, which should have secured the universality and perpetuity of Christian worship, would have repaid a thousand-fold its expense, in the additional decency and comfort it would have conferred upon the entire community. Those who would persuade us, that it is unnecessary to provide for religious tuition and worship, and still are loud in their praises of the compulsory establishment of an institution of far less national importance, that of schools, throughout the Union; asserting, that the former may be safely left to individual feelings, but 1 Barton, American Phil. Transact., vol. iii., p. 26.

that the latter cannot, argue either as infidels or enthusiasts; if merely as the latter, they argue against facts. The best writers America has yet produced have deplored the state of things to which this circumstance has naturally and inevitably led. Dr. Dwight mentions the immense tracts of settled country where all the national institutions are fully organized, where every thing else prospers, but where the public worship of Almighty GOD is unknown. Bristed says, that "full one third of the population are destitute of all religious ordinances1." And we learn from other sources, that even in many places where Christian worship has been already established, that it has been suspended or abandoned in consequence of a want of ministers; a want which will continue and increase till an adequate provision is made for them, or the feelings which govern human beings are no longer operative. I deplore this state of things, not as the advocate of that particular form of religion which I may prefer, but as a friend to Christianity; any public profession of which is as preferable to none, as light is to darkness. The sacred function, which adds learning, decency, and dignity to society, to say nothing of its infinitely more important duties, is, in the light of political philosophy even, quite as important an office as that of the mere schoolmaster, the highest order of which, moreover, that profession constantly supplies. But I am diverging from the subject which has so long been pressed upon the attention of the reader,-Emigration. While discussing it, the pathetic description of Goldsmith, the poet of Nature

and of truth, aye, and of true political philosophy, has often occurred to my mind, and especially now; and I cannot forbear regretting that the exiles he so touchingly describes in their adopted home beyond the western main, have not found his village pastor, to fix the principles of their youth, to guide their conduct in the active scenes of life, and to administer consolation in its last moments. The want of registers in America has unintentionally led to these reflections, which I hope some will not think entirely misplaced in a work of which the object is to promote and secure the happiness of human beings, and to assert the claim of a merciful and all-sufficient Providence upon their constant and solemn adoration.

579

CHAPTER XIV.

OF EMIGRATION TO AMERICA: CALCULATED ON THE ADMISSION OF THOSE WHO ASSERT IT TO BE "IMMATERIAL."

(1) LASTLY, I shall shew, from the direct admission of those who assert and argue to the contrary, that emigration has been the main instrument in the multiplication of the population of America, and consequently that the proof of their theory, as founded upon the latter, entirely fails.

(2) The passages already quoted in the preceding chapter from Mr. Malthus's Essay, and the article on Population in the Supplement to the Encyclopædia Britannica, equally admit an annual emigration to the amount of ten thousand individuals. The former attributes to them an increase of five per cent. per annum; for which rate, however, the latter substitutes one of three per cent. per annum, which is asserted to be the ratio of increase, as it respects the entire community, and is therefore conceded with an affectation of great liberality to the emigrants also. Emigration, however, is still declared to be "immaterial" to the increase of the population, which, it is argued, would, without such an accession, double itself in less than twenty-five years.

(3) One of these articles professes to calculate the effect of emigration from 1782 to 1790; the other from 1795 to 1820; we shall, however, accept neither term, unless it can be shewn that emigration com