University of Virginia Library

POPULATION AND EMIGRATION.[32]

Both in the vegetable and animal kingdoms, every species
derives from nature, a reproductive faculty beyond the demand
for merely keeping up its stock: the seed of a single

plant is sufficient to multiply it one hundred or a thousandfold.
The animal offspring is never limited to the number
of its parents. [33]

This ordinance of nature is calculated, in both instances,
for a double purpose. In both it insures the life of the species,
which, if the generative principle had not a multiplying

energy, would be reduced in number by every premature destruction
of individuals, and by degrees would be extinguished
altogether. In the vegetable species, the surplus answers,
moreover, the essential purpose of sustaining the herbivorous
tribes of animals; as in the animal, the surplus serves the like
purpose of sustenance to the carnivorous tribes. A crop of
wheat may be reproduced by one tenth of itself. The remaining
nine tenths can be spared for the animals which feed on it.
A flock of sheep may be continued by a certain proportion
of its annual increase. The residue is the bounty of nature
to the animals which prey on that species.

Man who preys both on the vegetable and animal species,
is himself a prey to neither. He too possesses the reproductive
principle far beyond the degree requisite for the bare
Continuance of his species.—What becomes of the surplus of
human life to which this principle is competent?

It is either, 1st. destroyed by infanticide, as among the
Chinese and Lacedemonians; or 2d. it is stifled or starved, as

among other nations whose population is commensurate to its
food; or 3d. it is consumed by wars and endemic diseases; or
4th. it overflows, by emigration, to places where a surplus of
food is attainable.

What may be the greatest ratio of increase of which the
human species is susceptible, is a problem difficult to be
solved; as well because precise experiments have never been
made, as because the result would vary with circumstances
distinguishing different situations. It has been computed
that under the most favorable circumstances possible, a given
number would double itself in ten years. What has actually
happened in this country is a proof, that nature would

require for the purpose, a less period than twenty years.
We shall be safe in averaging the surplus at five per cent.[34]

According to this computation, Great Britain and Ireland,

which contain about ten millions of people, are capable of
producing annually for emigration, no less than five hundred
thousand; France, whose population amounts to twenty-five
millions, no less than one million two hundred and fifty thousand;
and all Europe, stating its numbers at one hundred
and fifty millions, no less than seven and a half millions.

It is not meant that such a surplus could, under any revolution
of circumstances, suddenly take place: yet no reason occurs
why an annual supply of human, as well as other animal

life, to any amount not exceeding the multiplying faculty,
would not be produced in one country, by a regular and commensurate
demand of another. Nor is it meant that if such
a redundancy of population were to happen in any particular
country, an influx of it beyond a certain degree ought to be
desired by any other, though within that degree, it ought
to be invited by a country greatly deficient in its population.
The calculation may serve, nevertheless, by placing an
important principle in striking view, to prepare the way for
the following positions and remarks.

First. Every country, whose population is full, may annually
spare a proportion of its inhabitants, like a hive of bees

its swarm, without any diminution of its number: nay a certain
proportion must, necessarily, be either spared, or destroyed,
or kept out of existence.[35]

Secondly. It follows, moreover, from this multiplying faculty
of human nature, that a nation, sparing or losing more
than its proper surplus, the level must soon be restored by the
internal resources of life.

Thirdly. Emigrations may augment the population of the
country permitting them. The commercial nations of Europe,
parting with emigrants, to America, are examples. The
articles of consumption demanded from the former, have

created employment for an additional number of manufactures.
The produce remitted from the latter, in the form of
raw materials, has had the same effect—whilst imports and
exports of every kind, have multiplied European merchants
and mariners. Where the settlers have doubled every twenty
or twenty-five years, as in the United States, the increase of
products and consumption in the new country, and consequently
of employment and people in the old, has had a
corresponding rapidity.

Of the people of the United States, nearly three millions
are of British descent.[36] The British population has notwithstanding
increased within the period of our establishment.
It was the opinion of the famous Sir Josiah Child, that every

man in the British Colonies found employment, and of
course, subsistence, for four persons at home. According to
this estimate, as more than half a million of the adult males in
the United States equally contribute employment at this
time to British subjects, there must at this time be more than
two millions of British subjects subsisting on the fruits of
British emigrations. This result, however, seems to be beyond
the real proportion. Let us attempt a less vague calculation.
The value of British imports into the United
States including British freight, may be stated at about
fifteen millions of dollars. Deduct two millions for foreign
articles coming through British hands; there remain thirteen
millions. About half our exports, valued at ten millions of
dollars, are remitted to that nation. From the nature of the
articles, the freight cannot be less than three millions of dollars;
of which about one fifth[37] being the share of the United
States, there is to be added to the former remainder, two
millions four hundred thousand. The profit accruing from
the articles as materials or auxiliaries for manufactures, is
probably at least fifty per cent. or five millions of dollars.

The three sums make twenty millions four hundred thousand
dollars, call them in round numbers twenty millions.—
The expence of supporting a labouring family in Great-Britain,
as computed by Sir John Sinclair, on six families containing
thirty-four persons, averages £.4: 12: 10½ sterling, or about
twenty dollars a head. As his families were of the poorer
class, and the subsistence a bare competency, let twenty-five
per cent. be added, making the expence about twenty-five
dollars a head, dividing twenty millions by this sum, we have
eight hundred thousand for the number of British persons
whose subsistence may be traced to emigration for its source;
or allowing eight shillings sterling a week, for the support of
a workman, we have two hundred sixteen thousand three
hundred forty-five, of that class, for the number derived from
that source.

This lesson of fact, which merits the notice, of every commercial
nation, may be enforced by a more general view of the
subject.

The present imports of the United States, adding to the
first cost, &c, one half the freight, as the reasonable share of
foreign nations, may be stated at twenty-five millions of
dollars. Deducting five millions on account of East-India
articles, there remain in favor of Europe, twenty millions of
dollars. The foreign labour incorporated with such part of
our exports as are subjects or ingredients for manufactures,
together with half the export freight, is probably not of less
value than fifteen millions of dollars. The two sums together
make thirty-five millions of dollars, capable of supporting two
hundred, thirty-three thousand three hundred thirty-three
families of six persons each: or three hundred seventy-eight
thousand and six hundred and five men, living on eight
shillings sterling a week.

The share of this benefit, which each nation is to enjoy,
will be determined by many circumstances. One that must

have a certain and material influence, will be, the taste excited
here for their respective products and fabrics. This influence
has been felt in all its force by the commerce of Great Britain,
as the advantage originated in the emigration from
that country to this; among the means of retaining it, will
not be numbered a restraint on emigrations. Other nations,
who have to acquire their share in our commerce, are still
more interested in aiding their other efforts, by permitting,
and even promoting emigrations to this country, as fast as it
may be disposed to welcome them. The space left by every
ten or twenty thousand emigrants will be speedily filled by a
surplus of life that would otherwise be lost. The twenty thousand
in their new country, calling for the manufactures
and productions required by their habits, will employ and sustain
ten thousand persons in their former country, as a clear
addition to its stock. In twenty or twenty-five years, the
number so employed and added, will be twenty thousand.
And in the mean time, example and information will be diffusing
the same taste among other inhabitants here, and proportionately
extending employment and population there.

Fourthly. Freedom of emigration is due to the general interests
of humanity. The course of emigrations being always,
from places where living is more difficult, to places where
it is less difficult, the happiness of the emigrant is promoted
by the change: and as a more numerous progeny is another
effect of the same cause, human life is at once made a greater
blessing, and more individuals are created to partake of it.

The annual expence of supporting the poor in England
amounts to more than one million and a half sterling.[38] The
number of persons, subsisting themselves not more than six

months in the year, is computed at one million two hundred
sixty eight thousand, and the number of beggars at forty
eight thousand. In France, it has been computed that seven
millions of men women and children live one with another,
on twenty-five livres, which is less than five dollars a year.
Every benevolent reader will make his own reflections.

Fifthly. It may not be superfluous to add, that freedom
of emigration is favorable to morals. A great proportion of
the vices which distinguish crowded from thin settlements,
are known to have their rise in the facility of illicit intercourse
between the sexes, on one hand, and the difficulty of
maintaining a family, on the other. Provide an outlet for
the surplus population, and marriages will be increased in proportion.
Every four or five emigrants will be the fruit of a
legitimate union which would not otherwise have taken place.

Sixthly. The remarks which have been made, though in
many respects little applicable to the internal situation of the
United States, may be of use as far as they tend to prevent
mistaken and narrow ideas on an important subject. Our
country being populated in different degrees in different parts
of it, removals from the more compact to the more spare or
vacant districts are continually going forward—The object
of these removals is evidently to exchange a less easy for a
more easy subsistence. The effect of them must therefore be
to quicken the aggregate population of our country. Considering
the progress made in some situations towards their
natural complement of inhabitants, and the fertility of others,
which have made little or no progress, the probable difference
in their respective rates of increase is not less than as three
in the former to five in the latter. Instead of lamenting then
a loss of three human beings to Connecticut, Rhode Island, or
New Jersey, the Philanthropist, will rejoice that five will be
gained to New York, Vermont or Kentucky; and the patriot
will be not less pleased that two will be added to the citizens
of the United States.

Philadelphia, Nov. 19, 1791.