and highly stimulating sense of power and independence. The
marvelous growth of the colonies in population and wealth, much
commented upon by all observers and asserted by ministers as one
principal reason why Americans should pay taxes, was indeed well
worth some consideration. A million and a half of people spread
over the Atlantic seaboard might be thought no great number; but
it was a new thing in the world, well worth noting--which had in
fact been carefully noted by Benjamin Franklin in a pamphlet on
"The Increase of Mankind, Peopling of Countries, etc."--that
within three-quarters of a century the population of the
continental colonies had doubled every twenty-five years, whereas
the population of Old England during a hundred years past had not
doubled once and now stood at only some six and a half millions.
If this should go on--and, considering the immense stretches of
free land beyond the mountains, no one could suppose that the
present rate of increase would soon fall off--it was not unlikely
that in another century the center of empire, following the
course of the sun, would come to rest in the New World. With
these facts in mind, one might indeed say that a people with so
much vitality and expansive power was abundantly able to pay
taxes; but perhaps it was also a fair inference, if any one was
disposed to press the matter, that, unless it was so minded, such
a people was already, or assuredly soon would be, equally able
not to pay them.

People in new countries, being called provincial, being often
told in effect that having made their bed they may lie in it,
easily maintain their self-respect if they are able to say that
the bed is indeed a very comfortable one. If, therefore,
Americans had been given to boasting, their growing wealth was