chief causes that have prevented the quantity of human food in
the country from keeping pace with the generally increased
fertility of the soil; and a change of custom in these respects
would, I have little doubt, have a very sensible effect on the
quantity of subsistence in the country, and consequently on its
population.

The employment of much of the most fertile land in grating,
the improvements in agricultural instruments, the increase of
large farms, and particularly the diminution of the number of
cottages throughout the kingdom, all concur to prove, that there
are not probably so many persons employed in agricultural labour
now as at the period of the Revolution. Whatever increase of
population, therefore, has taken place, must be employed almost
wholly in manufactures, and it is well known that the failure of
some of these manufactures, merely from the caprice of fashion,
such as the adoption of muslins instead of silks, or of
shoe-strings and covered buttons, instead of buckles and metal
buttons, combined with the restraints in the market of labour
arising from corporation and parish laws, have frequently driven
thousands on charity for support. The great increase of the poor
rates is, indeed, of itself a strong evidence that the poor have
not a greater command of the necessaries and conveniences of
life, and if to the consideration, that their condition in this
respect is rather worse than better, be added the circumstance,
that a much greater proportion of them is employed in large
manufactories, unfavourable both to health and virtue, it must be
acknowledged, that the increase of wealth of late years has had
no tendency to increase the happiness of the labouring poor.