CHAPTER 6

New colonies--Reasons for their rapid increase--North American
Colonies--Extraordinary instance of increase in the back
settlements--Rapidity with which even old states recover the
ravages of war, pestilence, famine, or the convulsions of nature.


It has been universally remarked that all new colonies settled in
healthy countries, where there was plenty of room and food, have
constantly increased with astonishing rapidity in their
population. Some of the colonies from ancient Greece, in no very
long period, more than equalled their parent states in numbers
and strength. And not to dwell on remote instances, the European
settlements in the new world bear ample testimony to the truth of
a remark, which, indeed, has never, that I know of, been doubted.
A plenty of rich land, to be had for little or nothing, is so
powerful a cause of population as to overcome all other
obstacles. No settlements could well have been worse managed than
those of Spain in Mexico, Peru, and Quito. The tyranny,
superstition, and vices of the mother-country were introduced in
ample quantities among her children. Exorbitant taxes were
exacted by the Crown. The most arbitrary restrictions were
imposed on their trade. And the governors were not behind hand in
rapacity and extortion for themselves as well as their master.
Yet, under all these difficulties, the colonies made a quick
progress in population. The city of Lima, founded since the