States, and scarcely any taxes. And on account of the extreme
cheapness of good land a capital could not be more advantageously
employed than in agriculture, which at the same time that it
supplies the greatest quantity of healthy work affords much the
most valuable produce to the society.

The consequence of these favourable circumstances united was
a rapidity of increase probably without parallel in history.
Throughout all the northern colonies, the population was found to
double itself in twenty-five years. The original number of
persons who had settled in the four provinces of new England in
1643 was 21,200.(I take these figures from Dr Price's two volumes
of Observations; not having Dr Styles' pamphlet, from which he
quotes, by me.) Afterwards, it is supposed that more left them
than went to them. In the year 1760, they were increased to half
a million. They had therefore all along doubled their own number
in twenty-five years. In New Jersey the period of doubling
appeared to be twenty-two years; and in Rhode island still less.
In the back settlements, where the inhabitants applied themselves
solely to agriculture, and luxury was not known, they were found
to double their own number in fifteen years, a most extraordinary
instance of increase. Along the sea coast, which would naturally
be first inhabited, the period of doubling was about thirty-five
years; and in some of the maritime towns, the population was
absolutely at a stand.

(In instances of this kind the powers of the earth appear to
be fully equal to answer it the demands for food that can be made
upon it by man. But we should be led into an error if we were
thence to suppose that population and food ever really increase