2.  That any three of the best cities of France, any two of all Christendom, or any one of the world, hath the same, or better housing, and more foreign trade than London, even in the year that King James the Second came to the empire thereof.

OF THE PEOPLE OF ENGLAND.

Founded upon the Calculations of Gregory King, Lancaster Herald, and forming part of “An Essay upon the Probable Methods of making a People gainers in the Balance of Trade.”  Published in 1699.

The writer of these papers has seen the natural and political observations and conclusions upon the state and condition of England by Gregory King, Esq., Lancaster Herald, in manuscript.  The calculations therein contained are very accurate, and more perhaps to be relied upon than anything that has been ever done of the like kind.  This skilful and laborious gentleman has taken the right course to form his several schemes about the numbers of the people, for besides many different ways of working, he has very carefully inspected the poll-books, and the distinctions made by those acts, and the produce in many of the respective polls, going everywhere by reasonable and discreet mediums:  besides which pains, he has made observations of the very facts in particular towns and places, from which he has been able to judge and conclude more safely of others, so that he seems to have looked further into this mystery than any other person.

With his permission, we shall offer to the public such of his computations as may be of use, and enlighten in the matter before us.

He lays down that if the first peopling of England was by a colony or colonies, consisting of a number between 100 and 1,000 people (which seems probable), such colony or colonies might be brought over between the year of the world 2400 and 2600, viz., about 800 or 900 years after the Flood, and 1,400 or 1,500 years before the birth of Christ, at which time the world might have about 1,000,000 families, and 4,000,000 or 5,000,000 people.

From which hypothesis it will follow by an orderly series of increase —

That when the Romans invaded England fifty-three years before Christ’s time, the kingdom might have about 360,000 people, and at Christ’s birth about 400,000.

That at the Norman Conquest, A.D. 1066, the kingdom might contain somewhat above 2,000,000.

That A.D. 1260, or about 200 years after the Norman Conquest, it might contain about 2,750,000 people, or half the present number:  so that the people of England may have doubled in about 435 years last past.

That in all probability the next doubling will be in about 600 years to come, viz., by the year 2300, at which time it may have about 11,000,000 people, and the kingdom containing about 39,000,000 of acres, there will be then about three acres and a half per head.

That the increase of the kingdom for every hundred years of the last preceding term of doubling, and the subsequent term of doubling, may have been and in all probability may be, according to the following scheme:-