THE POPULATION QUESTION
Dr. Richard Price had recently stirred a sensation by his attempt to
prove that the population of England was declining, and had actually
declined by nearly 30 per cent since the Revolution, and the first to
enter the lists against him was William Eden, who in his _Fifth Letter
to the Earl of Carlisle_, published in 1780, exposes the weakness of
Price's statistics, and argues that both the population and the trade
of the country had increased. Price replied to these criticisms in the
same year, and now in 1785 Eden appears to have been contemplating a
return to the subject and the publication of another work upon it, in
connection with which he entered upon a correspondence with Smith, for
the two following letters bearing on this population question of last
century, though neither of them bears any name or address, seem most
likely to have been written to that politician.
Price had drawn his alarmist conclusions from rough estimates founded
on the revenue returns. From a comparison of the hearth-money returns
before the Revolution with the window and house tax returns of his own
time he guessed at the number of dwelling-houses in the country, and
from the number of dwelling-houses he guessed at the number of
inhabitants by simply supposing each house to contain five persons. He
further tried to support his conclusion by figures drawn from bills of
mortality and by references to colonial emigration, consolidation of
farms, the growth of London, and the progress of luxury.
Smith thought very poorly of those ill-founded speculations, and even
of their author generally, and he appears to have called Eden's
attention to a population return relative to Scotland which furnished
a sounder basis for a just estimate of the numbers of the people than
the statistics on which Price relied. This was a return of the number
of examinable persons in every parish of Scotland which had been
obtained in 1755 by Dr. Alexander Webster, at the desire of Lord
President Dundas, for the information of the Government. Public
catechisings were then, and in many parishes are still, part of the
ordinary duties of the minister, who visited each hamlet and district
of his parish successively for the purpose every year, and
consequently every minister kept a list of the examinable persons in
his parish--the persons who were old enough to answer his questions on
the Bible or Shorter Catechism. None were too old to be exempt.
Webster procured copies of these lists for every parish in Scotland,
and when he added to each a certain proportion to represent the number
of persons under examinable age, he had a fairly accurate statement of
the population of the country. He appears to have procured the lists
for 1779 as well as those for 1755, and to have ascertained from a
comparison of the two that the population of Scotland had remained
virtually stationary during that quarter of a century, the increase in
the commercial and manufacturing districts being counterbalanced by a
diminution in the purely agricultural districts, due to the
consolidation of farms. That, at least, was the impression of the
officials of the Ministers' Widows' Fund, through whom the
correspondence on the subject with the ministers had been
conducted; and they threw doubt on an observation of a contrary
import--apparently to the effect that the population of Scotland was
increasing--which Smith heard Webster make in one of those hours of
merriment for which that popular and useful divine seems destined to
be remembered when his public services are forgotten.
Smith's first letter runs thus:--
SIR--I have been so long in answering your very obliging
letter of the 8th inst. that I am afraid you will imagine I
have been forgetting or neglecting it. I hoped to send one
of the accounts by the post after I received your letter,
but some difficulties have occurred which I was not aware
of, and you may yet be obliged to wait a few days for it. In
the meantime I send you a note extracted from Mr. Webster's
book by his clerk, who was of great use to him in composing
it, and who has made several corrections upon it since.
My letters as a Commissioner of the Customs are paid at the
Custom House, and my correspondents receive them duty free.
I should otherwise have taken the liberty to enclose them,
as you direct, under Mr. Rose's cover. It may perhaps give
that gentleman pleasure to be informed that the net revenue
arising from the customs in Scotland is at least four times
greater than it was seven or eight years ago. It has been
increasing rapidly these four or five years past, and the
revenue of this year has overleaped by at least one-half the
revenue of the greatest former year. I flatter myself it is
likely to increase still further. The development of the
causes of this augmentation would require a longer
discussion than this letter will admit.
Price's speculations cannot fail to sink into the neglect
that they have always deserved. I have always considered him
as a factious citizen, a most superficial philosopher, and
by no means an able calculator.--I have the honour to be,
with great respect and esteem, sir, your most faithful
humble servant,
ADAM SMITH.
CUSTOM HOUSE, EDINBURGH, _22nd December 1785_.
I shall certainly think myself very much honoured by any
notice you may think proper to take of my book.[339]
The second letter followed in a few days:--
EDINBURGH, _3rd January 1786_.
SIR--The accounts of the imports and exports of Scotland
which you wanted are sent by this day's post to Mr. Rose.
Since I wrote to you last I have conversed with Sir Henry
Moncreiff, Dr. Webster's successor as collector of the fund
for the maintenance of clergymen's widows, and with his
clerk, who was likewise clerk to Dr. Webster, and who was of
great use to the Doctor in the composition of the very book
which I mentioned to you in a former letter. They are both
of opinion that the conversation I had with Dr. Webster a
few months before his death must have been the effect of a
momentary and sudden thought, and not of any serious or
deliberate consideration or inquiry. It was, indeed, at a
very jolly table and in the midst of much mirth and jollity,
of which the worthy Doctor, among many other useful and
amiable qualities, was a very great lover and promoter. They
told me that in the year 1779 a copy of the Doctor's book
was made out by his clerk for the use of my Lord North. That
at the end of that book the Doctor had subjoined a note to
the following purpose, that though between 1755 and 1779 the
numbers in the great trading and manufacturing towns and
villages were considerably increased, yet the Highlands and
Islands were much depopulated, and even the low country, by
the enlargement of farms, in some degree; so that the whole
numbers, he imagined, must be nearly the same at both
periods. Both these gentlemen believe that this was the last
deliberate judgment which Dr. Webster ever formed upon this
subject. The lists mentioned in the note are the lists of
what are called examinable persons--that is, of persons
upwards of seven or eight years of age, who are supposed fit
to be publicly examined upon religious and moral subjects.
Most of our country clergy keep examination rolls of this
kind.
My Lord North will, I dare to say, be happy to accommodate
you with the use of this book. It is a great curiosity,
though the conversation I mentioned to you had a little
shaken my faith in it--I am glad now to suppose, without
much reason.--I have the honour to be, with the highest
regard, sir, your most obedient humble servant,
ADAM SMITH.[340]
A new edition of the _Wealth of Nations_--the fourth--appeared in
1786, without any alteration in the text from the previous one, but
the author prefixed to it an advertisement acknowledging the very
great obligations he had been under to Mr. Henry Hope, the banker at
Amsterdam, for (to quote the words of the advertisement) "the most
distinct as well as the most liberal information concerning a very
interesting and important subject, the Bank of Amsterdam, of which no
printed account has ever appeared to me satisfactory or even
intelligible. The name of that gentleman is so well known in Europe,
the information which comes from him must do so much honour to whoever
has been favoured with it, and my vanity is so much interested in
making this acknowledgment, that I can no longer refuse myself the
pleasure of prefixing this advertisement to this new edition of my
book."
Smith had now, as he says in the following letter, reached his grand
climacteric--his sixty-third year, according to the old belief, the
last and most dangerous of the periodical crises to which man's bodily
life was supposed to be subject--and the winter of 1786-87 laid him so
low with a chronic obstruction of the bowels that Robertson wrote
Gibbon they were in great danger of losing him. That was the winter
Burns was in Edinburgh, and it was doubtless owing to this illness and
Smith's consequent inability to go into society, that he and the poet
never met. Burns obtained a letter of introduction to Smith from their
common friend Mrs. Dunlop, but writes her on the 19th of April that
when he called he found Smith had gone to London the day before,
having recovered, as we know he did, sufficiently in spring to go up
there for the purpose of consulting John Hunter. He was still in
Edinburgh in March, however, and wrote Bishop Douglas a letter
introducing one of his Fifeshire neighbours, Robert Beatson, the
author of the well-known and very useful _Political Index_. Beatson
had been an officer of the Engineers, but had retired on half-pay in
1766 and become an agriculturist in his native county. While there he
compiled his unique and valuable work, which he published in 1786 and
dedicated to his old friend Adam Smith. A new edition was called for
within a year, and the author proposed to add some new matter, on
which he desired the advice of Bishop Douglas. Hence this letter:--
DEAR SIR--This letter will be delivered to you by Mr. Robert
Beatson of Vicars Grange, in Fifeshire, a very worthy friend
of mine, and my neighbour in the country for more than ten
years together. He has lately published a very useful book
called a Political Index, which has been very successful,
and which he now proposes to republish with some additions.
He wishes much to have your good advice with regard to these
additions, and indeed with regard to every other part of his
book. And indeed, without flattering you, I know no man so
fit to give him good advice upon this subject. May I
therefore beg leave to introduce him to your acquaintance,
and to recommend him most earnestly to your best advice and
assistance. You will find him a very good-natured,
well-informed, inoffensive, and obliging companion.
I was exceedingly vexed and not a little offended when I
heard that you had passed through this town some time ago
without calling upon me, or letting me know that you was in
our neighbourhood. My anger, however, which was very fierce,
is now a good deal abated, and if you promise to behave
better for the future, it is not impossible that I may
forgive the past.
This year I am in my grand climacteric, and the state of my
health has been a good deal worse than usual. I am getting
better and better, however, every day, and I begin to
flatter myself that with good pilotage I shall be able to
weather this dangerous promontory of human life, after which
I hope to sail in smooth water for the remainder of my
days.--I am ever, my dear sir, most faithfully and
affectionately yours,
ADAM SMITH.
EDINBURGH, _6th March 1787_.[341]
FOOTNOTES:
[339] Original in possession of Mr. Alfred Morrison.
[340] Original in Edinburgh University Library.
[341] Egerton MSS., British Museum, 2181.