1. The number of houses which were burnt A.D. 1666, which by authentic
report was 13,200; next what proportion the people who died out of those
houses, bore to the whole; which I find A.D. 1686, to be but one seventh
part, but A.D. 1666 to be almost one-fifth, from whence I infer the whole
housing of London A.D. 1666 to have been 66,000, then finding the burials
A.D. 1666 to be to those of 1686 as 3 to 4,I pitch upon 88,000 to be the
number of housing A.D. 1686.
2. Those who have been employed in making the general map of London, set
forth in the year 1682, told me that in that year they had found above
84,000 houses to be in London, wherefore A.D. 1686, or in four years
more, there might be one-tenth or 8,400 houses more (London doubling in
forty years) so as the whole, A.D. 1686 might be 92,400.
3. I found that A.D. 1685, there were 29,325 hearths in Dublin, and
6,400 houses, and in London 388 thousand hearths, whereby there must have
been at that rate 87,000 houses in London. Moreover I found that in
Bristol there were in the same year 16,752 hearth; and 5,307 houses, and
in London 388,000 hearths as aforesaid; at which rate there must have
been 123,000 houses in London, and at a medium between Dublin and Bristol
proportions 105,000 houses.
Lastly, by certificate from the hearth office, I find the houses within
the bills of mortality to be 105,315.
Having thus found the houses, I proceed next to the number of families in
them, and first I thought that if there were three or four families or
kitchens in every house of Paris, there might be two families in
one-tenth of the housing of London; unto which supposition, the common
opinion of several friends doth concur with my own conjectures.
As to the number of heads in each family, I stick to Grant’s observation
in page — of his fifth edition, that in tradesmen of London’s families
there be eight heads one with another, in families of higher ranks, above
ten, and in the poorest near live, according to which proportions, I had
upon another occasion pitched the medium of heads in all the families of
England to be six and one-third, but quitting the fraction in this case,
I agree with Monsieur Auzout for six.
To conclude, the houses of London being 105,315 and the addition of
double families 10,531 more, in all 115,846; I multiplied the same by
six, which produced 695,076 for the number of the people.
_The Second Way_.
I found that the years 1684 and 1685, being next each other, and both
healthful, did wonderfully agree in their burials, viz., 1684 they were
23,202, and A.D. 1685 23,222, the medium whereof is 23,212; moreover that
the christenings 1684 were 14,702, and those A.D. 1685 were 14,730,
wherefore I multiplied the medium of burials 23,212 by 30, supposing that
one dies out of 30 at London, which made the number of people 696,360
souls.