Page:PettyWilliam1899EconomicWritingsVol2.djvu/305

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610
Treatise of Ireland.

B. What if I had said but 300000 instead of 600000, the Loss even of 300000 People, is more than all the Estates of the Irish Real and Personal, at their greatest Worth and Splendor, can expiate. Nevertheless, because it is a curious Inquiry, and to shew you that I do not talk altogether at Random, I will repeat and strengthen the Demonstration I began; vizt

1. That there [are] about 1300000 Souls in Ireland in this Year 1687. I say that the Revenue of Hearths is 30000l., So as the Hearths must be 300000 in Number. I say that, by a good Estimate from the Hearth-Books, all the Houses in Ireland, which have more than one Chimney are 20000; and that there dwell 6 Heads in each of such Houses, one with another: In all 120000 Souls. And that there are in the said Houses 3 Chimneys one with another, in all 60000 Chimneys: Which deduced out of 300000, leaves 240000 chimneys for 240000 Thousand Families. But in the poor Cabineer Families, one with another, there live 5 Heads in each; which makes the Number of those Cabineers 1200000: Which added to the 1200000 (sic) abovementioned, makes 1320000 Heads, which is the next round Number to 1300000.

2. Let me suppose that there were 900000 People in the Year 1653, and 1300000 now, then at a Medium there were 1100000: Out of which there dyed, at the Rate of one out of 30, 37000[1] per Annum. Grant saith[2] that in Countrey Parishes, where there are 4 Burials there are 5 Births; and consequently the Increase of the People in Ireland must be the Quarter of 37000 or 9000 one Quarter per Annum: Which multiply'd by 35 makes 315000 to have increased by Generation, between the Year 1652 and 1687, and the Number in 1652 to be 985000.

3. Altho' I said there were more People Aº 1641 than Aº 1687, as appears by the Exportations, Importations, Tyths, Grist-Mills, and the Judgment of Intelligent Persons; Yet I shall suppose them to be but one 13th Part, or 1400000 in all: But 1400000 would have increased from the Year 1641 to the Year 1653 11500[3] per an or 138000, making the whole

  1. MS., '17000.' Petty wrote the '37000' in the margin.
  2. P. 390.
  3. MS., '11000,' altered to '11500.'