ciple we shall find an astonishing extent of immigration. The white population of 1800 was 4,305,971. These in ten years would be diminished by a fourth. It is very improbable, he continues, that more than 3,200,000 would have been alive in 1810; for whatever proportion the births of that country may bear to the whole population, the proportion of deaths is certainly greater than in Europe. These 3,200,000 then, should have constituted the number of those above ten years of age, in the census of 1810, had there been no importation from other countries. But the actual census above ten years of age, was 3,845,389: giving a surplus of 645,389 which can be accounted for in no other way than by immigration. The census of 1810 contains also 2,016,704 children under ten years. Part of these too, as well as the deaths of immigrants since their arrival, should be added to the 645,389 above stated: and therefore of the 1,556,122 persons which the census of 1810 exhibits beyond that of 1800, it is as clear as sunshine that nearly one half was added by direct immigration. Of the effects on the increase of population by the introduction of grown-up persons, we have, he observes, already spoken; and adverting to these effects along with the statements now given, the additional population is, he concludes, completely accounted for, without supposing a power of procreation beyond what is found to prevail among European nations. The Reviewer denies at once the principle and the conclusion which is here founded upon it. Before we can ascertain, says he, the amount of immigration from the numbers above ten years old in the second census, it is obvious that we must make a proper allowance for the mortality of the population of the first census in the ten years between the first and second. Mr. Booth, proceeding we suppose upon the supposition that the mortality in the United States is one in forty, imagines that he shall obtain the mortality of the ten years in question by multiplying the mortality of one year by ten: and so infers that the population of the first census would in ten years be diminished by 40 or 4. He forgets, continues the representative of Mr. Malthus, or perhaps he never knew that the very early years of life are the greatest contributors to the annual mortality. In a table of the numbers in different ages dying annually in Sweden, brought forward by Dr. Price, it appears that the mortality of the male children under one year of age was 1 in 3, while the mortality between the age of 5 and 10 was 1 in 68; between the ages of 10 and 15, 1 in 131; and between the ages of D VOL. XX. JULY, 1823. 15 and 20, 1 in 139. It is quite obvious therefore, concludes the antagonist of Mr. Booth, that the ten years mortality of a population which is rising into the healthiest stages of life, and is not affected by fresh births, and the frail tenure of existence in its earliest periods, must be essentially different from the annual mortality of the whole population multiplied by ten. He next proceeds to shew, by certain calculations, founded on the population returns of Sweden taken in connection with the annual rate of mortality in that country, that the number of deaths in the rural districts of North America cannot exceed 1 in 50. Mr. Barton, the author of a paper in the Philadelphia Transactions, gives the annual mortality of the United States as being 1 in 45; and assuming the accuracy of this estimate, the Reviewer remarks, that if we apply the calculated proportion of loss in ten years which would take place in Sweden, where the general mortality is 1 in 34.6 to America, where the general mortality is 1 in 45, we shall find that the population existing at the time of any one census, would have lost in ten years, or at the next census, about one-seventh. Instead therefore, says he, of subtracting one-fourth for the loss of a given population in the course of ten years in America, we must subtract only one-seventh and it will be found that this correction will make a great difference in the appearance of immigration. According to the American tables it appears that the white population of 1800 was 4,305,971. If from this number we subtract one-seventh (or more accurately one-sixth, 878) for the diminution of the population in ten years, the population of 1800 which should be found living in 1810, will be 3,679,971, instead of 3,200,000 as stated by Mr. Booth; and subtracting 3,679,371 from 3,845,389, the population above ten years of age actually found living in the census of 1810, we shall have 165,418 for the amount of immigration in den years, instead of 645,389 as stated by Mr. Booth. If we then proceed to deduct the amount of immigration so found from 5,862,093, the whole white population of 1810, the remainder will be 5,696,623; and the difference between 4,305,971, the population of 1800, and the number 5,696,623 will express the increase of population between 1800 and 1810, independently of immigration, or by procreation only. The annual amount of immigration, according to this corrected statement, will not exceed 16,000; whereas, according to Mr. Booth's calculation, it could not be less than 64,000. But the disciple of Mr. Malthus is still willing to suspect that the rate of mortality in the United States is rated too high at one in forty-five. He is disposed to reduce it to 1 in 50; by which means the amount to be subtracted for the mortality during the ten years between the two censuses would be diminished to about one-eighth instead of one-seventh and in this case, it is obvious, the annual immigration would be only between seven and eight instead of sixteen thousand as estimated above. This conclusion, we may remark, is amply confirmed both by the statistical accounts, and by the Custom-house returns of the United States. They all agree in representing the effect of immigration upon the encrease of the people as quite inconsiderable. During the twenty years from 1790 to 1810, the accession to their population from that source is described as altogether trifling. Dr. Leybert, in his chapter on Emigration, after reviewing what other writers had stated on the subject, and producing an authentic estimate of the number of passengers, citizens, as well as aliens who arrived at the different ports of the United States in the extraordinary year 1817, which, it seems, amounted to 22,240, he calculates that no more than 6000 could have arrived annually from 1790 to 1810: and allowing for their increase at five per cent. he concludes by stating that the duplication of the free inhabitants, independently of immigration, would require only one-fifth of a year more than when the immigrants were added. Mr. Booth impugns the accuracy of all these deductions, on the ground that Seybert's book is stuffed with credulity and nonsense; and that the censuses of Philadelphia, where they are at all to be relied upon, give a very different representation of life and death from that which is ascribed to them by the Edinburgh Reviewer. But his remarks on the latter subject are so hasty and blundering, that he sacrifices to passion nearly all the advantage which his argument would have derived from a calm examination of facts, or a successful exposure of inaccuracy. At page 31, for example, he gives the number of persons in Philadelphia, for the year 1810, between the ages of 10 and 26, at 13,824 instead of 18,735; and he was evidently led into this mistake by summing part of the column for 1800, instead of that for the year just named. Throughout his whole Letter, indeed, he postpones reasoning to invective; and precludes, in the mind of the reader, the respect which is due as well to his talents as to the importance of his argument, by constantly reverting to that pettish, sulky, and intemperate style which is scarcely pardonable in a disappointed school-boy. The Edinburgh Reviewer, in a certain part of his article, expresses his assurance that, if we had tables for America, formed like those of Dr. Price for Sweden, we should find the annual rate of mortality still lower than he himself has estimated it. "Then have thy wish," exclaims Mr. Booth. Such tables, he proceeds to inform us, were calculated, and are adopted by the "Pennsylvanian Company for insurance on lives and granting annuities." There are two sets of them: one founded on the records of the Episcopal Church, and the other on the Bills of Mortality published by the Board of Health of Philadelphia, and they are inserted in Mr. Booth's pamphlet, where they are also compared with the Expectations of Life in Sweden and Northampton, as drawn up by Dr. Price. To afford some idea of the comparative value of life, in Europe and America, we shall quote the statement here given for the first ten years. If these tables be correctly calculated, it must be allowed, we think, as a necessary consequence that the value of human-life, at the early stages of it, is less at Philadelphia than in almost any part of Europe. Mr. Booth seizes this inference as a strong vantage-ground in his contest with the Malthusian theorist; and applying the rate of mortality on which the above tables are constructed to the American census of 1800, he proves, to his own satisfaction, at least, that onefourth of the population must have died between that year and 1810. We cannot enter into the details of this calculation. Suffice it, then, to say that minute accuracy in the results is neither aimed at nor desiderated; for although this. method of estimating the progress of mortality, leaves, at the end of ten years, 60,000 more persons alive than were permitted to exist by his former estimate, Mr. Booth sees no reason to question the soundness of either scheme of reckoning. "You will question," says he to his opponent in the Edin burgh Review," the authority of these Tables of Expectation; but have you access to more certain documents? In all our reasonings we must trust to some data, unless we would recite our dreams and expect to be believed. What ability and attention have been bestowed upon their construction I know not, but surely the Company for whom they were formed, have no interest in their falsification; for they purchase as well as sell annuities: and moreover their business is not confined to the city of Philadelphia. Neither is it probable that any place could have been better chosen for such observations. It is less resorted to by emigrants than New York and many other cities; and although it was founded 140 years ago, its population is not yet greater than the secondrate towns in Europe.' On the whole, we are inclined to believe that the truth, in regard to the progress of American population, will be found to repose somewhere between the two extremes which are maintained respectively by Mr. Booth and the Northern reviewer and that more ought to be attributed to immigration than is allowed by the one, and not so much as is insisted upon by the other. Numbers of new settlers find their way into the United States whose names are not to be seen in Custom-house documents. Many migrate from the British territory into the more genial climate of the Union; and thousands, there is reason to believe, make their way from Europe to the colonies of the Ohio and Mississippi, through channels which cannot be detected at Boston or New York. Besides, we are satisfied that much of the apparent increase in the population of North America may be ascribed to the more correct returns of the inhabitants, obtained by the officers who are employed in making the census. In that country, as in our own, the enumeration of the people could not fail to be very imperfect. Scattered over an immense territory, and ignorant or indifferent as to the township to which they were politically attached, many of the rustic settlers would neglect to return their families. Suspicious, too, that the military service or pecuniary burdens of a district would be regulated by the number of its inhabitants, the small farmers would find an obvious motive for concealing the amount of their households; and it would not be until the object of the census was clearly seen and divested of all the prejudices which are so apt, under all forms of government, to attach to such a measure, that the people at large would frankly give their names, ages, and occupations. We know that feelings similar to those now alluded to have had a very great effect in preventing a full and accurate enumeration of our own countrymen, down almost to the |