Georgia having not yet acceded to the measures of the other States, was not quotaed; but her numbers were generally estimated at about thirty thousand, and so would have made the whole two million four hundred and forty-eight thousand persons, of every condition. But it is to be observed, that though Congress made this census the basis of their apportionment, yet they did not even give it a place on their journals; much less publish it to the world with their sanction. The way it got abroad was this: As the members declared from their seats the number of inhabitants which they conjectured to be in their State, the secretary of Congress wrote them on a piece of paper, calculated the portion of two millions of dollars to be paid by each, and entered the sum only in the journals. The members, however, for their own satisfaction, and the information of their States, took copies of this enumeration and sent them to their States. From thence they got into the public papers: and when the English news writers found it answer their purpose to compare this with the enumeration of 1783, as their principle is "to lie boldly that they may not be suspected of lying," they made it amount to three millions one hundred and thirty-seven thousand eight hundred and nine, and ascribed its publication to Congress itself.

In April, 1785, Congress being to call on the States to raise a million and a half of dollars annually for twenty-five years, it was necessary to apportion this among them. The States had never furnished them with their exact numbers. It was agreed, too, that in this apportionment five slaves should be counted as three freemen only. The preparation of this business was in the hands of a committee; they applied to the members for the best information they could give them of the number of their States. Some of the States had taken pains to discover their numbers. Others had done nothing in that way, and, of course, were now where they were in 1775, when their numbers were first called on to declare their numbers. Under these circumstances, and on the principle of counting three-fifths only of the slaves, the committee apportioned the money among the States, and reported their work to Congress. In this they had assessed South Caro

lina as having one hundred and seventy thousand inhabitants. The delegate for that State, however, prevailed on Congress to assess them on the footing of one hundred and fifty thousand only, in consideration of the state of total devastation in which the enemy had left their country. The difference was then laid on the other States, and the following was the result:

Still, however, Congress refused to give the enumeration the sanction of a place on their journals, because it was not formed on such evidence as a strict attention to accuracy and truth required. They used it from necessity, because they could get no better rule, and they entered on their journals only the apportionment of money. The members, however, as before, took copies of the enumeration, which was the groundwork of the apportionment, sent them to their States, and thus this second enumeration got into the public papers, and was by the English ascribed to Congress as their declaration of their present numbers. To get at the real numbers which this enumeration supposes, we must add twenty thousand to the number on which South Carolina was quoted; we must consider that seven hundred thousand slaves are counted but as four hundred and twenty thousand persons, and add, on that account, two hundred and eighty thousand. This will give us a total of two millions six hundred and thirtynine thousand three hundred inhabitants of every condition in the thirteen States, being two hundred and twenty-one thousand three hundred more than the enumeration of 1775, instead of

seven hundred and ninety-eight thousand five hundred and nine less, which the English papers asserted to be the diminution of numbers in the United States, according to the confession of Congress themselves.

Page 272. "Comportera peut etre une population de thirty millions."

The territory of the United States contains about a million of square miles, English. There is, in them, a greater proportion of fertile lands than in the British dominions in Europe. Suppose the territory of the United States, then, to attain an equal degree of population with the British European dominions, they will have an hundred millions of inhabitants. Let us extend our views to what may be the population of the two continents of North and South America, supposing them divided at the narrowest part of the isthmus of Panama. Between this line and that of 50° of north latitude, the northern continent contains about five millions of square miles, and south of this line of division the southern continent contains about seven millions of square miles. I do not pass the 50th degree of northern latitude in my reckoning, because we must draw a line somewhere, and considering the soil and climate beyond that, I would only avail my calculation of it, as a make weight, to make good what the colder regions within that line may be supposed to fall short in their future population. Here are twelve millions of square miles, then, which, at the rate of population before assumed, will nourish twelve hundred millions of inhabitants, a number greater than the present population of the whole globe is supposed to amount to. If those who propose medals for the resolution of questions, about which nobody makes any question, those who have invited discussion on the pretended problem, Whether the discovery of America was for the good of mankind? if they, I say, would have viewed it only as doubling the numbers of mankind, and, of course, the quantum of existence and happiness, they might have saved the money and the reputation which their proposition has cost them. The present population of the inhabited parts of the United Stated is of about ten to the square mile; and experience has shown us, that wherever we reach that, the inhab

itants become uneasy, as too much compressed, and go off in great numbers to search for vacant country. Within forty years their whole territory will be peopled at that rate. We may fix that, then, as the term beyond which the people of those States will not be restrained within their present limits; we may fix that population, too, as the limit which they will not exceed till the whole of those two continents are filled up to that mark, that is to say, till they shall contain one hundred and twenty millions of inhabitants. The soil of the country on the western side of the Mississippi, its climate, and its vicinity to the United States, point it out as the first which will receive population from that nest. The present occupiers will just have force enough to repress and restrain the emigrations to a certain degree of consistence. We have seen lately a single person go and decide on a settlement in Kentucky, many hundred miles from any white inhabitant, remove thither with his family and a few neighbors; and though perpetually harassed by the Indians, that settlement in the course of ten years has acquired thirty thousand inhabitants. Its numbers are increasing while we are writing, and the State, of which it formerly made a part, has offered it independ

ence.

Page 280, line five. "Huit des onze Etats," &c. Say, "There were ten States present; six voted unanimously for it, three against it, and one was divided; and seven votes being requisite to decide the proposition affirmatively, it was lost. The voice of a single individual of the State which was divided, or of one of those which were of the negative, would have prevented this abominable crime from spreading itself over the new country. Thus we see the fate of millions unborn hanging on the tongue of one man, and heaven was silent in that awful moment! But it is to be hoped it will not always be silent, and that the friends to the rights of human nature will in the end prevail.

"On the 16th of March, 1785, it was moved in Congress that the same proposition should be referred to a committee, and it was referred by the votes of eight States against three. We do not hear that anything further is yet done on it."

Page 286. "L'autorité du Congrés etoit necessaire." The substance of the passage alluded to in the journal of Congress, May the 26th, 1784, is, "That the authority of Congress to make requisitions of troops during peace is questioned; that such an authority would be dangerous, combined with the acknowledged one of emitting or borrowing money; and that a few troops only being wanted to guard magazines and garrison the frontier posts, it would be more proper at present to recommend than to require."

Mr. Jefferson presents his compliments to M. de Meusnier, and sends him copies of the thirteenth, twenty-third, and twenty-fourth articles of treaty between the King of Prussia and the United States.

If M. de Meusnier proposes to mention the facts of cruelty of which he and Mr. Jefferson spoke yesterday, the twenty-fourth article will introduce them properly, because they produced a sense of the necessity of that article. These facts are, 1. The death of upwards of eleven thousand American prisoners in one prison ship (the Jersey), and in the space of three years. 2. General Howe's permitting our prisoners, taken at the battle of Germantown, and placed under a guard in the yard of the Statehouse of Philadelphia, to be so long without any food furnished them that many perished with hunger. Where the bodies laid, it was seen that they had eaten all the grass around them within their reach, after they had lost the power of rising, or moving from their place. 3. The second fact was the act of a commanding officer; the first, of several commanding officers, and for so long a time as must suppose the approbation of government. But the following was the act of government itself. During the periods that our affairs seemed unfavorable, and theirs successful, that is to say, after the evacuation of New York, and again, after the taking of Charleston, in South Carolina, they regularly sent our prisoners, taken on the seas and carried to England, to the East Indies. This is so certain, that in the month of November or December, 1785, Mr. Adams having officially