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A million and a half of people spread over the Atlantic seaboard might be thought no great number; but it was a new thing in the world. ...which had in fact been carefully noted by Benjamin Franklin in a pamphlet on The Increase of Mankind, Peopling of Countries, etc.—that within three-quarters of a century the population of the continental colonies had doubled every twenty-five years, whereas the population of Old England during a hundred years past had not doubled once and now stood at only some six and a half millions. ...With these facts in mind, one might indeed say that a people with so much vitality and expansive power was abundantly able to pay taxes; but perhaps it was also a fair inference, if any one was disposed to press the matter, that unless it was so minded, such a people was already, or assuredly soon would be, equally able not to pay them. (en) |
