us of his forcible manner, to evince that there is evil to be apprehended, even from the ashes of this institution, and to exhort the society in America to make their reformation complete; bearing in mind, that we must keep the passions of men on our side, even when we are persuading them to do what they ought to do.

Page 268. Et en effet la population,' &c. Page 270. 'Plus de confiance.'

To this, we answer, that no such census of the numbers was ever given out by Congress, nor ever presented to them: and further, that Congress never have, at any time, declared by their vote, the number of inhabitants in their respective States. On the 22nd of June, 1775, they first resolved to emit paper money. The sum resolved on was two millions of dollars. They declared, then, that the twelve confederate colonies (for Georgia had not yet joined them) should be pledged for the redemption of these bills. To ascertain in what proportion each State should be bound, the members from each were desired to say, as nearly as they could, what was the number of the inhabitants of their respective States. They were very much unprepared for such a declaration. They guessed, however, as well as they could. The following are the numbers, as they conjectured them, and the consequent apportionment of the two millions of dollars.

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 bands. of a committee; they applied to the members for the best information they could give them, of the numbers 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 members 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 Carolina as having one hundred and seventy thousand inhabitants. The delegates 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 ground work 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 quotaed; 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 thirty-nine 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 être, une population de 30,000,000.' 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 Panamá. 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 States is of about ten to the square mile; and experience has shown us, that wherever we reach that, the inhabitants 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 in

habitants; its numbers are increasing while we are writing, and the State, of which it formerly made a part, has offered it independence.

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 any thing further is yet done on it.'

The

Page 286. L'autorité du Congrès étoit nécessaire.' 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 of 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 the 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 lay, it was seen that they had eaten all the grass around them, within