Page:An Essay on the Principle of Population (1798).djvu/131

Rh scarcely any taxes. And on account of the extreme cheapness of good land, a capital could not be more advantageously employed than in agriculture, which at the same time that it supplies the greatest quantity of healthy work, affords much the most valuable produce to the society.

The consequence of these favourable circumstances united, was a rapidity of increase, probably without parallel in history. Throughout all the northern colonies, the population was found to double itself in 25 years. The original number of persons who had settled in the four provinces of new England in 1643 was 21,200. . Afterwards, it is supposed,

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