Page:China- Its State and Prospects.djvu/80

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 * Amiot's estimate,||for the year||1743, || amounting to ||157,301,755
 * Grosier's ditto||. .  .  .||1762, ||ditto||198,214,553
 * Morrison's ditto||. .  .  .||1790, ||ditto||143,125,234
 * Staunton's ditto||. .  .  .||1792, ||ditto||333,000,000
 * }
 * Morrison's ditto||. .  .  .||1790, ||ditto||143,125,234
 * Staunton's ditto||. .  .  .||1792, ||ditto||333,000,000
 * }
 * }

With respect to the first it will be seen that it exhibits a greater population in 1743, than is found by the official returns to have existed in 1753. Amiot professes to have drawn his estimate of the population from the Ta-tsing-yïh-tung-che, "an account of what is essential to be known respecting China," published the eighth year of Këen-lung, A. D. 1743. Grosier, who seems anxious "to justify the assertion of the learned missionary, and to free him from all suspicion of exaggeration," enters more into detail respecting Amiot's estimate, and remarks that the Yïh-tung-che shews only the number of the jin-ting, or those who are taxable in each province, which amounted to 28,516,488; and as there are heads of families, Grosier suggests that Amiot multiplied these by five, in order to shew the number of individuals in the whole empire, thus making 142,582,440; then including the inhabitants of Fŭh-këen, about seven millions, which he had before omitted, and the civil and military officers, literati, &e., he makes the sum total amount to 157,301,755. This, however, is a very unsatisfactory method of ascertaining the population of a great country; and will not be warrant us on the ground of such calculations to call in question the authority of official returns. But it is more than likely that Amiot, or his friend Grosier for him, has entirely mistaken the case. Jin-ting is not the expression employed to designate families in Chinese statistical works, but men: the