Page:Memoir upon the negotiations between Spain and the United States of America which led to the treaty of 1819.djvu/36

26 whole population may be estimated at eight or nine millions, though various American writers, always careful to magnify and exaggerate things, make it amount to nine or ten millions. Congress, at their last session, ordered another census to be taken, in all the states, districts, and territories of the Union, from the result of which a more certain calculation may be formed, if proper allowance be made for that exaggeration, which is produced, not only by the interest which the federal government feels in making a display of the rapid progress of the population of the whole country, but by the pride and rivalry of each state, territory and district, by which they are induced to magnify the number of their inhabitants, for the sake of procuring to themselves greater importance.

The States of Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania and Virginia, are the most considerable in the Union, and the most populous, with the exception of Connecticut, which without doubt has more population than all, although its territory is of small extent. In the two Carolinas, the