Page:Notes on the State of Virginia (1802).djvu/132

122 mention that ſome obſervations on a former cenſus had given reaſon to believe that the numbers above and below 16 years of age were equal. The double of this number, therefore, to wit, 47,532 muſt be added to 211,698, which will give us 255,230 ſlaves of all ages and ſexes. To find the number of free inhabitants, we muſt repeat the obſervation, that thoſe above and below 16 are nearly equal. But as the number 53,289 omits the males below 16 and 21 we muſt ſupply them from conjecture. On a former experiment it had appeared that about one-third of our militia, that is, of the males between 16 and 50, were unmarried. Knowing how early marriages takes place here, we ſhall not be far wrong in ſuppoſing that the unmarried part of our militia are thoſe between 16 and 21. If there be young men who do not marry till after 21, there are many who marry before that age. But as the men above 50 were not included in the militia, we will ſuppoſe the unmarried, or thoſe between 16 and 21, to be one-fourth of the whole number above 16, then we have the following calculation: 543,438 inhabitants, excluſive of the 8 counties from which were no returns. In theſe 8 counties in the years 1779 and 1780, were 3,161 militia, Say then,