Page:The Present State of Peru.djvu/163

Rh helps, beside the faith to be reposed in books, and the uncertain testimony of opinion, we observe a great contrariety in the results of all these calculators. The enumerations of Father Riccioli are almost invariably framed on round and exaggerated numbers. The thousand millions of inhabitants he imagines the earth to contain, are reduced to the one half by Isaac Vossius, in his work entitled "Opus variorum Observationum" Jacob Usher, or Usserius, takes the mean of this difference; and the Marquis of St. Aubin modifies it, and shows it to be doubtful. These discrepances and uncertainties are not, in reality, attended by any consequences prejudicial to the practical system of society; but it is not the same when a particular reference is made, to a determinate country, to a city, the necessities of which are constantly in proportion to its inhabitants. The positive knowledge of their number, classes, and conditions, has a direct and immediate influence on their good government, and on the welfare of all. For this reason, one of the earliest objects of the solicitude of every zealous administrator, has constantly been to obtain a precise knowledge of the number and circumstances of those residing within the boundaries of his government. Lima, which reckons, in the series of its viceroys, many who were enlightened in an extraordinary degree, has had repeated occasions to witness the enrolment of those who reside within its precincts. That which has been recently ordered by his excellency the present viceroy, will form an epoch in the annals of Peru. This undertaking, the monument of his wisdom and profound meditations, will prove to posterity the love which that country has constantly merited from the chief magistrates by whom it has been governed, and