ftic fervants are encouraged to marry: they are obferved to be more fettled than when bachelors, and more attentive to their duty. In London, fuch marriages are difcouraged, as rendering a servant more attentive to his own family, than to that of his master. But a fervant attentive to his own family, will not, for his own fake, neglect that of his master. At any rate, is he not more to be depended on, than a fervant who continues a bachelor? What can be expected of idle and pampered bachelors, but debauchery and every fort of corruption? Nothing restrains them from abfolute profligacy, but the eye of the mafter, who for that reason is their averfion not their love. If the poor-laws be named the folio of corruption, bachelor-fervants in London may well be confidered as a large appendix. And this attracts the eye to the poor-laws, which indeed make the chief difference between Paris and London, with refpect to the prefent point. In Paris, certain funds are established for the poor, the yearly produce of which admits but a limited number. As that fund is always preoccupied, the low people who are not on the lift, have little or no profpect of bread, but from their own industry; and to the induftrious, marriage is in a great measure neceffary. In London, a parish is taxed in proportion to the number of its poor; and every perfon who is pleafed to be idle, is entitled to maintenance. Most things thrive by encouragement, and idlenefs above all. Certainty of maintenance, renders the low people in England idle and profligate; especially in London, where luxury prevails, and infects every rank. So infolent are the London poor, that scarce one of them will condefcend to eat brown bread. There are accordingly in London, a much greater number of idle and profligate wretches, than in Paris, or in any other town in proportion to the number of inhabitants. Thefe wretches, in Doctor Swift's style, never think of pofterity, becaufe pofterity never thinks of them : `men who hunt after pleasure, and live from day to day,

have no notion of being burdened with a family. These causes produce a greater number of children in Paris than in London; tho' probably they differ not much in populousness..

I fhall add but one other objection to a great city, which is not flight. An overgrown capital, far above a rival, has, by numbers and riches, a diftreffing influence in public affairs. The populace are ductile, and easily misled by ambitious and defigning magiftrates. Nor are there wanting critical times, in which such magiftrates, acquiring artificial influence, may have power to disturb the public peace. That an overgrown capital may prove dangerous to fovereignty, has more than once been experienced both in Paris and London..

It would give one the spleen, to hear the French and English zealously difputing about the extent of their capitals, as if the profperity of their country depended on that circumftance. To me it appears like one glorying in the king's-evil, or in any contagious diftemper. Much better employ'd would they be, in contriving means for leffening those cities. There is not a politi cal measure, that, in my opinion, would tend more to aggrandize the kingdom of France, or of Britain, than to split its capital into feveral great towns. My plan would be, to confine the inhabitants of London to 100,000, compofed of the King and his household, fupreme courts of juftice, government-boards, prime nobility and gentry, with neceffary fhopkeepers, artifts, and other dependents. Let the reft of the inhabitants be diftributed into nine towns properly fituated, fome for internal commerce, fome for foreign. Such a plan would diffuse life and vigour thro' every corner of the island.

To execute fuch a plan, would, I acknowledge, require the deepest political skill, and much perfeverance. I fhall fuggeft what occurs at prefent. The first step must be, to mark proper fpots for the nine towns, the most advantageous for trade, or for manufactures.

manufactures. If any of these spots be occupied already with fmall towns, fo much the better. The next step is a capitationtax on the inhabitants of London; the fum levied to be appropriated for encouraging the new towns. One encouragement would have a good effect; which is, a premium to every man who builds in any of these towns, more or lefs, in proportion to the fize of the house. This tax would banish from London, every manufacture but of the most lucrative kind. When, by this means, the inhabitants of London are reduced to a number not much above 100,000, the near profpect of being relieved from the tax, will make every householder active to banish all above that number: and to prevent a renewal of the tax, a greater number will never again be permitted. It would require great penetration to proportion the fums to be levied and distributed, fo as to have their proper effect, without overburdening the capital on the one hand, or giving too great encouragement for building on the other, which might tempt people to build for the premium merely, without any further view. Much will depend on an advantageous fituation: houses built there will always find inhabitants. The two great cities of London and Westminster are extremely ill fitted for local union. The latter, the feat of The latter, the feat of government and of the noblesse, infects the former with luxury and with love of fhow. The former, the feat of commerce, infects the latter with love of gain. The mixture of these oppofite paffions, is productive of every groveling vice.

SKETCH

79

SKETCH XII.

Origin and Progrefs of AMERICAN NATIONS.

Having no authentic materials for a natural history of all

the Americans, the following obfervations fhall be confined to a few tribes, the best known; and to the kingdoms of Peru and Mexico, as they were at the date of the Spanish conquest.

As there appears no paffage by land to America from the old world, no problem has more embarrassed the learned, than to give an account from whence the Americans sprung: there are as many different opinions, as there are writers. Many attempts have been made for discovering a paffage by land; but hitherto in vain. Kamskatka, it is true, is divided from America by a narrow ftrait, full of islands: and M. Buffon, to render the paffage ftill more easy than by fea, conjectures, that thereabout there may formerly have been a land-paffage, tho' now wafh'd away by violence of the ocean. There is indeed great appearance of truth in this conjecture; as all the quadrupeds of the north of Asia seem to have made their way to America; the bear, for example, the roe, the deer, the rain-deer, the beaver, the wolf, the fox, the hare, the rat, the mole. He admits, that in America there is not to be seen a lion, a tiger, a panther, or any other Afiatic quadruped of a hot climate: not, fays he, for want of a land-paf

fage;

fage; but because the cold climate of Tartary, in which fuch animals cannot fubfist, is an effectual bar against them *.

But in my apprehension, much more is required to give fatiffaction upon this fubject, than a paffage from Kamfkatka to America, whether by land or fea. An enquiry much more decisive is totally overlooked, relative to the people on the two fides of the ftreight; particularly, whether they speak the fame language. Now by late accounts from Ruffia we are informed, that there is no affinity between the Kamskatkan tongue, and that of the Americans on the oppofite fide of the streight. Whence we may conclude, with great certainty, that the latter are not a colony of the former.

But I go farther. There are several cogent arguments to evince, that the Americans are not descended from any people in the north of Afia or in the north of Europe. Were they defcended from either, Labrador, or the adjacent countries, must have been first peopled. And as favages are remarkably fond of their natal foil, they would have continued there, till by over-population they should have been compelled to spread wider for food. But the fact is directly contrary. When America was difcovered by the Spaniards, Mexico and Peru were fully peopled; and the other parts lefs and lefs, in proportion to their distance from these central countries. Fabry reports, that one may travel one or two hundred leagues north-west from the Miffifippi, without seeing a human face, or any veftige of a house. And fome French offi

ry,

Our author, with fingular candor, admits it as a ftrong objection to his theothat there are no rain-deer in Afia. But it is doing no more but juftice to fo fair a reafoner, to obferve, that according to the lateft accounts, there are plentyof rain-deer in the country of Kamfkatka, which of all is the nearest to America.

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