13G

INCREASE OF COIN AND

CHAP. XXI.

sand, calculate that it had increased at the rate offifty per cent, in 1600, which is near enough tothe estimation of Mr. Rickman for the purposeto which it is here applied.

As far as a slight but not thoughtless examina-tion can be depended on, it appears that the otherportions of Europe must during the same periodhave experienced a similar but probably not anequal augmentation. It is fair to suppose thatFrance had kept nearly an equal pace with England.Spain , if she had increased her inhabitants, musthave done so, from the expulsion of the Moors andJews, and from the emigrations to America , at amuch slower rate. Germany could scarcely havemore than recovered in the last fifty years of thecentury the desolation and depopulation occasionedby the thirtyyears’ war, which occupied the greaterpart of the first half of that century. Hungary ,Poland, Prussia, and Switzerland had certainly in-creased, and probably nearly at a rate approachingthat of England; whilst Italy, Holland , and theNetherlands had proceeded with a pace equal toour own. The northern kingdoms of Denmark and Sweden , and the eastern empire of Russia,had in some measure, but to what extent must bedoubtful, probably also been getting more denselypeopled.

On the whole we venture to assume-, that in theperiod of one hundred years from lGOO to 1700the mass of inhabitants in Europe had received an