it was seriously proposed by the Lacedæmonians to transport them into some part of Greece, where they might be under protection from the Persians. To this the Athenians, and probably the Ionians (very wisely) objected, but upon grounds perfectly distinct from want of room had this been felt, and Greece fully peopled', the expulsion of the adherents of the king, which was, at the same time, proposed, could not have created it.

(27) A single sentence may be given to the far more important subject of Roman colonizations, the effects of which have been so deeply and permanently felt throughout so many countries, and down to the present hour. Let it suffice to observe, that the policy and objects of these are clearly pointed out by the author of the Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire, but the want of room and food is not amongst them. On the other hand, we know that they constituted one of those constant drains upon the native citizens, which were the cause of diminishing their number, and consequently of hastening the fall of that mighty empire. The Roman agriculturists, which, whether as poets or prose writers, form a very interesting class of authors, give us too clear an insight into rural affairs at that period, to allow us to suppose, for one moment, that the Roman colonies were sent forth in consequence of want of room and food at home. With accumulating property, and increasing luxury, desolation was making rapid advances, even in the very heart and centre of the empire; and Tacitus informs us that, even in his day, the fields of Italy, formerly so minutely cultivated and highly productive, were left, in great measure, untilled.

(28) I will prolong these remarks, on the subject

'Herod., Calliope, 105. Voyage du Jeune Anacharsis,

of colonization, so far as to make a short allusion to still more modern times. Let us then advert to Spain. But the very mention of the country is enough! What with forced, and what with voluntary colonization, the expulsion of the Moors, and the emigrations to the Indies, her inhabitants, one would think, have been sufficiently checked. But, alas, no! still, as they have been diminished, they have become increasingly redundant; and through what Mr. Malthus calls the "vent" for these, prosperity, happiness, and character have likewise escaped, and abandoned the country, perhaps for ever!

-

(29) I shall conclude, by again referring to the striking illustration the history of this country affords of the principle at issue, and which, I think, is in full conformity with that of Greece. It was in the Elizabethan age that this great country commenced " the heroic work of planting," which is destined to make her the mother of mighty nations. With the motives of these enterprises, want of room or food had nothing whatever to do. These were the spirit of enterprise, the lust of gold, religious persecution, political animosities; in short, very similar reasons, with those shewn to have been the main springs of Grecian colonization; and these settlements, once formed, were constantly replenished by the same causes as those already noticed, in reference to the latter country. As a further proof of a striking similarity, in both instances, and as an additional demonstration that want of room is always one of the last pretexts that can ever be assigned for wars, the colonists of two branches of the European states, England and France, forming a mere handful of human beings, scattered over a vast and fertile continent, had hardly settled in their respective possessions, before they renewed, in the solitudes of

America, those struggles by which the paternal kingdoms had so often afflicted each other, and shaken Europe from its centre to its circumference. But this is not the point which I wish to leave, more particularly, in the reader's recollection. It is rather the period at which this colonization was first fully effectedthe earlier part of the seventeenth century;-a period when at least a moiety of the surface of this country, unrivalled in fertility, was not even touched by cultivation: it is upon record, that narrow and ignorant men were then found asserting that the country was surcharged with inhabitants, and they were successful, not only in disgracing the literature, but, partly, the policy of the country, by their dogmas. Hence, England poured forth some of her best blood, and long felt the consequences of her unwise conduct. Time has given the lie to the selfish suppositions of those days and men, and "yet their posterity approve their sayings," at least as applied to the present moment, which, with weak minds, is always the only one worthy of notice; and, were it possible that the notion I am opposing should obtain in this country, and, at the same time, the art of printing could be forgotten, and the history of that great colonizing period should be consequently left in the obscurity in which that of Greece is involved, future political economists, when tracing up to that period the peopling of vast continents from this empire, would, doubtless, attribute the emigrations of the seventeenth century to a "struggle for room and food."

193

CHAPTER XI.

OF ANCIENT GREECE. THE CHECKS TO POPULATION PROVED TO BE UNNECESSARY AND PERNICIOUS IN THAT COUNTRY.

(1) HAVING, in the preceding view of Greece, shewn that war, and what is supposed to answer the same end, expatriation, were never rendered necessary by the principle of population, it may, perhaps, be thought that, in reference to that country, the subject has been sufficiently pursued. It will appear, however, otherwise, when the reader is reminded that hitherto only one, and that the least important, view of the question. has been taken; the negative argument, if I may so express myself, being far less striking than the positive one, which the due consideration of the checks invariably suggests. The former, indeed, serves to shew that they are unnecessary; the latter that they are pernicious, that they often create, and always increase, the evils which it is imagined, by the system I am opposing, they are constantly redressing: in a word, that it is their absence, and not their presence, that is essential to the well-being of mankind.

(2) The question, then, which remains to be answered, as it respects Greece, is, whether "the overflowing numbers" taken off by the drains of war, or finding their vent in colonizations', occasioned the return of comparative plenty. More particularly, let us inquire whether war, which was far more instrumental in keeping down the population of that country, than 1 1 Malthus, Essay on Population, p. 163. VOL. I.

Ibid., p. 15.

all other causes combined, was the means of conferring that blessing.

(3) And can this really demand an answer? Where has it been that plenty has not been connected with peace, as its inseparable consequence? Where, but in the system I am opposing, which is as utterly regardless of the experience, as of the feelings, of mankind? In vain does a poet of the country, to which we are both appealing, denominate peace the "Parent of Wealth';" wealth, it seems, is the daughter of war in vain does a Divine Bard exclaim, that men shall refresh themselves with the abundance of peace" war only, it appears, makes way for their refreshment.

(4) As it respects Greece, never was there a principle hazarded more at variance with truth. Prosperous and plentiful indeed would the country have been, if this check could have contributed to plenty and prosperity! But it occasioned, as one of its historians observes, "those calamitous times in which not only the fortunes of this people were continually wasted3,' but the sufferings of the bulk of the inhabitants must have been extreme; for, to the horrors of war, those of pestilence and famine were often added': all checks to population, and which, being of the same species, mutually engender together and perpetuate each other. Thus "wearied and weakened by perpetual war", to use Sir Walter Raleigh's expressions, they sunk into that condition which, as he intimates, they well deserved; affording a threatening proof of what the checks, when fully unkennelled, will do for any

1

Fragment of Euripides, Polyb., lib. xii., ex. 7.

2 David, Psalm xxxvii. 11. Polyb., lib. ii., c. 62. Hampton's Transl., vol, i., p. 263.

Raleigh, Hist. World, b. iii., ch. 15, §10, p. 448. Diod. Sic., I. xiii., c.15, p. 353. Ibid., 1. xi., c. 15, p. 249.

§ 1.

"Raleigh, Hist, World, b, iii., ch. 8,