SEC. 3. Population of Italy at different periods.

The population of Italy, until within a few years past, is more uncertain than that of either France or England. Dr. Morse, in the edition of his Geography published in 1793, says: “Some doubts have arisen whether Italy is as populous now as it was in the time of Pliny, when it contained 14,000,000. It is, however, believed that the present inhabitants exceed that number." "It may not perhaps be extravagant, if we assign to Italy 20,000,000 of inhabitants; but some calculations greatly exceed that number." Mr. McCulloch states it in 1838 at 22,478,192.

Italy and the Italian islands, including Sicily and Sardinia, contain about 119,555 English square miles. It is about twice as large as England and Wales; and being situated in a very mild climate, like all the countries bordering on the Mediterranean Sea, it was much more favorable to health and an increase of population in a comparatively low state of the mechanic arts and of civilization, than England, the north of France, or any other country in a high latitude. The population of Italy in the third and fourth centuries, was perhaps four times as dense, and eight times as great, as that of England and Wales. The Romans lived by agriculture, and subsisted on grain and vegetables; while the Britons were yet in the pastoral state, subsisting on the milk and flesh of their flocks, agriculture being almost unknown among them. Italy was in a state of peace the most of the time for more than two centuries before the Christian era, and more than four centuries afterwards, and yet we have no reason to believe that it increased in population more than thirty per cent. in a century, or doubled in less than about three centuries, during the most flourishing period of the Roman government, either under the Republic or the Empire.

This

Italy was overrun by numerous hordes of barbarians at several different periods in the fifth century; ravaged, desolated, most of the arts and improvements of civilization destroyed, and the country depopulated, and reduced probably to less than eight millions of inhabitants, or about half its former number. instance of rapid decline is not without a parallel. The Island of Hayti or St. Domingo, which is about one-fourth part as large as Italy, was estimated to contain a million of inhabitants when discovered by Columbus in 1495; but in consequence of the butchery and oppressions of the Spaniards, who made slaves of the natives, compelled them to labor incessantly in the mines without any regard to their wants and comforts, and without supplying them with sufficient food, the native inhabitants in a single generation declined to less than one hundred thousand. Disease

of mind soon preys upon the body, and it often happens that persons accustomed to freedom, or affluence, pine away, and find a promature death, when reduced to poverty, or restrained of their liberty. When nearly all the inhabitants of a country are despoiled of their property, and reduced from a state of comfort to poverty and want, like the Romans in the fifth century, all the objects of life seem to have perished; all the energies of the body, as well as the mind, are soon paralyzed, so that few persons under such circumstances have sufficient energy to provide themselves with the necessaries of life apparently within their power; disappointment and disease of mind, as well as want of food, prey upon them; they become feeble, nervous, and emaciated, and disease sweeps them off by thousands.

Slaves have not the muscular power to labor like freemen. Muscular power depends much on the mind, on the will; and the will is seldom if ever firm, energetic, and powerful, when the person is conscious that some individual, other than himself or his children, will reap the reward of his exertions. Productive industry and security of rights and of property are as necessary to cheer up, encourage and invigorate the mind, as they are to feed and clothe the body, and strengthen it by exercise. Hence the decline of the population of Italy in the fifth century. Comparatively few perished by the sword; few adults perished by positive starvation. Millions, depressed in mind and emaciated in body, perished by disease, and millions of children perished from neglect and want.

Though Italy remained in a very depressed condition until the beginning of the crusades, and recovered very slowly previous to that time, yet it was much more advanced in civilization and all the arts of peace, and more densely populated during the dark ages than either France or England. Perhaps it had 9,000,000 of inhabitants at the commencement of the 12th century, or about five times as many as England and Wales. During the crusades, and shortly after them, many of the arts and products of the east were introduced into Italy, and more particularly into Venice, Genoa, Pisa, Florence and Sicily. The culture and manufacture of silk was introduced in the 12th century, and of cotton in the early part of the 14th century.* From the time of the crusades until some time after the discovery of America, the Italian republics were in the most prosperous and flourishing condition of any part of Europe, with the exception of Flanders, which was perhaps equally so, by reason of the woollen manufacture. During the 12th, 13th, 14th and 15th centuries, the population of Venice, Genoa, Florence and some other parts of Italy, perhaps doubled,

* See Baine's history of the cotton manufacture, chapter IV.

and the population of the whole of Italy increased from about 9,000,000 to 15,000,000.

The discovery of a passage to India and China around the Cape of Good Hope and Africa, diverted much of the trade from the Italian cities, and affected their prosperity very much; and this, together with the religious wars growing out of the reformation, checked the increase of the population during the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, so that it did not perhaps exceed 20,000,000, as estimated by Dr. Morse, at the close of the 18th century. Since the feudal system was overturned by Napoleon, and the revival of commerce at the close of the wars growing out of the French revolution, there has been a very perceptible increase in the population of nearly all the Italian States; amounting to about 2,500,000, or 12 per cent. during the first forty years of the present century, making the population in 1840 about 22,400,000

SEC. 4. Population of Spain and Portugal.

The population of Spain prior to the present century was much more uncertain than that of England or France. Mr. McCulloch says, "In 1787 the population amounted to 10,268,150, or perhaps 10,500,000, as it is believed on apparently good grounds, that the official returns were below the mark; and since then it has increased nearly two millions." He gives the area at 182,758 square miles, and the population at 12,168,774

The climate of Spain is warm, mild and favorable to an increase of population with a small amount of comforts; some of it is very productive, and the Spaniards, during the 15th and first. half of the 16th century, were, next to the Italian States and the Netherlands. the most enterprising of any people in Europe, and quite as much advanced in the mechanic arts and manufactures. It is probable that at the close of the career of Charles V., in the middle of the 16th century, the population of Spain was nearly as dense as that of France, and amounted to from eleven to twelve millions; that the swarms of priests and monks during the despotic reigns of Philip II., Philip III., Philip IV., Charles II., and their successors, together with the combined tyranny of the government and of the Popish Inquisition, reduced the population; that it amounted to about 10,500,000 in 1787, as estimated by Mr. McCulloch; and that since the iron reign of the inquisition and of feudalism was broken by Napoleon, it has increased during the last half century nearly two millions, or about eighteen per cent.

Some have supposed the emigration to America has been the principal cause of the decline of the population of Spain; but this supposition is not correct. According to the statements of McCulloch in his Gazetteer, the whole population of the West

Indies and the continent of America of Spanish descent in 1840, was less than 4,500,000; though those of English and Scotch descent then numbered over 12,500,000.

What a contrast between the relative increase of the two people!

In

Mr. McCulloch says that, according to the official returns of the census of 1787, the ecclesiastics of all descriptions, including 61,617 monks, 32,500 nuns, and 2,705 inquisitors, amounted to 188,625 individuals, and that in 1833 they amounted to 175,574 individuals, of whom 61,727 were monks, and 24,007 nuns dependent of the depressing influence of the tyranny of the Inquisition, what country could flourish with such an immense army of priests, inquisitors, monks and nuns, devouring their substance? Spain, Mexico, and all the Spanish American states and colonies, have been ruled for centuries by a clerical, landed, and military aristocracy; and no country ever yet flourished under such a dominion, no matter what the form of the government, whether republican, democratic, or monarchical. In the Islands of Cuba and Porto Rico, a more commercial and manufacturing spirit prevails, and predominates over the priesthood and the military; say manufacturing, because the expense of making sugar, molasses and rum, from the cane, is about as great as the culture of the cane.

I

Portugal has been depressed by nearly the same causes as Spain. McCulloch states its area at 36,510 square miles, and its population, in 1838, at 3,549,420; the American Almanac for 1852 states the population at the last enumeration in 1841, at 3,412,500. It probably had, during the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries, from 2,500,000 to 3,000,000 of inhabitants.

SEC. 5. Progress of the population of France.

The population of France has been estimated in the table of population of the Roman Empire, and of the countries comprising the Roman provinces, at eight millions in the third century; but five millions at the end of the seventh century, and twelve

millions at the end of the fifteenth century; those estimates are intended for the present territory of France, including Corsica.

The province of Lorraine was annexed to France in 1766, with nearly a million of inhabitants, and Corsica in 1768, with about 180,000. The population of France was estimated by the government, on partial enumerations, at 19,669,320 in the year 1700, previous to those annexations; it was subsequently estimated in 1773 at 23,531,000. Several annexations were made during the revolution, and at the peace of 1815, France was allowed to retain Avignon and Venaison on the Rhone, and several other small parcels of territory, with a population of about 700,000.

Mr. McCulloch remarks, "The information with respect to the population of France previously to 1784 is extremely imperfect. But according to the best attainable information, it amounted in 1700 to 19,669,000, and in 1762 to 21,769,000. In 1784 it was estimated by M. Necker at 24,800,000." By the first census, taken in 1801, France, with its increased territory, (comprising 203,736 square miles,) had a population of 27,349,003; and by the official census, taken in 1836, it had increased to 33,540,910. The climate of France being much colder than that of Italy and Spain, and the country less populous, flourishing and wealthy, was less inviting to the barbarians who ravaged the provinces of the western Roman Empire in the fifth and sixth centuries; and though the decline of the population of France (then Gaul) was very great, it must have suffered much less from the barbarians than Italy and Spain. We have less certain and accurate information in relation to the population of France prior to the eighteenth century, than we have in relation to England. We have reason to believe, however, that while a Roman province, and also in the time of Charlemagne, France was more flourishing, more advanced in civilization, and more populous in proportion to its territory, than England; but from the end of the eleventh to the end of the sixteenth century, there was no great difference in the condition of the two countries, and the population in proportion to the territory was probably very nearly the same. During the reign of Louis XIV., up to the revocation of the edict of Nantes in 1685, France was more flourishing and advanced in civilization than England.

It has been estimated that about 70,000 Huguenots, or French Protestants, were massacred in France, by virtue of secret orders from the king, in 1572. The massacre occurred at the festival of St. Bartholomew, and is known in history, as the Massacre of St. Bartholomew. During the religious persecutions of the first ten years after the revocation of the edict of Nantes, it has been generally estimated that from 500,000 to 700,000 Protestants