For the plagues of
England in twenty years have carried away scarce an eightieth part
of the people of the whole nation; and the late ten years' civil
wars (the like whereof hath not been in several ages before) did
not take away above a fortieth part of the whole people.
According to which account or measure of doubling, if there be now
in England and Wales 7,400,000 people, there were about 5,526,000 in
the beginning of Queen Elizabeth's reign, A.D. 1560, and about
2,000,000 at the Norman Conquest, of which consult the Doomsday
Book, and my Lord Hale's "Origination of Mankind."
Memorandum.--That if the people double in 360 years, that the
present 320,000,000 computed by some learned men (from the measures
of all the nations of the world, their degrees of being peopled, and
good accounts of the people in several of them) to be now upon the
face of the earth, will within the next 2,000 years so increase as
to give one head for every two acres of land in the habitable part
of the earth. And then, according to the prediction of the
Scriptures, there must be wars, and great slaughter, &c.
Wherefore, as an expedient against the above-mentioned difference
between 10 and 1,200 years, we do for the present, and in this
country, admit of 360 years to be the time wherein the people of
England do double, according to the present laws and practice of
marriages.
Now, if the city double its people in 40 years, and the present
number be 670,000, and if the whole territory be 7,400,000, and
double in 360 years, as aforesaid, then by the underwritten table it
appears that A.
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