Where a
happier provision is made for mankind, the statesman, who by premiums to
marriage, by allurements to foreigners, or by confining the natives at
home, apprehends, that he has made the numbers of his people to grow, is
often like the fly in the fable, who admired its success in turning the
wheel, and in moving the carriage: he has only accompanied what was already
in motion; he has dashed with his oar, to hasten the cataract; and waved
with his fan, to give speed to the winds.
Projects of mighty settlement, and of sudden population, however successful
in the end, are always expensive to mankind. Above a hundred thousand
peasants, we are told, were yearly driven, like so many cattle, to
Petersburgh, in the first attempts to replenish that settlement, and yearly
perished for want of subsistence. [Footnote: Strachlenberg.] The Indian
only attempts to settle in the neighbourhood of the plantain, [Footnote:
Dampier.] and while his family increases, he adds a tree to the walk.
If the plantain, the cocoa, or the palm, were sufficient to maintain an
inhabitant, the race of men in the warmer climates might become as numerous
as the trees of the forest.
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