twice this quantity ; that in the fouthern provinces two crops
o f rice are produced in the year, one acre o f which I am well
allured, with proper culture, will afford a fupply o f that grain even
for ten perfons, and that an acre o f cotton will clothe two or
three hundred perfons, we may juftly infer that, inftead o f
twelve acres to each family, half that quantity would appear to
be more than neceffary ; and fafely conclude, that there is no
want o f land to fupport the affumed population o f three hundred
and thirty-three millions. This being the cafe, the population
is not yet arrived at a level with the means which the
country affords o f fubfiftence.
There is, perhaps, no country where the condition o f the pea-
fantry may more juftly be compared with thofe o f China than
Ireland. This liland, according to the lateft furvey, contains
about 17,000,000 Englilh acres, 730,000 houfes and 3,500,000
fouls | fo that, as in Great Britain, each individual averages
very nearly five acres and every family five-and-twenty. An
Irilh cottager liolds feldom more than an Iriih acre o f land, or
one and three-quarters Englilh nearly, in cultivation, with
a cow’s grafs, for which he pays a rent from two to five
pounds. Thofe on Lord Macartney’s eftate at Liffanore have
their acre, which they cultivate in divifions with oats, potatoes,
kale, and a little flax ; with this they have befides the full paf-
turage o f a cow all the year upon a large wafte, not overftocked,
and a comfortable cabin to inhabit, for which each pays the
rent o f three pounds. The cottager works perhaps three days, in
the week, at nine-pence a-day; if, inftead o f which, he had a
fecond acre to cultivate, he would derive more benefit from its
produce
produce than from the product o f his three days’ labour per
week; that is to fay, provided he would expend the fame labour
in its tillage. Thus then, fuppofing only half o f Ireland
in a ftate o f cultivation and the other half pafturage, it would
fupport a population more than three times that which it now
contains ; and as a century ago it had no more than a million o f
people, fo within the prefent century, under favourable circum-
ftances, it may increafe to ten millions. And it is not unworthy o f
remark, that this great increafe o f population in Ireland has taken
place fince the introduition o f the potatoe, which gives a never-
failing crop.
I am aware that fuch is not the common opinion which prevails
in this country, neither with regard to Ireland nor China; on the
contrary, the latter is generally fuppofed to be overftocked with
people; that the land is infufficient for their maintenance, and
that the cities ftand fo thick one after the other, efpecially along
the grand navigation between Pekin and Canton, that they al-
moft occupy the whole furface. I ihould not, however, have
expended to meet with an obfervation to this effeft from the
very learned commentator on the voyage o f Nearchus, founded
on no better authority than the crude notes o f one JEneas A n-
derfon, a livery fervant o f Lord Macartney, vamped up by a
London bookfeller as a fpeculation that could not fail, fo greatly
excited was public curiofity at the return o f the Embaffy. I
would not be thought to difparage the authority on account o f
its being that o f a livery fervant; on the contrary, the notes o f
the meaneft and dulleft perfon, on a country fo little travelled
over, would be deferving attention before they came into the
4 E 2 hands