ad over the Atlantic seaboard might be thought no great number; but
it was a new thing in the world, well worth noting--which had in fact
been carefully noted by Benjamin Franklin in a pamphlet on "The Increase
of Mankind, Peopling of Countries, etc."--that within three-quarters of
a century the population of the continental colonies had doubled every
twenty-five years, whereas the population of Old England during a
hundred years past had not doubled once and now stood at only some six
and a half millions. If this should go on--and, considering the immense
stretches of free land beyond the mountains, no one could suppose that
the present rate of increase would soon fall off--it was not unlikely
that in another century the center of empire, following the course of
the sun, would come to rest in the New World. With these facts in mind,
one might indeed say that a people with so much vitality and expansive
power was abundantly able to pay taxes; but perhaps it was also a fair
inference, if any one was disposed to press the matter, that, unless it
was so minded, such a people was already, or assuredly soon would be,
equally able not to pay them.

People in new countries, being called provincial, being often told in
effect that having made their bed they may lie in it, easily maintain
their self-respect if they are able to say that the bed is indeed a very
comfortable one. If, therefore, Americans had been given to boasting,
their growing wealth was not, any more than their increasing numbers, a
thing to be passed over in silence. In every colony the "starving time,"
even if it had ever existed, was now no more than an ancient tradition.
"Every man of industry has it in his power to live well," according to
William Smith of New York, "and many are the instances of persons who
came here distressed in their poverty who now enjoy easy and plentiful
fortunes." If Americans were not always aware that they were rich men
individually, they were at all events well instructed, by old-world
visitors who came to observe them with a certain air of condescension,
that collectively at least their material prosperity was a thing to be
envied even by more advanced and more civilized peoples. Therefore any
man called upon to pay a penny tax and finding his pocket bare might
take a decent pride in the fact, which none need doubt since foreigners
like Peter Kalm found it so, that "the English colonies in this part of
the world have increased so