3. To Amsterdam we allow 187350 Souls, viz. 30 times the number of their Burials, which were 6245 in the year 1685. |34|
4. To Venice we allow 134 thousand Souls, as found there in a special account taken by authority, about 10 years since, when the City abounded with such as returned from Candia, then surrendered to the Turks[1].
5. To Rome we allow 119 thousand Christians and 6000 Jews, in all 125 thousand Souls, according to an account sent hither of the same by Monsr. Auzout[2].
6. To Dublin we allow (as to Amsterdam) 30 times its Burials, the Medium whereof for the last 2 years is 2303, viz. 69090 Souls. |35|
7. As to Bristol, we say that if the 6400 Houses of Dublin, give 69,090 People, that the 5307 Houses of Bristol, must give above 56 thousand People; Moreover, if the 29325 Harths of Dublin give 69,090 People, the 16,752 Harths of Bristol, must give about 40 thousand; but the Medium of 56 thousand and 40 thousand is 48 thousand.
8. As for Rouen, we have no help, but Monsr. Auzout's fancy of 80 thousand Souls to be in that City, and the conjecture of knowing Men that Rouen is between the 1⁄7 and 1⁄8 part of Paris, and also that it is by a third bigger than Bristol; By all which, we estimate |36| (till farther light) that Rouen hath at most but 66 thousand People in it.
Now it may be wondred why we mentioned Rouen at all,
- ↑ In the Commonplace book of Petty's friend Dr Ent at the Royal Society (MSS. vol. 83) is a memorandum (pp. 78–79) of the number of inhabitants of Venice. The classes enumerated are noblemen, merchants, servants, artificers, beggars, friars, nuns, priests, poor in hospitals, Jews. In most cases they are distinguished as male and female, and the number of their children, male and female, is also given. The total is 134,801. If Petty's authority be, as seems not improbable, the same as that used by Ent, the chronology is confused. He was writing in 1686 or 1687. Candia surrendered nearly 20 years before, the special account is said by Ent to have been taken more than 20 years before the surrender, and Yriarte appears to assign it to the year 1582. La vie d'un patricien de Venise, p. 72. Unfortunately I have no present access to such authoritative books as might determine the question. The Present State of Venice, by J. Gailhard (1669) says that the city contains above 300,000 souls.
- ↑ See p. 529, and note 5.
