UNDER THE SUPERINTENDence of THE SOCIETY FOR A STATISTICAL ACCOUNT OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE: EXHIBITING ITS EXTENT, PHYSICAL CAPACITIES, CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS INSTITUTIONS. BY J. R. McCULLOCH, ESQ. ASSISTED BY NUMEROUS CONTRIBUTORS. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I. LONDON: PRINTED FOR CHARLES KNIGHT AND CO. MDCCCXXXVII. PREFACE. Ir has long been matter of surprise and regret to many that there should be no modern work developing, within a moderate compass, the physical capacities, population, industry, and institutions of the British empire. The latest work of the kind that has attracted any notice is the State of Great Britain and Ireland, by Chamberlayne, the last edition of which was published so far back as the reign of George II. But, though this once popular publication contains a good deal of useful information, it is not written on any scientific plan, or with any considerable discrimination; while the change of circumstances since the peace of Paris in 1763, would have rendered it, how good soever it might originally have been, quite obsolete for many years past. The want of any separate publication on the state of the empire has been but indifferently supplied by the notices of it in other works. Speaking generally, geographical science in this country has been, until very recently, at the lowest ebb, while, during the long interval between Sir William Petty and Dr. Beeke, statistical science could hardly be said to exist. Hence the accounts of Great Britain and Ireland, given in our Encyclopædias and geographical works, are, for the most part, very meagre and defective. The article on England in the Edinburgh Encyclopædia, written by the late William Stevenson, Esq., Librarian to the Treasury, is undoubtedly the best of this class of publications. The space allotted to it was, however, too confined; so that some very important subjects, such as those relating to population, education, the poor, revenue and expenditure, army and navy, &c., are disposed of in the briefest and most unsatisfactory manner. The accounts of agriculture and manufactures are the best parts of the article, and are superior to any that had appeared when it was printed in 1815. Since this era a number of detached treatises of various merit have been published on different branches of industry; and our political, commercial, and financial systems have been subjected not only to a more thorough examination than they had previously undergone, but to many important changes. Much valuable information has also been acquired under the acts for taking the census in 1821 and 1831; |