CHAPTER 6.
New colonies--Reasons for their rapid increase--North American Colonies--Extraordinary instance of increase in the back settlements--Rapidity with which even old states recover the ravages of war, pestilence, famine, or the convulsions of nature.
It has been universally remarked that all new colonies settled in healthy countries, where there was plenty of room and food, have constantly increased with astonishing rapidity in their population.
Some of the colonies from ancient Greece, in no very long period, more than equalled their parent states in numbers and strength.

And not to dwell on remote instances, the European settlements in the new world bear ample testimony to the truth of a remark, which, indeed, has never, that I know of, been doubted.

A plenty of rich land, to be had for little or nothing, is so powerful a cause of population as to overcome all other obstacles.

No settlements could well have been worse managed than those of Spain in Mexico, Peru, and Quito.

The tyranny, superstition, and vices of the mother-country were introduced in ample quantities among her children.