PRIOR. Well, _Dean_, in spite of all your Objections, I think I have nam'd several considerable Improvements, in our poor Country, which gave me Reason to say, she was on the mending Hand; and I have not nam'd all, for the very encrease of our Numbers of late Years, is a vast Addition to our Strength, Credit, and Figure, as a Nation. I think the Dealers in Political Arithmetick, compute that every Nation, unwasted by Famines, Wars, or Plagues, doubles the Quantity of its People in 250 Years; but I have seen Computations, that between our early Marriages, the Breedyness of our People, the Importations of our Neighbours, the Mildness of our Climate, and the Fertility of our Soil, evidently prove, that we have frequently doubled the Amount of our Inhabitants in half that Time. The Truth is, the matter of Fact is so incontestable, that I need not recollect all the Proofs, on which they ground their Assertion; but I shall only observe to you, _Dean_, that this is a very singular Advantage, since it is certain, that we out breed the _Jews_, and in spite of our Wars and Massacres, we seem to multiply like the _Polypus_, by being cut to Pieces. SWIFT. Stuff and Nonsense! To tell me of our Numbers, when they only serve to multiply our Wretchedness and Miseries: Does this prove us on the mending Hand, as you term it? Why you talk like a Physician, that wanted more Fees for doing nothing! 'Tis hard, _Tom_, you cannot be in the Right sometimes, and speak Truth now and then. Did ever Man before you boast of having Crowds of Beggars? And what are we else? For I verily think, tho' Sir _William Petty_ says, Nature never design'd above one in 500 to beg by forcing them on the Charity of others, (thro' some Lameness, Crookedness, or other accidental Debility, that incapacitates them to Labour) that in _Ireland_ one in seventy are Beggars, (at least for the Summer Season,) and sixty of the Remainder incapable of relieving them, thro' their own Distresses. All the Advantages we have thro' the encrease of our Inhabitants, is, that for want of being employ'd, they furnish us with Thieves, Pilferers and Sharpers, private Wenches, and common Whores, Cheats and Robbers, Pickpockets, Gamesters, Tinkers and Vagabonds. We get also by this blessed means some Foundlings for our Hospitals, and Brats for our Charter Schools, Shoe-boys, and News Criers, and when they're grown up, Recruits for the holy Convents and Nunneries, and the wise and reverend Body of the Popish Priests. We have also the Advantage of able bodied Volunteers, for the Armies of our dear Allies the _French_; Shoals of Transports, that escape from the Gallows, to the Plantations abroad, and a superfetation of Felons, to give a little Business to our Judges, Justices, and Hangmen at home, and to keep up an Appearance of our being govern'd like other Nations. How many Thousands do we see, take their flight abroad every Year, like Birds of Passage, to search for