The population in the United States was more rapid from births during the war, than it had ever been in the same number of years since the settlement of the country. I am disposed to ascribe this increase of births _chiefly_ to the quantity and extensive circulation of money, and to the facility of procuring the means of subsistence during the war, which favoured marriages among the labouring part of the people[54]. But I have sufficient documents to prove, that marriages were more fruitful than in former years, and that a considerable number of unfruitful marriages became fruitful during the war. In 1783, the year of the peace, there were several children born of parents who had lived many years together without issue. [54] Wheat, which was sold before the war for seven shillings and sixpence, was sold for several years _during_ the war for four, and in some places for two and sixpence Pennsylvania currency per bushel. Beggars of every description disappeared in the year 1776, and were seldom seen till near the close of the war. Mr. Hume informs us, in his History of England, that some old people, upon hearing the news of the restoration of Charles II, died suddenly of joy. There was a time when I doubted the truth of this assertion; but I am now disposed to believe it, from having heard of a similar effect from an agreeable political event, in the course of the American revolution. The door-keeper of congress, an aged man, died suddenly, immediately after hearing of the capture of Lord Cornwallis' army. His death was universally ascribed to a violent emotion of political joy. This species of joy appears to be one of the strongest emotions that can agitate the human mind. Perhaps the influence of that ardour in trade and speculation, which seized many of the friends of the revolution, and which was excited by the fallacious nominal amount of the paper money, should rather be considered as a disease, than as a passion. It unhinged the judgment, deposed the moral faculty, and filled the imagination, in many people, with airy and impracticable schemes of wealth and grandeur. Desultory manners, and a peculiar species of extempore conduct, were among its characteristic symptoms. It produced insensibility to cold, hunger, and danger. The trading towns, and in some instances the extremities of the United States, were frequently visited in a few hours or days by persons affected by this disease; and hence "to travel with the speed of a speculator," became a common saying in many parts of the country. This species of insanity (if I may be allowed to call it by that name) did not require the confinement of a bedlam to cure it, like the South-Sea madness described by Doctor Mead. Its remedies were the depreciation of the paper money, and the events of the peace. The political events of the revolution produced upon its enemies very different effects from those which have been mentioned.