The People Collectively Considered Are Not Few, Though Their
Numbers Are Small In Proportion To The Space Which They Occupy.
Mull Is Said To Contain Six Thousand, And Sky Fifteen Thousand.
Of
the computation respecting Mull, I can give no account; but when I
doubted the truth of the numbers attributed to Sky, one of the
Ministers exhibited such facts as conquered my incredulity.
Of the proportion, which the product of any region bears to the
people, an estimate is commonly made according to the pecuniary
price of the necessaries of life; a principle of judgment which is
never certain, because it supposes what is far from truth, that the
value of money is always the same, and so measures an unknown
quantity by an uncertain standard. It is competent enough when the
markets of the same country, at different times, and those times
not too distant, are to be compared; but of very little use for the
purpose of making one nation acquainted with the state of another.
Provisions, though plentiful, are sold in places of great pecuniary
opulence for nominal prices, to which, however scarce, where gold
and silver are yet scarcer, they can never be raised.
In the Western Islands there is so little internal commerce, that
hardly any thing has a known or settled rate. The price of things
brought in, or carried out, is to be considered as that of a
foreign market; and even this there is some difficulty in
discovering, because their denominations of quantity are different
from ours; and when there is ignorance on both sides, no appeal can
be made to a common measure.
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