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250 WILLIAMS' CASE.
were, during the revolution, almost entirely uninhabited, (y) And
it also appears, from the periodical enumerations made under the
authority of the Union, that although there are, every where, a
much greater number of males than females born \ yet the diminu-
tion of the males as they reach maturity, within many of the coun-
ties of this state, the salubrity of which has not been at all changed,
is much more rapid than elsewhere, owing to the great emigration
from them to the west From a comparative view of the census of
the several states of the Union, it will be seen, that in the elder
and most densely peopled of them, the males are most numerous;
while in those from which there has been the greatest emigration,
and in the newest and frontier states there are not, in many
instances, so many as ninety females to every hundred males, (z)
Whence it appears, that now, as in the original peopling of Vir-
ginia by the English, the first plantings every where in this coun-
try, by enticing away the males, or bringing together a much
larger proportion of adult males than females, has, by thus separa-
ting the sexes, so far operated as a check, instead of an encourage-
ment, to the natural increase of population, (a)
The making of all observations as to the expectation of human
life here are, however, not only rendered difficult by the extraordi-
nary shifting of our population; but those difficulties are much in-
creased by the changes continually going on in the salubrity of
many situations in our country. The territory of Maryland, when
the first settlers seated themselves upon it, was every where covered
by a thick and lofty forest, and drained by innumerable rivulets,
creeks and rivers all pouring into the great Chesapeake. A terri-
tory so shaded, and so netted with humid valleys and water-
courses, many of them descending from rugged and elevated moun-
tains, under a climate, ranging from such high degrees of heat in
summer, to such low degrees of cold in winter, it is evident, must
have been, in its primitive state, productive of causes affecting
human life differing materially in malignity from those which had
been found to arise over any equal space of Europe, But the
active civilized people who took possession of Maryland as they
increased in numbers and advanced, felled large spaces of the
forest and laid bare, drained, and cultivated the soil. These ope-
rations by changing the state of things, may have produced some
(y) Seybert Stat. Ann. 37.—(z) Seybert Stat. Ann. 40, 42,45.—(a) 1 Burk's His.
Virg. 206; 1 Malthus Popu. 6; 2 Malthus Popu. 54.
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