the Protestant religion." The encouragement held out to Oates, who received a pension of £1200, brought forward Bedloe, a noted thief and impostor, who confirm ed Oates's statements, with some additions of his own. He accused several noblemen by name of a design to raise forces in different parts of the kingdom, with which they were to join an army of 20,000 or 30,000 crusaders to be landed from Spain. Although no arms, after the most rigorous search, no ammunition, no money, no commissions, no papers, no letters, were discovered to confirm the evidence of these men, yet the story obtained general belief, and excited a general panic. To increase the excitement, Bedloe published a pamphlet, entitled, A Discovery of the horrid Popish Plot, for burning London and Westminster, &c., in which all the fires that had happened for several years were ascribed to the Jesuits. Meanwhile the pretended conspirators were brought to trial. Coleman, father Ireland, a Jesuit, and Grove and Pickering, who, it was pretended, were engaged to shoot the king, were condemned to death, on the testimony of Oates and Bedloe, and executed. The pretended murderers of Godfrey next suffered the same fate, on the sole testimony of Bedloe, and one Prance, whom he had accused of being an accomplice in the murder, and who, after many promises and threats, finally confessed his guilt. Further prosecutions took place in the following year, when several persons were executed, and a new plot, called the meal tub plot, from the place where the papers relating to it were found, was got up by one Dangerfield, a convicted felon. In 1680, viscount Stafford was impeached by the commons, condemned by the lords, and executed December 29, as an accomplice in the plot, on the testimony of Oates and two of his associates, Bedloe having died not long before. This was the last instance of bloodshed in this strange affair. Soon after the accession of James II (1685), Oates was tried and convicted on two indictments for perjury, and was sentenced to be whipped, on two different days, from Aldgate to Newgate, and from thence to Tyburn, to be imprisoned for life, and pilloried five times every year. (See Hume's, and particularly Lingard's, History of England.)

POPLAR (populus); a genus of plants belonging to the amentacea and to the diacia octandria of Linnæus. The species are trees often of large dimensions, having their buds usually covered with an aromatic and viscous substance; their flow

ers disposed in aments, and always appearing before the developement of the leaves; and these last alternate, rounded or triangular, serrate or dentate, and supported on long petioles, which are more or less compressed, particularly towards their summits. This conformation occasions a peculiar vibratory motion in the leaves when they are acted upon by the wind, especially remarkable in certain species called aspens, which appear to be perpetually agitated. About twenty species are known, all confined to the northern and temperate regions of the globe. They are soft-wooded trees, of rapid growth. The following species inhabit the U. States: The Carolinian poplar (populus angulata) is remarkable for the acutely angular form of the young branches, and for having its buds destitute of the viscous coating. It is a southern species, and, in the Atlantic states, is hardly found north of latitude 37°, but is abundant along the marshy banks of the large rivers of Carolina and Georgia, and especially of the Lower Mississippi, and is even found on the Missouri for 100 miles above its mouth. It sometimes attains the height of eighty feet, with a proportional diameter, and a wide-spreading summit, clothed with beautiful foliage. The wood is white, soft, and is not applied to any useful purposes. The cotton-wood (populus canadensis) inhabits more northern districts, and is chiefly abundant along the Upper Mississippi, the Missouri, and other western rivers, and often is the only tree which lines their banks in the vast naked regions of the north-west. In the Atlantic states, this tree is rare, and almost unknown. It grows to the height of eighty feet, with a trunk three or four in diameter: the branches are angular, though less remarkably so than in the preceding species, from which it is, besides, easily distinguished by the viscous buds: both are, however, frequently confounded under the term cotton-wood, and are found growing in company on the banks of the middle portion of the Mississippi. The American black poplar (populus betulifolia) is rare, even in the northern parts of the U. States, and by Michaux was observed only on the banks of the Hudson above Albany: probably it will be found more abundant in Canada. It is distinguished by the hairiness of the young shoots and petioles in the spring, and by the form of the leaves, which are conspicuously acuminate. The trunk is thirty or forty feet high, and about a foot in diameter. The populus heterophylla is found in most parts

of the U. States, but is so rare as, in general, to have received no specific denomination. The trunk is sometimes seventy or eighty feet high, and two or three in diameter. The young branches are cylindrical; the leaves, while very young, are covered with a thick white down, which gradually disappears as they attain their full size, when they are often six inches in length and the same in breadth, heartshaped, with the small lobes of the base overlapping, so as to conceal the summit of the petiole: by this character it is most easily recognised. The tacamahac, or balsam poplar (populus balsamifera), is a Canadian species, hardly venturing even into the coldest regions of the U. States. It is abundant in the country between Quebec and Hudson's bay, especially on the waters of the Saguenai, between lat. 47° and 49°, and extends westward beyond lake Superior. Here it frequently rises to the height of eighty feet, with a diameter of three at base. The leaves are oval and lanceolate an uncommon form among poplars. The wood is white, soft, and is applied to no useful purpose. The heartleaved balsam poplar, commonly, but improperly called balm of Gilead (populus candicans), is frequently planted before houses in the New England states, but has not hitherto been found growing wild in the forests, and its origin is uncertain. It attains the height of forty or fifty feet, with a diameter of eighteen or twenty inches. The bark is smooth and greenish; and the leaves are large, perfectly heart-shaped, and frequently have hairy petioles. This tree has dark-green foliage, but the irregular disposition of the branches gives it an inelegant appearance; and it, besides, renders the vicinity unpleasant at the time when the seeds are ripening, by filling the air with little tufts of light down. The American aspen (populus trepida) is a small tree, common in the Northern and Middle States. The leaves are broad, and somewhat heartshaped. It is one of the species most remarkable for the perpetual agitation of the leaves. The populus grandidentata is chiefly found in the Northern and Middle States, and rather exceeds the preceding in dimensions. It is readily distinguished from the other American species by the large teeth of the margin of the leaves. The narrow-leaved cotton-wood (populus angustifolia) grows in company with the common cotton-wood, which it resembles in size and habit, about the head waters of the Missouri and its tributaries. It is remarkable for the form of the leaves,

which are ovate-lanceolate, attenuate, and acute at base.-Among the more remarkable of the exotic species are, 1. The great white poplar, or albele (populus alba), one of the largest European trees, often growing to the height of ninety or a hundred feet, by five or six in diameter at base. It is common along the banks of rivers, and in moist places, throughout the greater part of Europe. It forms a striking feature in the landscape, not only from the majesty of its appearance, but from the contrast of the two surfaces of the leaves, the green of the upper with the pure white of the inferior. The growth is very rapid, and it lives to a great age. The wood is white, light and soft, easily worked, and takes a good polish, and is employed for a great variety of purposes in the arts. It is superior to that of the other species in fineness and strength, gives a firmer hold to nails, and is not able to warp and split. In England, it is preferred by turners for wooden bowls, &c., on account of its peculiar whiteness, and the ease with which it is worked in the lathe. It is also useful for flooring-boards, and for making laths and packing-boxes. This tree is recommended for cultivation in America by Michaux, especially to the states east of the Hudson. 2. The asp, or aspen (populus tremula), is a tree of moderate size, the wood of which is inferior, but still is applied to many useful purposes. 3. The black poplar (populus nigra) is a lofty tree, found in most parts of Europe. The bark is light, like cork, and is sometimes used by fishermen for floating their nets. The timber is light and soft, but is in general little in request, though used by the turners for flooringboards, &c. 4. The Italian or Lombardy poplar (populus dilatata) is remarkable among trees for its peculiar mode of growth. The body of the tree is perfectly straight, and all the branches keep closely pressed around it, and take an upright direction. This tree seems to differ from the preceding chiefly in this peculiarity, and is, perhaps, only a variety. About eighty years ago, it was introduced from Italy into the other parts of Europe, and its cultivation spread with unprecedented rapidity: ornamental trees of every description were rooted up to make way for it. This peupleomanie extended even to this country; and it is still but too common to see the noble productions of our own forest, which have perhaps been centuries in acquiring their growth, prostrated to make room for the Lombardy poplar. In an economical point of view, it has,

indeed, one advantage-that of affording little shade and taking up little room; and, whatever we may say, it has one peculiar beauty: most trees, when acted upon by the wind, are only partially agitated; but this waves in a single sweep from top to bottom, like an ostrich feather, even with the slightest blast. In many parts of the U. States, the term poplar is generally applied to the tulip tree. (See Tulip Tree.) POPOCATAPETL; a volcano in Mexico, in the province of Puebla; lon. 98° 33′ W.; lat. 18° 36′ N. This volcano is constantly in action, throwing out smoke, ashes and fire, but no great eruption has hitherto taken place. Its figure is that of a truncated cone, with a large crater. It is 17,716 feet high, and is one of the highest mountains between the bay of Panama and Beering's straits.

POPPY (papaver). The species of poppy are herbaceous plants, all bearing large, brilliant, but fugacious flowers. One of them yields the opium of commerce, and the juice of all is lactescent. Most of the species are natives of Europe, often occurring as weeds in fields and waste places; but, in this country, we only see them in gardens, cultivated for ornament. One, indeed, the papaver nudicaule, is found in all the extreme northern regions of the globe. Their roots are annual or perennial; the leaves alternate, and the flowers terminal and drooping until they are expanded; the calyx is composed of two leaves, and the corolla of four petals; the stamens are very numerous, and the capsule is one-celled, but is divided internally by several longitudinal partitions, and contains a multitude of seeds.

POPULATION, POLICY OF. It was formerly a maxim in politics, that a country could not be overpeopled, since it was supposed that the means of subsistence increased in proportion to the increase of population. Industry would thus find sufficient means of support, partly by increasing the produce of the earth, partly by procuring more from foreign countries, so that the great population of a country could never be the cause of its falling into want and misery, provided it consisted of productive laborers. On this account, some have even made population the first principle of policy, and recommended all measures by which its increase could be promoted. This system also taught that artificial means should be employed to aid the increase of population; and, as it was considered desirable that all births should take place in matrimony, so that the children should always be provided with nat

ural guardians, it became an object to furnish motives for the encouragement of matrimony. The Romans passed several laws for this purpose, and endeavored to render a life of celibacy disgraceful: thus, for instance, he who had the most legitimate children, had the preference before all the other candidates for public offices. Whoever had three children was exempt from all personal taxes: free-born women who had three, and freed women who had four children, were released from the continual guardianship to which they were otherwise subjected: unmarried females, at the age of forty-five, were not allowed to wear jewels, or to use a litter, &c. Louis XIV gave pensions to those who had ten or more children, and in other countries we find similar ordinances. The impolicy and injustice of these measures could not escape observation: others, therefore, rejected the principle of population, and maintained, on the contrary, that the policy of states should be to check the increase of population. No one has labored more to carry to its greatest extent the principle of population than Sonnenfels (in his Science of Politics and Finance, and in the Manual of the internal Administration of the State, in German): but Malthus has opposed this system, and endeavored to lay the foundation of an opposite doctrine (in his Essay on Population, 3d ed., London, 1806). Malthus concludes that no more individuals can subsist in any country than the produce of human industry in that country is able to support. If, now, it can be proved that, in all countries, with a tolerably good government, the increase of population, as soon as it has arrived at a certain degree, is in a far greater proportion than the means of subsistence necessary for the support of the inhabitants, then it is evident that there will be a great scarcity, which will augment every year, as the disproportion between the population and the means of subsistence increases. For, if the population has already become so numerous, that only the greatest efforts of the nation are able to provide it with the necessary means of subsistence, then the increase of the following year cannot be provided with the necessaries of life without withdrawing them from the already existing population. He further asserts that all civilized countries are either at the point, or more or less near it, where as much food is produced from the soil as in any possible way can be obtained from it; and suppose more could be gained by greater efforts and

more industry, it will never be in such proportion as the yearly increase of the population; and thus want and misery are approaching in all civilized countries, against which there is no other remedy than that the government either check the increase of population, or remove from the country the yearly arising surplus by means of colonies, and other measures conformable to this purpose. If some consider the introduction of inoculation for the small-pox, the diminution of the plague and of other epidemic diseases, as great benefits for the human race, we ought rather to regard them, according to the system of Malthus, as great evils, which only increase the want and misery of men by the famine which they inevitably produce. A careful examination will show that population may be the object of state policy, but that the promotion of this object must be regulated by a reference to other more important considerations. Many of the premises, and of course the conclusions, of Malthus are either entirely false, or true only with great limitations. For, 1. although it is abstractly true, that the instinct of propagation in men, if no impediments were put in its way, would increase the population in a geometrical progression, so that a single couple, in the course of a few centuries, would people the whole earth; yet we no where find any excess of population, and the earth has hitherto always been able to receive an almost innumerable accession of inhabitants. Nature herself has provided a thousand ways to prevent the increase of the human race beyond the means necessary for its subsistence. She presents to man the means of subsistence with a sparing hand; she has made each generation dependent upon the love of parents, and planted in man a moral sentiment which forbids him to produce children before he is able to supply their wants. The cultivation of this sentiment in a nation is the great rule to be observed in respect to population. If the government can sufficiently extend and strengthen this sentiment, it needs do but little more for the regulation of population; for then marriages will not be contracted without the means of providing for children, and parents will endeavor so to educate their children as to qualify them to earn their own support. Those who wish to marry, and have no prospect of support in the country of their residence, will emigrate. The instinct of propagation is thus checked, physically and morally, of itself, so that it cannot be against the intention of

nature to keep the human race within prescribed limits. Sismondi gives, as an instance to illustrate this, the example of the family of Montmorency, which, if the natural instinct had been allowed to act freely, would have peopled the whole French empire; and yet nothing approaching to this result has taken place, although no individual of this family has been destitute of the necessary means of life. Other considerations have restrained the operations of this instinct, so that there are but a small number of individuals of this name existing in France. 2. That the artificial increase of food in any country cannot keep pace with the yearly increasing population, is an assertion also contradicted by experience, since, in fact, the increase of population rather accommodates itself to the means of subsistence, than the supply to the population. Where industry, assisted by nature, produces with ease whatever the wants of a numerous family require, there population increases the most rapidly, if other regulations of society do not prevent. And if the greater number are employed in cultivating the soil, and few idle and unproductive consumers are to be found, then the population increases in an extraordinary manner. In such countries, it doubles, according to Euler, every twelve or thirteen years. The greatest increase of population which is known, on a large scale, is in the U. States of North America, where, hitherto, it has doubled every twenty-five years. And even after all the good land has been brought into cultivation, the rapid increase will continue a long time; for the division of labor will furnish subsistence to a great number who do not wish to occupy themselves with the cultivation of the land; for experience teaches us, that a family which has no other occupation than the cultivation of the land is able, with a capital and industry, to produce enough for four or five families besides itself. Since these families which are occupied in the cultivation of the land are provided with manufactured articles, and are able to dispose of their own produce, an opulent population will arise, abundantly provided with the comforts of life. We may add that, even in the most cultivated part of the world (namely, in Europe), there is no extensive country without a quantity of uncultivated land (in England alone seven million acres), and which want nothing but hands, and the removal of political impediments, to supply the means of subsistence to a much greater number of inhabitants. It is im

possible, moreover,to determine how much the means of support can be increased by a more perfect cultivation of the soil, by the discovery and introduction of more nutritious kinds of vegetables, &c., since experience shows that land which formerly hardly yielded four times the amount of the seed, now yields, under a more perfect cultivation, ten or twenty times; and what cannot be done by machines and chemical arts, if necessity and the desire of gain excite the genius of men to new inventions? Finally, the increase of population may find a supply from the cultivation of countries not yet sufficiently peopled to consume their own natural productions. Such countries are always ready to exchange their surplus produce for the manufactures of those countries which are in want of it, since they cannot manufacture so cheap and so well, but can supply the produce of the soil much cheaper than it can be raised in manufacturing countries. This exchange is advantageous for both nations; and we find that even those nations which could easily produce more (and there is no country where this could not be done) leave a portion of the land uncultivated, or do not cultivate it as much as they might, because the produce thus obtained would be much dearer to them than that which they receive from other countries. As long as there are countries where food can be raised cheaper than in others, and as long as it can be bought cheaper, including the cost of transportation, than it can be cultivated in a given country, the population of this latter country will always be enabled to increase, provided it can produce superfluous manufactures which the former will receive for the surplus produce of the soil. If we consider the many uncultivated spots which are capable of affording subsistence to innumerable millions of men, and which are still to be found in the midst of cultivated countries, then the policy which recommends checks to the increase of population, from fear of an inadequate supply, must appear very absurd. But, with regard to an excess of population in particular parts of the earth, it appears the dictate of a sound policy, 1. not to favor nor tolerate any institution in the country whereby useless, idle people are maintained. Therefore beggars and other vagabonds should never be protected in a state, and sinecures and superfluous offices should not be allowed. Every one ought to gain his subsistence by some employment useful to society. If all those produce who are able, they will easily provide

for those who are employed in public offices, &c.; and with every generation as many productive individuals will arise as will be necessary to furnish supplies for those whose services they require. 2. To give a free scope to industry, and to useful labor of all kinds, and to make them the chief principle of the division of goods. It is contrary to this principle if money, and particularly land, is kept united in great masses, in few hands, by means of associations, and if the access to them is rendered difficult, or is denied to industry, so that it cannot obtain what a free competition would have given it. Such institutions operate directly against the production of the country, and consequently against the population, as well as the distribution of wealth. But where the property is distributed according to the industry of each individual, the increase of the national wealth and its general distribution are best promoted, and the increase of population always follows the increase of the means of subsistence in a just proportion. 3. To give no occasion to capitalists or traders to transfer their capitals or their business to another country, as long as their own offers them equal advantages. 4. To give full liberty to those who wish to emigrate. Where such a policy is adopted, the natural instinct may be permitted to act freely, without fear of an excess of population. On the contrary, all artificial measures, which governments have often employed to increase the population, ought to be entirely rejected, because they do not also supply the means of preserving and educating the children. Since, further, the institution of matrimony is a religious and moral institution, which promotes, in the safest way, the moral purpose of the sexual appetite, a community ought to prevent, as much as possible, the birth of illegitimate children. No one should enter into matrimony without the prospect of being able to educate his children in such a manner that they shall also be able to provide for themselves, and afterwards for their children. Hence it follows that population, abstractly considered, is not an important subject of public policy, and that we ought not to fear, in the common course of affairs, an excess of population in civilized countries.

PORCELAIN. The Chinese porcelain excels other kinds of ware in the delicacy of its texture, and the partial transparency which it exhibits when held against the light. It has been long known and manufactured by the Chinese, but has nev