rgia had not yet joined them) should be pledged for the
redemption of these bills. To ascertain in what proportion each State
should be bound, the members from each were desired to say, as nearly as
they could, what was the number of the inhabitants of their respective
States. They were very much unprepared for such a declaration. They
guessed, however, as well as they could. The following are the numbers,
as they conjectured them, and the consequent apportionment of the two
millions of dollars.

[Illustration: Population Estimates--1775, page422]

Georgia, having not yet acceded to the measures of the other States, was
not quotaed; but her numbers were generally estimated at about thirty
thousand, and so would have made the whole, two million four hundred
and forty-eight thousand persons, of every condition. But it is to
be observed, that though Congress made this census the basis of their
apportionment, yet they did not even give it a place on their journals;
much less, publish it to the world with their sanction. The way it got
abroad was this. As the members declared from their seats the number of
inhabitants which they conjectured to be in their State, the secretary
of Congress wrote them on a piece of paper, calculated the portion of
two millions of dollars, to be paid by each, and entered the sum only in
the journals. The members, however, for their own satisfaction, and the
information of their States, took copies of this enumeration, and sent
them to their States. From thence, they got into the public papers: and
when the English news-writers found it answer their purpose to compare
this with the enumeration of 1783, as their principle is 'to lie boldly,
that they may not be suspected of lying,' they made it amount to three
millions one hundred and thirty-seven thousand eight hundred and nine,
and ascribed its publication to Congress itself.

in April, 1785, Congress being to call on the States to raise a million
and a half of dollars annually, for twenty-five years, it was necessary
to apportion this among them. The States had never furnished them with
their exact numbers. It was agreed, too, that in this apportionment,
five slaves should be counted as three freemen only. The preparation
of this business was in the hands of a committee; they applied to the
members for the best information they could give them, of the numbers
of their States. Some of the States had taken pains to discover their
numbers. Other