First off I sincerely doubt the fleet sent to Aranarth's aid was as large and mighty as the Gondorim annalists would have us believe. This is, after all, a kingdom that has barely survived a Great Plague, a civil war, and assorted barbarian invasions. Gondor can't have been in very good shape after all that, and it is *MOST* unlikely they still had that kind of manpower to throw around.
Note also the dead silence in the annals about the contribution of the Northern Dunedain themselves. The Elves of Imladris get a mention but not the Men of the Arnor - Hmmmmm indeed!
One must allow for the profoundly Gondorian bias of the annalists and read their accounts with a large chunk of salt ready to hand.
It has always been my opinion that Aranarth chose to 'disappear' with his people as a matter of policy. He knew very well who they were really fighting and that Sauron wouldn't stop until he'd destroyed the Line of Isildur and their people. The North Kingdom had defeated Angmar two or three times before only to see their enemy rebuild and come back even stronger than before.
So, Aranarth decided to go underground, to let the Witch King and his master think they had succeeded and continue to continue to defend his realm in secret. Which the Rangers did with notable success for nearly a thousand years.
As for the question of population. There can be little doubt Arnor was originally the more populous and advanced of the two kingdoms, why else would Elendil have chosen it for his seat?
Eriador, with its Elven neighbors and distance from the Kings' Colonies would have had a strong appeal for Faithful escaping persecution in Numenor. In addition to the Elves they would also have found a fairly sizeable population of Men closely akin to themselves, being descended from those Edain who never crossed over into Beleriand or who fled back to escape the wars.
Undoubtedly Arnor lost a lot of Men in the War of the Last Alliance but Elrond is clearly exagerating when he claims it had a permanent effect on the realm's demography. In fact Arnor expanded beyond its original bounds into what became the kingdoms of Rhudaur and Cardolan, strongly implying a *growth* in population, probably including the incorporation of non-Edainic peoples in the south and east.
Whatever the reasons for the division it is clear that the three northern kingdoms lived in peace *as long as each was ruled by an heir of Isildur* the Appendix clearly states that Rhudaur didn't become a problem until *after* the line of the Kings had died out there. This is supported by the fact that not one King of Arthedain died prematurely in battle in the five hundred odd years between the division of the Kingdom and the rise of Angmar.
Cardolan allied with Arthedain against the common foe until the Great Plague decimated its population or drove them northward to escape infection.
Undoubtedly the population of Arthedain was reduced by warfare, though the Plague had little effect there and there was no parallel for the Kinstrife. Yet even after a thousand years in hiding there are still enough Dunedain to effectively patrol the two hundred and fifty or so thousand miles of Eriador and protect population centers like the Shire and Breeland.
We must remember the Northern Dunedain were in hiding, therefore it suited them and their allies such as Elrond to minimize their numbers as much as possible.
Gandalf after all didn't seem to think Aragorn was going to have any trouble rebuilding and repopulating Fornost, strongly suggesting there is still a fairly sizeable Dunedain population in the North.
[ May 02, 2003: Message edited by: Morwen Tindomerel ]
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