Vera Cruz, 38 San Luis Potosi, 12 Durango, 10 Sonora, 6. This last table proves that in the intendancies where the cultivation of the soil has made least progress, the relative population is from 50 to 90 times less than in the old civilized regions adjacent to the capital. This extraordinary difference in the distribution of the population is also to be found in the north and north-east of Europe. In Lapland we scarcely find one inhabitant to the square league, while in other parts of Sweden, in Gothland, for example, there are more than 248. In the states subject to the King of Denmark, the island of Zealand contains 944, and Iceland eleven inhabitants to the square league. In European Russia, the governments of Archangel, Olonez, Kalouga, and Moscow, differ so much in their relative population to the extent of the territory, that the two former of these governments contain 6 and 26, and the two last 842 and 974 souls to the square league. These enormous differences indicate that one province is 160 times better inhabited than another. In France, where the whole of the population gives 1094 inhabitants to the square league, the best peopled departments, those of L'Escaut, Le Nord, and La Lys, afford a relative population of 3869,2786, and 2274. The worst peopled department, that of the Hautes-Alpes, composed of a part of old Dauphiny, contains only 471 inhabitants to the square league. Hence the extremes are in France in the relation of 8:1; so that the intendancy of Mexico, in which the population is the most concentrated, that of Guanaxuato, is scarcely so well inhabited as the worst peopled department of continental France *. I flatter myself that the three tables which I have drawn up of the extent, absolute population, and relative population of the intendancies of New Spain, will sufficiently prove the great imperfection of the present territorial division. A country in which the population is dispersed over a vast extent requires that the provincial administration be restricted to smaller portions of ground than those of the Mexican intendancies. Whenever a population is under 100 inhabitants to the square league, the administration of an intendancy or a department should not extend over more than 100,000 In these comparisons we have neither included the department of le Liamone, formed of the southern part of Corsica, and containing only 277 inhabitants to the square league, nor the department of the Seine. The latter, in appearance exhibits a relative population of 26,165 inhabitants. It would be useless to explain the causes which produce such an unnatural order of things, in a department of which the principal place is the capital of a great empire. inhabitants. We may assign a double or triple number to regions in which the population is more concentrated. It is on this concentration that the degree of industry, the activity of commerce, and the number of affairs consequently demanding the attention of government, undoubtedly depend. In this point of view the small intendancy of Guanaxuato gives more occupation to an administrator than the provinces of Texas, Cohahuila, and New Mexico, which are six times more extensive. But, on the other hand, how is it possible for an intendant of San Luis Potosi ever to know the wants of a province of 28,000 square leagues in extent? How can he, even while he devotes himself with the most patriotic zeal to the duties of his place, superintend the sub-delegates, and protect the Indian from the oppressions which are exercised in the villages? This point of administrative organization cannot be too carefully discussed. A reforming government ought, before every other object, to set about changing the present limits of the intendancies. This political change ought to be founded on the exact knowledge of the physical state, and the state of cultivation of the provinces which constitute the kingdom of New Spain. France, in this point of view, exhibits an example of perfection worthy of imitation in the new world. The enlightened |