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700,000 kilogrammes per annum. It is to be presumed that the Mexican Cordilleras will one day supply the mercury, iron, copper, and lead necessary for internal consumption.

Manufactures. Value of the annual produce of manufacturing industry from seven to eight millions of piastres. The manufacture of hides, cloth, and calicoes, have been on the increase since the conclusion of the last century.

Commerce. — Importation of foreign produce and goods, 20 millions of piastres; exportation in agricultural produce and manufactures of New Spain, six millions of piastres. The mines produce in gold and silver 23 millions, of which eight or nine are exported on account of the king : consequently if we deduct from the remaining 15 millions of piastres, 14 millions to pay the excess of imports over the exports, we find the specie of Mexico hardly increases a million per annum.

Revenue. The gross revenue amounts to 20 millions of piastres, whereof 5,500,000 from the produce of the gold and silver mines, four millions from the tobacco farm, three millions from the alcavalas, 1,300,000 from the Indian capitation tax, and 800,000 from the duty on pulque or fermented juice of the agave.

Military defence. - It consumes the fourth of the total revenue. The Mexican army is 30,000 strong, whereof scarcely a third are regular troops, and more than two thirds militia. The petty warfare continually carried on with the wandering Indians in the provincias internas, and the maintenance of the presidios or military posts, require a very considerable expence. The state of the eastern coast and the configuration of the surface of the country facilitate its defence against any invasion attempted by a maritime power.

Such are the principal results to which I have been led. May this labour, begun in the capital of New Spain, be of utility to those called to watch over public prosperity! and may it in an especial manner impress upon them this important truth, that the prosperity of the whites is intimately connected with that of the copper coloured race, and that there can be no durable prosperity for the two Americas till this unfortunate race, humiliated but not degraded by long oppression, shall participate in all the advantages resulting from the progress of civilization and the improvement of social order!

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N O T E S.

Note A. (vol. i. p. 6.)

THIS information is derived from the ma-. nuscripts of Don Josef de Moraleda, preserved in the archives of the viceroyalty of Lima, quoted in the second chapter, p. 42. I have made no mention of the Malouin islands, although their latitude is eight degrees farther south than that of the island of Caylin, because in the Malouin group, properly speaking, there is no solid establishment. Two corvettes, commanded by officers of the royal navy, annually convey criminals from Montevideo to the port of Soledad. These wretches are allowed to construct barracks; but as the viceroy of Buenos Ayres, agreeably to the orders of the court of Madrid, dare send no women to the presidio of the Malouin islands, this military post cannot be reckoned on the same, footing with those of New California, which are surrounded with women and villages.

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