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serve as a basis to the colonial legislation of Europe. It would be difficult to add to what has been already said on that subject, at a time when the great problems of political economy occupy the mind of every man. Instead of attacking princi

ples, whose falsity and injustice are universally acknowledged, we shall confine ourselves to the collection of facts, and to the proving of what importance the commercial relations of Mexico with Europe may become, when they shall be freed from the fetters of an odious monopoly, disadvantageous even to the mother country.

The internal commerce comprehends both the carriage of produce and goods into the interior of the country, and the coasting along the shore of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. This commerce is not enlivened by an internal navigation on rivers or artificial canals; for, like Persia, the greatest part of New Spain is in want of navigable rivers. The Rio del Norte, which from its breadth hardly yields to the Mississippi, flows through regions susceptible of the highest cultivation, but which in their present state exhibit nothing but a vast desert. This vast river has no greater influence on the activity of the inland trade, than the Missouri, the Cassiquiare, and the Ucayale, which run through the savannahs and uninhabited forests of North America. In Mexico, between the 16th and 23d degrees of latitude, the part of the country where the popula tion is most concentrated, the Rio de Santiago alone

can be rendered navigable at a moderate expense. The length of its course equals that of the Elbe and the Rhone. It fertilizes the table-lands of Lerma, Salamanca, and Selaya, and might serve for the conveyance of flour from the intendancies of Mexico and Guanaxuato towards the western coast. We are of opinion, that it would be very easy to cut canals in the valley of Mexico, from the northern point, the village of Huehuetoca, to the southern extremity, the small town of Chalco.

The principal objects of the internal commerce of New Spain are, Ist, The productions and goods imported and exported at the two ports of Vera Cruz and Acapulco; 2d, The exchange which is carried on between the different provinces, and particularly between Mexico Proper and the Provincias Internas; 3d, Several productions of Peru, Quito, and Guatimala, which are conveyed through the country to be exported at Vera Cruz for Europe. Were it not for the great consumption of commodities in the mines, the commerce between provinces which enjoy, in a great measure, the same climate, and which consequently possess the same productions, could not have any great activity. The elevation of the soil gives the southern regions of Mexico, that middle temperature which is necessary for the cultivation of European plants. The same latitude produces the banana, the apple, the sugar-cane, wheat, the manioc, and the potatoe. The nutritive gramina, which vegetate among the

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ices of Norway and Siberia, cover the Mexican fields of the torrid zone. Hence, the provinces situated under the 17th and 20th degree of latitude very seldom require the flour of New Biscay. The commerce of maize is of great importance to the provinces of Guadalaxara, Valladolid, Guanaxuato, Mexico, San Luis Potosi, Vera Cruz, Puebla, and Oaxaca.

Thousands of mules, arriving every week from Chihuahua and Durango at Mexico, carry, besides bars of silver, hides, tallow, some wine of Passo del Norte, and flour; and they take in return woollen cloth of the manufacture of Puebla and Queretaro, goods from Europe and the Philippine Islands, iron, steel, and mercury.

The communications with Europe and Asia being carried on only from the two ports of Vera Cruz and Acapulco, all the objects of exportation and importation necessarily pass through the capital, which has become through that means the central point of the interior commerce. Mexico, situated on the ridge of the Cordilleras, commanding as it were the two seas, is distant in a straight line from Vera Cruz 207 miles, from Acapulco 198, from Oaxaca 237, and 1320 from Santa Fe of New Mexico. From this position of the capital, the most frequented roads, and the most important for commerce, are, 1st, the road from Mexico to Vera Cruz, by Puebla and Xalapa; 2d, the road from Mexico to Acapulco, by Chilpanzingo; 3d, the road from Mexico to Guatimala, by Oaxaca ;

88 EXTERNAL COMMERCE-CONTRABAND TRADE.

4th, the road from Mexico to Durango and Santa Fe of New Mexico, vulgarly called el camino de tierra dentro. We may consider the roads which lead from Mexico, either to San Luis Potosi and Monterey, or to Valladolid and Guadalaxara, as ramifications of the great road of the provincias in

ternas.

The state of the external commerce of New Spain has changed very much within these twelve or fifteen years. The quantity of foreign goods imported fraudulently into the east and west coasts of Mexico, has increased not in volume but in intrinsic value. A greater number of vessels are not employed in the smuggling trade with Jamaica, but the objects of importation have changed with the increase of luxury and national wealth. Mexico now requires finer cloths, a greater quantity of muslins, gauzes, silks, wines, and liquors, than previous to 1791. If on the one hand the increase of luxury has rendered Mexico within the last fifteen or twenty years more dependent on Europe and Asia than formerly, on the other hand the produce of the mines has considerably increased. According to the accounts of the Consulado, the importation of Vera Cruz, calculating only from the registers of the customs, amounted before 1791 to 2,335,0007.; and it now amounts, at an average, to more than 3,070,000 annually. In the ten years preceding 1791, the mean produce of the mines of New Spain amounted to 4,115,0007. per annum, while from

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1791 to 1801 the produce amounted to 5,000,000%. annually. In this last period the indigenous manufactures have been exceedingly prosperous; but at the same time, as the Indians and people of colour are better clothed, this progress of the Mexican manufactures has had no sensible effect on the importation of Europe-cloth, Indian cottons, and other goods of foreign manufacture. The produce of agriculture has increased in a greater proportion than the manufacturing industry.

Bringing together into one point of view the data collected by me respecting the trade of Acapulco and Vera Cruz, we find that in the beginning of the nineteenth century,

The importation of foreign goods and produce into the kingdom of New Spain, including the contraband on the eastern and western coasts, amounts to 4,333,000.

The exportation from New Spain of the produce of its agriculture and manufacturing industry amounts to 1,260,0007.

Now the mines produce 5,000,0007., of which about 1,750,000l. are exported on account of 'the King, either for Spain, or the other Spanish colonies: consequently, if we deduct from the 3,250,000%. remaining, 3,070,000l. to liquidate the excess of the importation over the exportation, we find hardly

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