This calculation founded on exact data explains the reason why the country, whose mines are the richest and most constant in their produce, does not possess a great inass of specie, and why the price of labour still remains very low there. Enormous sums are accumulated in the hands of a few individuals*, but the indigence of the people cannot help striking those Europeans who travel through the country and the towns of the interior of Mexico. I am tempted to believe that of the ninety-one millions of piastrest which we have supposed to exist in specie among the thirteen or fourteen millions of inhabitants of the Spanish Colonies of continental America, nearly fifty-five or sixty millions are in Mexico. Although the population of this kingdom is not altogether in the proportion of one to two to the population of the other continental colonies, its national wealth is to that of the other colonies nearly in the proportion of two to three. The estimate of sixty millions of piastres gives only ten piastres per head; but this sum must appear too great when we reflect, that in Spain seven piastres, and in France fourteen piastres are allowed for each inhabitant. In the Capitania general of Cara * See vol. i. chap. vii. cas, in 1801, the specie which circulates among a population of between seven and eight hundred thousand inhabitants was calculated at three millions of piastres*; but then what a difference between an empire rich in mines like Mexico, and another which is entirely destitute of them, and where the exports scarcely equal the value of the importation! Several writers on political economy suppose that the specie of a country is generally in the proportion of four to one to its gross revenue. Now the revenue of the kingdom of New Spain, deducting what the government draws from the mines amounts to 16 millions of piastres. From this datum the mass of the specie would be sixty-four millions, which differs very little from our first estimate. We have already seen that the ministry of Spain have not always had the most accurate ideas respecting the national wealth of Mexico. Occupied in 1804 with the project of paying off the vales or public debt, the mother country imagined it possible to draw at once from New Spain, a sum of fortyfour millions and a half of piastres belonging to ecclesiastical, corporationst. It was easy however, to foresee that the proprietors in whose hands this sum was placed, and who * Depons, T. i, p. 178; and T. ii. p. 380. have usefully employed it in the amelioratio of their lands, would not be in a condition to restore it in specie; and hence this operation of the government completely failed. It is not to be denied that since the last war which broke out between Spain and France in 1793, Mexico has suffered from time to time great losses in specie. Besides the situados, the net revenue of the king and the property of individuals, several millions have annually passed into Europe, as gratuitous gifts for the maintenance of a war, considered by the lower people as a war of religion. These contributions were not always the effect of the enthusiasm produced by the sermons of the monks and the proclamations of the viceroys; for frequently the authority of the magistrates was interposed to compel the different townships to offer the voluntary gift, and to prescribe the amount of it. In 1797, long after the peace of Bâle, an extraordinary loan was opened at Mexico, of which the produce amounted to seventeen millions of piastres. This large sum was sent to Madrid, and the revenue of the royal farm (renta de tabaco) which generally yields a produce of three millions and a half of piastres, was assigned as a hypothec to the Mexican creditors. These facts are sufficient to show that the exportation of specie by the ports of Vera Cruz and Acapulco sometimes exceed the produce of the coinage, and that the operations of the ministry of Spain latterly have contributed to impoverish Mexico. The In fact this diminution of specie would soon be severely felt, if for several successive years the mint of Mexico should furnish fewer piastres, either on account of bad management of the mines, which are now most abundant, or a diminution in the quantity of mercury necessary for the amalgamation works. position of a population of five or six millions of inhabitants, who from an unfavourable balance of trade should experience an annual diminution of their capital of more than fourteen millions of piastres, would be very critical, if ever they were deprived of their metallic wealth; for at present twenty millions of piastres worth of goods imported into Mexico, are exchanged for six millions of piastres in produce of Mexican agriculture, and fourteen millions of piastres in specie, which may be considered as drawn from the bowels of the earth. On the other hand, had the kings of Spain governed Mexico by princes of their house residing in the country, or if in consequence of those events of which we have examples in the history of every age, the colonies had separated from the mother country, Mexico would have lost nine millions of specie less annually, which were partly paid into the the royal treasury of Madrid, and partly under the improper denomination of situados paid in to the provincial treasuries of the Havannah, Porto Rico, Pensacola, and Manilla. By allowing a free course to the national industry, by encouraging agriculture and manufactures the importation will diminish of itself; and it will then be easy for the Mexicans to pay the value of foreign commodities with the productions of their own soil. The free cultivation of the vine and the olive on the table land of New Spain; the free distillation of spirits from rum, rice, and grape; the exportation of flour favoured by the making of new roads; the increase of plantations of sugar cane, cotton, and tobacco; the working of the iron and mercury mines; and the manufacture of steel, will perhaps one day become more inexhaustible sources of wealth, than all the veins of gold and silver united. Under more favourable external circumstances, the balance of trade may be favourable to New Spain, without paying the account which has been opened for centuries between the two continents entirely with Mexican piastres. In the present state of the trade of Vera Cruz and Acapulco, the total value of exported agricultural produce, scarcely equals the value of the sugar furnished by the island of Cuba, which amounts to 7,520,000 piastres, admitting |