ance for the commercial nations of Europe, who want an outlet for their manufactures. We shall call to mind on this occasion, 1st, That the United States of North America, whose exportation in 18021 amounted to 15,570,3287., exported in 1791 only to the value of 4,115,000l.; 2nd, That England, at the period of the greatest activity of its trade. with France in 1790, only imported into that country goods to the value of 1,235,0007.; and 3rd, That the exportation from England to Portugal and Germany in 1790 did not exceed, to the former country 1,647,000/., and to the latter 2,687,000. These data are sufficient to explain, why towards the end of the last century Great Britain made so many efforts to procure a share of the trade between the Peninsula and Mexico.

The foreign commerce of New Spain, from the position of the coasts, is naturally composed of the commerce of the South Sea and that of the Atlantic Ocean. The ports on the eastern coast are Campeche, Huasacualco, Vera Cruz, Tampico, and Nuevo Santander; if we may give the name of ports to roads surrounded with shallows, or mouths of rivers shut by bars, and presenting a very slight shelter from the fury of the north winds. All the endeavours which have been made, since 1524, to discover a safer port than Vera Cruz have been fruitless. The vast shore which stretches from Nuevo Santander to the north and north-west is still very little known; and we may repeat in our

days, what Cortez wrote to the Emperor Charles the Fifth, three years after the taking of Tenochtitlan, "that the secret of the coast which extends from the Rio de Panuco to Florida remains to be discovered."

For centuries, almost all the maritime commerce of New Spain has been concentrated at Vera Cruz. When we bestow a glance on the chart of that port, we see that the pilots of Cortez's squadron were right in comparing the port of Vera Cruz to a pierced bag. The good anchorage in the port of Vera Cruz is between the castle of Ulua, the town, and the sand banks of La Lavandera. Near the castle we find six fathoms water; but the channel by which the port is entered is hardly four fathoms in depth, and 1260 feet in breadth.

The principal objects of exportation at Vera Cruz are, gold and silver in ingots, or converted into coin or wrought plate, cochineal, sugar, flour, Mexican indigo, salted meat and other eatables, tanned hides, sarsaparilla, vanilla, jalap, soap, Campeche wood, and pimento. Their annual amount, according to the declarations at the Customs, taking an average of several years of peace, is 4,770,000. We have not mentioned the indigo of Guatimala or the cocoa of Guayaquil, which in time of war are very important articles in the trade of Vera Cruz, because we wished to confine ourselves to the indigenous productions of New Spain. The importation of Vera Cruz includes the

following articles: linen and cotton and woollen cloth, silks, paper, brandy, cocoa, mercury, iron, steel, wine, and wax. Their average annual

value is 3,250,000l.-Commercial circulation, 8,020,000/.

95

CHAPTER VI.

Intendancy of Vera Cruz-situation-physical aspectclimate-productions-road from the capital to Vera

BEFORE entering on the subject of the Mines, which we shall treat in considerable detail, we shall subjoin to our brief account of the Commerce of Mexico some description of the Province, through which lies all communication between the interior and Europe.

N.B. The province of VeraCruz, situated under the burning sun of the tropics, extends along the Mexican Gulf, from the Rio Baraderas (or de los Lagartos) to the great river of Panuco, which rises in the metalliferous mountains of San Luis Potosi. Hence this intendancy includes a very considerable part of the eastern coast of New Spain. Its length, from the bay of Terminos near the island of Carmen to the small port of Tampico, is 630 miles, while its

breadth is only in general from 70 to 80 miles. It is bounded on the east by the peninsula of Merida; on the west, by the intendancies of Oaxaca, Puebla, and Mexico; and on the north, by the colony of New Santander.

There are few regions in the new continent where the traveller is more struck with the assemblage of the most opposite climates All the western part of the intendancy of Vera Cruz forms the declivity of the Cordilleras of Anahuac. In the space of a day, the inhabitants descend from the regions of eternal snow to the plains in the vicinity of the sea, where the most suffocating heat prevails. The admirable order with which different tribes of vegetables rise above one another by strata, as it were, is no where more perceptible than in ascending from the port of Vera Cruz to the table-land of Perote. We see there the physiognomy of the country, the aspect of the sky, the form of plants, the figures of animals, the manners of the inhabitants, and the kind of cultivation followed by them, assume a different appearance at every step of our progress.

As we ascend, nature appears gradually less animated, the beauty of the vegetable forms diminishes, the shoots become less succulent, and the flowers less coloured. The aspect of the Mexican oak quiets the alarms of travellers newly landed at Vera Cruz. Its presence demonstrates to him that he has left behind him the zone so justly dreaded by the people of the north, under which the yellow fe