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rise, which was not felt till the middle of the 16th century, took place suddenly between 1570 and 1595, when the silver of Potosi, Porco, Tasco, Zacatecas, and Pachuca, began to flow throughout all parts of Europe. But, on the other hand, between that memorable period in the history of commerce, till 1636, the discovery of the mines of America produced its whole effect on the reduction of the value of money. The price of grain has not in reality risen to the present day; and if the contrary has been advanced by several authors, it is from their having confounded the nominal value of coin, with the true proportion between money and commodities.

Whatever opinion may be adopted as to the future effects of the accumulation of the representative signs, if we consider the people of New Spain under the relation of their commercial connections with Europe, it cannot be denied that, in the present state of things, the abundance of the precious metals has a powerful influence on the national prosperity. It is from this abundance, that America is enabled to pay in specie, the produce of foreign industry, and to share in the enjoyments of the most civilized nations of the Old Continent. Notwithstanding this real advantage, it is to be sincerely wished, that the Mexicans, enlightened as to their true interest, may re

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increases with time, consists in the produce
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possess those raw materials, which serve for
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BOOK V.

STATE OF THE MANUFACTURES AND COMMERCE OF NEW SPAIN.

CHAPTER XII.

Manufacturing Industry - Cotton Cloth-Woollen-Cegars -Soda and Soap-Powder-Coin-Exchange of Productions - Internal Commerce-Roads - Foreign Commerce by Vera Cruz and Acapulco-Obstacles to that Commerce - Yellow Fever.

If we consider the small progress of manufactures in Spain, notwithstanding the numerous encouragements which they have received, since the ministry of the Marquis de la Ensenada, we shall not be surprised that whatever relates to manufactures and manufacturing industry is still less advanced in Mexico. The restless and suspicious policy of the nations of Europe, the legislation and colonial policy of the moderns, which bear very little resemblance to those of the Phenicians and Greeks, have thrown insurmountable obstacles in the way of such settlements

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as might secure to these distant possessions, a great degree of prosperity, and an existence independent of the mother country. Such principles as prescribe the rooting up the vine and the olive, are not calculated to favour manufactures. A colony has for ages been only considered as useful to the parent state, in so far as it supplied a great number of raw materials, and consumed a number of the commodities carried there by the ships of the mother country.

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It was easy for different commercial nations to adapt their colonial system to islands of small extent, or factories established on the coast of a continent. The inhabitants of Barbadoes, St. Thomas, or Jamaica, are not sufficiently numerous to possess a great number of hands for the manufacture of cotton cloth; and the position of these islands at all times facilitates the exchange of their agricultural produce, for the manufactures of Europe.

It is not so with the continental possessions of Spain in the two Americas. Mexico, beyond the 28° of north latitude, contains a breadth of 350 leagues. The table land of New Gre nada communicates with the port of Carthagena by means of a great river, difficult to ascend. Industry is awakened, when towns

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of fifty and sixty thousand inhabitants are situated on the ridge of mountains at a great distance from the coast; when a population of several millions can only receive European goods, by transporting them on the backs of mules for the space of five or six months, through forests and deserts. The new colonies were not established among people altogether barbarians. Before the arrival of the Spaniards, the Indians were already clothed in the Cordilleras of Mexico, Peru, and Quito. Men who knew the process of weaving cotton, or spinning the wool of the Llamas and Vicunas, were easily taught to manufacture cloth; and this manufacture was established at Cuzco in Peru, and Texcuco in Mexico, a few years after the conquest of those countries, on the introduction of European sheep into America.

The kings of Spain, by taking the title of kings of the Indies, have considered these distant possessions rather as integral parts of their monarchy, as provinces dependent on the crown of Castille, than as colonies in the sense attached to this word since the sixteenth century, by the commercial nations of Europe. They early perceived that these vast countries, of which the coast is less inhabited than the interior, could not be governed like islands scattered in the Atlantic Ocean; and from these circumstances the court of Madrid was

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