compelled to have recourse to a less prohibitory system, and to tolerate what it was unable to prevent. Hence a more equitable legislation has been adopted in that country than that by which the greatest part of the other colonies of the New Continent is governed. In the latter for example, it is not permitted to refine raw sugar; and the proprietor of a plantation is obliged to purchase the produce of his own soil from the manufacturer of the mother country. No law prohibits the refining sugar in the possessions of Spanish America. If the government does not encourage manufactures, and if it even employs indirect means to prevent the establishment of those of silk, paper, and crystal; on the other hand, no decree of the audience, no royal cedula, declares that these manufactures ought not to exist beyond sea. In the Colonies, as well as every where else, we must not confound the spirit of the laws with the policy of those by whom they are administered.

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Only half a century ago, two citizens, animated with the purest patriotic zeal, the Count de Gijon, and the Marquis de Maenza, conceived the project of bringing over to Quito, a colony of workmen and artizans from Europe. The Spanish ministry affected to applaud their zeal, and did not think proper to refuse them the privilege of establishing

manufuctories; but they so contrived to fetter the proceedings of these two enterprizing men, that they at last perceived that secret orders had been given to the viceroy and the audience to ruin their undertaking, which they voluntarily renounced. I could wish to believe that such an event would not have taken place at the period when I resided in these countries; for it is not to be denied that within these twenty years, the Spanish Colonies have been governed on more enlightened principles. Virtuous men have from time to time raised their voice to enlighten the government as to its true interest; and they have endeavoured to impress the Mother Country with the idea that it would be more useful to encourage the manufacturing industry of the Colonies, than to allow the treasures of Peru and Mexico, to be spent in the purchase of foreign commodities. These counsels would have been attended to, if the ministry had not too frequently sacrificed the interests of the nations of a great continent, to the interest of a few maritime towns of Spain; for the progress manufactures in the Colonies has not been impeded by the manufacturers of the peninsula, a quiet and laborious class of men, but by trading monopolists, whose political influence is favoured by great wealth, and kept up by

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a thorough knowledge of intrigue, and the momentary wants of the court.

Notwithstanding all these obstacles the manufactures have not been prevented from making some progress in three centuries, during which time, Biscayans, Catalonians, Asturians and Valencians have settled in the New World, and carried there the industry of their native provinces. The manufactures of coarse stuffs can every where be carried on at a low rate, when raw materials are found in abundance, and when the price of the goods of Europe and Oriental Asia is so much increased by carriage. In time of war, the want of communication with the Mother Country, and the regulations prohibiting commerce with neutrals, have favoured the establishment of manufactures of calicoes, fine cloth, and whatever is connected with the refinements of luxury.

The value of the produce of the manufacturing industry of New Spain is estimated at seven or eight millions of piastres per annum *. In the Intendancy of Guadalaxara cotton and wool were exported till 1765, to maintain the activity of the manufactures of Puebla, Queretaro, and San Miguel el Grande. Since that period, manufactories have been established at Guadalaxara, Lagos, and the

* £1,470,000, or 1,680,000 Sterling. Trans.

neighbouring towns. The whole intendancy which contains more than 630,000 inhabitants, and of which the coast is washed by the South Sea, supplied in 1802 * cotton and woolen manufactures to the value of 1,601,200 piastres; tanned hides to the value of 418,900 piastres; and soap to the amount of 268,400 piastres.

We have already proved, speaking of the different varieties of gossypium, cultivated in the warm and temperate regions, the importance of native manufactures of cotton for Mexico. Those of the intendancy of Puebla furnish annually in time of peace, for the interior commerce, a produce to the value of 1,500,000 piastres. However this produce is not derived from considerable manufactures, but from a great number of looms, (telares de algodon) dispersed throughout the towns of Puebla de los Angeles, Cholula, Huexocingo, and Tlascala. At Queretaro, a considerable town situated on the road from Mexico to Guanaxuato, there is annually consumed 200,000 pounds of cotton, in the manufacture of mantas and rebozos. The manufacture of mantas, or cotton amounts annually to 20,000 pieces of 32 varas each. The weavers of cottons of

*Estado de la intendencia de Guadalazara, communicado en 1802 por el Señor intendente al Consulado de Vera Crnz (official manuscript paper.)

all sorts in Puebla were computed in 1802 at more than 1200 *. In this town as well as in Mexico, the printing of calicoes, both those imported from Manilla, and those manufactured in New Spain, has made considerable progress within these few years. At the port of Tehuantepec in the province of Oaxaca, the Indians dye the unwrought cotton by rubbing it against the cloak of a murex, which is found attached to the granite rocks. From an old custom, they wash the cotton in sea water, which in their parallels is very rich in muriate of soda, to give it a bright colour.

The oldest cloth manufactories of Mexicc are those of Tezcuco. They were in great part established in 1592 by the viceroy Don Louis de Velasco II. the son of the celebrated constable of Castille, who was second viceroy of New Spain. By degrees this branch of national industry passed entirely into the hands of the Indians and Mestizoes of Queretaro and Puebla. I visited the manufactories of Queretaro in the month of August 1803. They distinguish there the great manufactories which they call obrajes from the small, which go by the name of trapiches. There were

*

Informe del intendente Don Manuel de Flon conde de la Cadena (M. S.)