Present State of the Kingdom of Mexico.

[From Mr. Black’s Translation of M. de Humboldt’s Political Essay.]

“AMONGST the inhabitants of pure origin, the whites would occupy the second place, considering them only in the relation of number.

They are divided into whites born in Europe, and descendants of Europeans born in the Spanish colonies of America, or in the Asiatic islands.

The former bear the name of Chapetones or Gachupines, and the second that of Criollos.

The natives of the Canary islands, who go under the general denomination of Isleños (islanders), and who are the gerans of the plantations, are considered as Europeans.

The Spanish laws allow the same rights to all whites; but those who have the execution of the laws endeavour to destroy an equality which shocks the European pride.

The government, suspicious of the Creoles, bestows the great places exclusively on the natives of Old Spain.

For some years back they have disposed at Madrid even of the most trifling employments in the administration of the customs and the tobacco revenue.

At an epoch when every thing tended to an uniform relaxation in the springs of the state, the system of venality made an alarming progress.

For the most part it was by no means a suspicious and distrustful policy, it was pecuniary interest alone, which bestowed all employments on Europeans.

The result has been a jealousy and perpetual hatred between the Chapetons and the Creoles.

The most miserable European, without education, and without intellectual cultivation, thinks himself superior to the whites born in the new continent.

He knows that, protected by his countrymen, and favoured by chances common enough in a country where fortunes are as rapidly acquired as they are lost, he may one day reach places, to which the access is almost interdicted to the natives, even to those of them distinguished for their talents, knowledge, and moral qualities.

The natives prefer the denomination of Americans to that of Creoles.

Since the peace of Versailles, and in particular, since the year 1789, we frequently hear proudly declared, “I am not a Spaniard, I am an American!” words which betray the workings of a long resentment.

In the eye of law, every white Creole is a Spaniard; but the abuse of the laws, the false measures of the colonial government, the example of the United States of America, and the influence of the opinions of the age, have relaxed the ties which formerly united more closely the Spanish Creoles to the European Spaniards.

A wise administration may re-establish harmony, calm their passions and resentments, and yet preserve for a long time the union among the members of one and the same great family scattered over Europe and America, from the Patagonian coast to the north of California.

“The number of individuals of whom the white race is composed (Casta de los blancos o de los Españoles) amounts probably, in all New Spain, to 1,200,000, of whom nearly the fourth part inhabited the provincias internas.

In New Biscay, or in the intendancy of Durango, there is hardly an individual subject to the tributo.

Almost all the inhabitants of these northern regions pretend to be of pure European extraction.

“In the year 1793 they reckoned

Souls.

Spaniards.

In the intendancy of Guanaxuato, on a total population of..................... 398,000 103,000 Valladolid........................... 290,000 80,000 Puebla.............................. 638,000 63,000 Oaxaca ............................. 411,000 26,000

“Consequently, in the four intendancies adjoining the capital, we find 272,000 whites, either Europeans or descendants of Europeans, in a total population of 1,737,000 souls.

For every hundred inhabitants, there were,

In the intendancy of

Valladolid........ 27 whites.

Guanaxuato...... 25

Puebla .......... 9

Oaxaca.......... 6

“These considerable differences show the degree of civilization to which the ancient Mexicans had attained south from the capital.

These southern regions were always the best inhabited.

In the north, the Indian population was more thinly sown.

Agriculture has only begun to make any progress there since the period of the conquest.

“It is curious to compare together the number of whites in the West Indies and in Mexico.

The French part of St.

Domingo contained in its happiest æra, 1788, on a surface of 1700 square leagues (25 to the degree) a smaller population than that of the intendancy of la Puebla.

Page estimates the population of St.

Domingo at 520,000 inhabitants, among whom there were 40,000 whites, 28,000 people of colour, and 452,000 slaves.

Hence, in St. Domingo, in every 100 souls, eight were white, six free people of colour, and eighty-six African slaves.

Jamaica was computed in 1787 to have in every 100 inhabitants, ten whites, four people of colour, and eighty-six slaves; and yet this English colony possesses a smaller population by one third than the intendancy of Oaxaca.

Hence, the disproportion between the Europeans or their descendants, and the casts of Indian or African blood, is still greater in the southern part of New Spain, than in the French and English sugar islands.

The island of Cuba, on the contrary, exhibits even at this day, in the distribution of the races, a very great and a very consolatory difference.

From the most careful statistical researches which I was enabled to make, during my stay at the Havannah, in 1800 and 1804, I found that at the last of these epochs, the total population of the island of Cuba amounted to 432,000 souls, among whom there were

In 1802 there were in the whole island of St.

Domingo only 375,000 inhabitants, whereof 290,000 were labourers, 47,000 domestics, artisans, and sailors, and 37,000 soldiers.

To what a degree must the population have diminished within the last six years!

In the island of Barbadoes, the number of whites is greater than in any of the other islands; it amounts to 16,000 on a total population of 80,000.

A. Freemen.......... 324,000 Whites...... 234,000 People of colour 90,000 B. Slaves ............ 108,000 Total 432,000

or in every 100 inhabitants, fiftyfour Creole and European whites, twenty-one men of colour, and twenty-five slaves.

The proportion of freemen to slaves is there as three to one, while at Jamaica they are as one to six.

“The following table exhibits the proportion of the other casts to the whites in the different parts of the new continent . Out of every 100 inhabitants, we reckon

In the United States of North America ............ 83 whites.

Island of Cuba................................ 54

Kingdom of New Spain (without including the provincias internas)........................... 16

Kingdom of Peru............................. 12

Island of Jamaica ............................. 10

“In the capital of Mexico, according to the enumeration of the Count de Revillagigedo, in every 100 inhabitants, forty-nine are Spanish Creoles, two Spaniards born in Europe, twenty-four Aztec and Otomite Indians, and twenty-five people of mixed blood.

The exact knowledge of these proportions is of the utmost importance to those who have the superintendance of the colonies.

“It would be difficult to estimate exactly how many Europeans there are among the 1,200,000 whites who inhabit New Spain.

As in the capital of Mexico itself, where the government brings together the greatest number of Spaniards, in a population of more than 135,000 souls, not more than 2500 individuals are born in Europe, it is more than probable that the whole kingdom does not contain more than 70 or 80,000.

They constitute, therefore, only the 70th part of the whole population, and the proportion of Europeans to white Creoles is as one to fourteen.

“The Spanish laws prohibit all entry into the American possessions to every European not born in the peninsula.

The words European and Spaniard are become synonimous in Mexico and Peru.

The inhabitants of the remote provinces have therefore a difficulty in conceiving that there can be Europeans who do not speak their language; and they consider this ignorance as a mark of low extraction, because, every where around them, all, except the very lowest class of the people, speak Spanish.

Better acquainted with the history of the sixteenth century than with that of our own times, they imagine that Spain continues to possess a decided preponderance over the rest of Europe.

To them the peninsula appears the very centre of European civilization.

It is otherwise with the Americans of the capital.

Those of them who are acquainted with the French or English literature fall easily into a contrary extreme; and have still a more unfavourable opinion of the mother country than the French had at a time when communication was less frequent between Spain and the rest of Europe.

They prefer strangers from other countries to the Spaniards; and they flatter themselves with the idea that intellectual cultivation has made more rapid progress in the colonies than in the peninsula.”

“This progress is indeed very remarkable at the Havanah, Lima, Santa Fe, Quito, Popayan, and Caraccas.

Of all these great cities the Havanah bears the greatest resemblance to those of Europe in customs, refinements of luxury, and the tone of society.

At Havanah the state of politics and their influence on commerce is best understood.

However, notwithstanding the efforts of the patriotic society of the island of Cuba, which encourages the sciences with the most generous zeal, they prosper very slowly in a country where cultivation and the price of colonial produce engross the whole attention of the inhabitants.

The study of the mathematics, chemistry, minerallogy, and botany, is more general at Mexico, Santa Fe, and Lima.

We every where observe a great intellectual activity, and among the youth a wonderful facility of seizing the principles of science.

It is said that this facility is still more remarkable among the inhabitants of Quito and Lima than at Mexico and Santa Fe. The former appear to possess more versatility of mind and a more lively imagination; while the Mexicans and the natives of Santa Fe have the reputation of greater perseverance in the studies to which they have once addicted themselves.”

“No city of the new continent, without even excepting those of the United States, can display such great and solid scientific establishments as the capital of Mexico. I shall content myself here with naming the School of Mines, directed by the learned Elhuyar.

This academy bears the title of Academia de los Nobles Artes de Mexico.

It owes its existence to the patriotism of several Mexican individuals, and to the protection of the minister of Galvez.

The government assigned it a spacious building, in which there is a much finer and more complete collection of casts than is to be found in any part of Germany.

We are astonished on seeing that the Apollo of Belvidere, the group of Laocoon, and still more colossal statues, have been conveyed through mountainous roads at least as narrow as those of St. Gothard; and we are surprised at finding these masterpieces of antiquity collected together under the torrid zone, in a table land higher than the convent of the great St. Bernard.

The collection of casts brought to Mexico cost the king 200,000 francs.

The remains of the Mexican sculpture, those colossal statues of basaltes and porphyry, which are covered with Aztec hieroglyphics, and bear some relation to the Egyptian and Hindoo style, ought to be collected together in the edifice of the academy, or rather in one of the courts which belong to it.

It would be curious to see these monuments of the first cultivation of our species, the works of a semibarbarous people inhabiting the Mexican Andes, placed beside the beautiful forms produced under the sky of Greece and Italy.”

8334l. sterling.

“The revenues of the Academy of Fine Arts at Mexico amount to 125,000 francs , of which the government gives 60,000, the body of Mexican miners nearly 25,000, the consulado, or association of merchants of the capital, more than 1500. It is impossible not to perceive the influence of this establishment on the taste of the nation.

This influence is particularly visible in the symmetry of the buildings, in the perfection with which the hewing of stone is conducted, and in the ornaments of the capitals and stucco relievos.

What a number of beautiful edifices are to be seen at Mexico! nay, even in provincial towns like Guanaxato and Queretaro!

These monuments, which frequently cost a million and a million and a half of francs , would appear to advantage in the finest streets of Paris, Berlin, and Petersburg. M. Tolsa, professor of sculpture at Mexico, was even able to cast an equestrian statue of King Charles the Fourth; a work which, with the exception of the Marcus Aurelius at Rome, surpasses in beauty and purity of stile every thing which remains in this way in Europe.

Instruction is communicated gratis at the Academy of Fine Arts. It is not confined alone to the drawing of landscapes and figures; they have had the good sense to employ other means for exciting the national industry.

The academy labours successfully to introduce among the artisans a taste for elegance and beautiful forms.

Large rooms, well lighted by Argand’s lamps, contain every evening some hundreds of young people, of whom some draw from relievo or living models, while others copy drawings of furniture, chandeliers, or other ornaments in bronze.

In this assemblage (and this is very remarkable in the midst of a country where the prejudices of the nobility against the casts are so inveterate) rank, colour, and race is confounded:

we see the Indian and the Mestizo sitting beside the white, and the son of a poor artisan in emulation with the children of the great lords of the country.

It is a consolation to observe, that under every zone the cultivation of science and art establishes a certain equality among men, and obliterates for a time, at least, all those petty passions of which the effects are so prejudicial to social happiness.

5208l sterling. Trans.

41,670l. and 62,505l. Trans.

“Since the close of the reign of Charles the Third, and under that of Charles the Fourth, the study of the physical sciences has made great progress, not only in Mexico, but in general in all the Spanish colonies.

No European government has sacrificed greater sums to advance the knowledge of the vegetable kingdom than the Spanish government.

Three botanical expeditions, in Peru, New Grenada, and New Spain, under the direction of MM.

Ruiz and Pavon, Don Jose Celestino Mutis, and MM.

Sesse and Mociño, have cost the state nearly two millions of francs . Moreover, botanical gardens have been established at Manilla and the Canary islands.

The commission destined to draw plans of the canal of los Guines was also appointed to examine the vegetable productions of the island of Cuba.

All these researches, conducted during twenty years in the most fertile regions of the new continent , have not only enriched science with more than four thousand new species of plants, but have also contributed much to diffuse a taste for natural history among the inhabitants of the country.

The city of Mexico exhibits a very interesting botanical garden within the very precincts of the viceroy’s palace.

Professor Cervantes gives annual courses there, which are very well attended.

This savant possesses, besides his herbals, a rich collection of Mexican minerals. M.

Mociño, whom we just now mentioned as one of the coadjutors of M. Sesse, and who has pushed his laborious excursions from the kingdom of Guatimala to the north-west coast or island of Vancouver and Quadra; and M. Echeveria, a painter of plants and animals, whose works will bear a comparison with the most perfect productions of the kind in Europe, are both of them natives of New Spain.

They had both attained a distinguished rank among savans and artists before quitting their country.

83,304l. sterling.

Trans.

The public is only yet put in possession of the discoveries of the botanical expedition of Peru and Chili.

The great herbals of M. Sesse, and the immense collection of drawings of Mexican plants executed under his eye, arrived at Madrid in 1803.

The publication of both the Flora of New Spain and the Flora of Santa Fe de Bogota is expected with impatience.

The latter is the fruit of 40 years researches and observations by the celebrated Mutis, one of the greatest botanists of the age.

The principles of the new chemistry, which is known in the Spanish colonies by the equivocal appellation of new philosophy (nueva filosofia), are more diffused in Mexico than in many parts of the peninsula.

A European traveller cannot undoubtedly but be surprised to meet in the interior of the country, on the very borders of California, with young Mexicans who reason on the decomposition of water in the process of amalgamation with free air.

The School of Mines possesses a chemical laboratory; a geological collection, arranged according to the system of Werner; a physical cabinet, in which we not only find the valuable instruments of Ramsden, Adams, Le Noir, and Louis Berthoud, but also models executed in the capital even, with the greatest precision, and from the finest wood in the country.

The best mineralogical work in the Spanish language was printed at Mexico, I mean the Manual of Oryctognosy, composed by M. del Rio, according to the principles of the school of Freyberg, in which the author was formed.

The first Spanish translation of Lavater’s Elements of Chemistry was also published at Mexico. I cite these insulated facts because they give us the measure of the ardour with which the exact sciences are begun to be studied in the capital of New Spain.

This ardour is much greater than that with which they addict themselves to the study of languages and ancient literature.

This is as much as to say that taste is rather at a low ebb among them, and that imagination is in a somewhat similar state; for wherever taste and imagination flourish, an admiration for the ancients is seen to prevail.

The observation of Humboldt may perhaps receive a much more extensive application; and it may peculiarly be applied to the whole of America. I have seen it asserted that there are whole states in the union where a classical seminary of any kind is not to be found.

It would be rash to say that the faculties of men transplanted to America gradually assimilate to those of the aborigines, who are stated by M.

Humboldt to be destitute of taste, but excellently adapted for science.

Should we not rather say that every age has its favourite study, which it cultivates almost to the neglect of every other?

At one time it is all commenting and comparing manuscripts:— “And A’s deposed and B with pomp restored: at another, the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle divide the world between them; from that a transition is made to poetry, and no man can be great without producing an epic poem or a handsome volume of sonnets; and in the present age almost every thing but the refuse of talent carefully preserved in the cells of some fat old university, seems employed, more or less, in physical science. Trans.

“Instruction in mathematics is less carefully attended to in the university of Mexico than in the School of Mines.

The pupils of this last establishment go farther into analysis; they are instructed in the antegral and differential calculi.

On the return of peace and free intercourse with Europe, when astronomical instruments (chronometers, sextants, and the repeating circles of Borda) shall become more common, young men will be found in the most remote parts of the kingdom capable of making observations, and calculating them after the most recent methods.

I have already indicated in the analysis of my maps the advantage which might be drawn by the government from this extraordinary aptitude in constructing a map of the country.

The taste for astronomy is very old in Mexico.

Three distinguished men, Velasquez, Gama, and Alzate, did honour to their country towards the end of the last century.

All the three made a great number of astronomical observations, especially of eclipses of the satellites of Jupiter.

Alzate, the worst informed of them, was the correspondent of the Academy of Sciences at Paris.

Inaccurate as an observer, and of an activity frequently impetuous, he gave himself up to too many objects at a time.

He is entitled to the real merit, however, of having excited his countrymen to the study of the physical sciences.

The Gazetta de Litteratura, which he published for a long time at Mexico, contributed singularly to give encouragement and impulsion to the Mexican youth.

“The most remarkable geometrician produced by New Spain since the time of Siguenza was Don Joacquin Velasquez Cardinas y Leon.

All the astronomical and geodesical labours of this indefatigable savant bear the stamp of the greatest precision.

He was born on the 21st July, 1732, in the interior of the country, at the farm of Santiago Acebedocla, near the Indian village of Tizicapan; and he had the merit, we may say, of forming himself.

At the age of four he communicated the small pox to his father, who died of them.

An uncle, parish priest of Xaltocan, took care of his education, and placed him under the instruction of an Indian of the name of Manuel Asentzio; a man of great natural strength of mind, and well versed in the knowledge of the Mexican history and mythology.

Velasquez learned at Xaltocan several Indian languages, and the use of the hieroglyphical writings of the Aztecs. It is to be regretted that he published nothing on this very interesting branch of antiquity.

Placed at Mexico in the Tridentine college, he found neither professor nor books nor instruments.

With the small assistance which he could obtain, he fortified himself in the study of the mathematics and the ancient languages.

A lucky accident threw into his hands the works of Newton and Bacon.

He drew from the one a taste for astronomy, and from the other an acquaintance with the true methods of philosophising.

While poor and unable to find any instrument even in Mexico, he set himself, with his friend M. Guadalaxara (now professor of mathematics in the Academy of Painting), to construct telescopes and quadrants.

He followed at the same time the profession of advocate, an occupation which at Mexico, as well as elsewhere, is much more lucrative than that of looking at the stars.

What he gained by his professional labours was laid out in purchasing instruments in England.

After being named professor in the university, he accompanied the visitador Don Jose de Galvez in his journey to Sonora.

Sent on a commission to California, he profited by the serenity of the sky in that peninsula to make a great number of astronomical observations.

He first observed there that in all the maps, for centuries, through an enormous error of longitude, this part of the new continent had always been marked several degrees farther west than it really was.

When the Abbe Chappe, more celebrated for his courage and his zeal for the sciences than for the accuracy of his labours, arrived in California, he found the Mexican astronomer already established there.

Velasquez had constructed for himself in Mimosa planks an observatory at St. Anne.

Having already determined the position of this Indian village, he informed the Abbe Chappe that the moon’s eclipse on the 18th June, 1769, would be visible in California.

The French astronomer doubted the truth of this assertion, till the eclipse actually took place.

Velasquez by himself made a very good observation of the transit of Venus over the disk of the sun on the 3d June, 1769. He communicated the result, the very morning of the transit, to the Abbe Chappe, and to the Spanish astronomers Don Vicente Doz, and Don Salvador de Medina.

The French traveller was surprised at the harmony between the observation of Velasquez and his own.

He was no doubt astonished to meet in California with a Mexican, who, without belonging to any academy, and without having ever left New Spain, was able to observe as well as the academicians.

In 1773 Velasquez executed the great geodesical undertaking, and to which we shall again return in speaking of the drain of the lakes of the valley of Mexico.

The most essential service which this indefatigable man rendered to his country was the establishment of the Tribunal and the School of Mines, the plans for which he presented to the court. He finished his laborious career on the 6th March, 1786, while first director-general of the Tribunal de Mineria, and enjoying the title of Alcalde del Corte honorario.

From this we may discover that the professors of this university are not behind those of some others in the praise-worthy custom of considering their chairs as sinecures.

Trans.

The Count de Galvez, before obtaining the ministry of the Indies, travelled through the northern part of New Spain with the title of visitador.

This name is given to persons employed by the court to procure information as to the state of the colonies.

Their journey (visita) has generally no other effect than that of counterbalancing for some time the power of the viceroys and the audiencias, of receiving an infinity of memoirs, petitions, and projects, and of signalizing their stay by the introduction of some new impost.

The people expect the arrival of the visitadores with the same impatience which they afterwards display for their departure.

“After mentioning the labours of Alzate and Velasquez, it would be unjust to pass over the name of Gama, the friend and fellow labourer of the latter.

Without fortune, and compelled to support a numerous family by a troublesome and almost mechanical labour unknown and neglected during his life by his fellow citizens, who loaded him with eulogies after his death, Gama became by his own unassisted efforts an able and well informed astronomer.

He published several memoirs on eclipses of the moon; on the satellites of Jupiter, on the almanac and chronology of the ancient Mexicans, and on the climate of New Spain; all of which announce a great precision of ideas and accuracy of observation.

If I have allowed myself to enter into these details on the literary merit of three Mexican savans, it is merely for the sake of proving from their example, that the ignorance which European pride has thought proper to attach to the Creoles is neither the effect of the climate nor of a want of moral energy; but that this ignorance, where it is still observable, is solely the effect of the insulation, and the defects in the social institutions of the colonies.”

The celebrated navigator Alexander Malaspina, during his stay at Mexico, observed along with Gama. He recommended him with much warmth to the court, as is proved by the official letters of Malaspina, preserved in the archives of the viceroy.

“If, in the present state of things, the cast of whites is the only one in which we find almost exclusively any thing like intellectual cultivation, it is also the only one which possesses great wealth.

This wealth is unfortunately still more unequally distributed in Mexico than in the capitania general of Caraccas, the Havanah, and especially Peru.

At Caraccas, the heads of the richest families possess a revenue of 200,000 livres.

In the island of Cuba we find revenues of more than 6 or 700,000 francs .

In these two industrious colonies agriculture has founded more considerable fortunes than has been accumulated by the working of the mines in Peru.

At Lima an annual revenue of 80,000 francs is very uncommon.

I know in reality of no Peruvian family in the possession of a fixed and sure revenue of 130,000 francs.

But in New Spain there are individuals who possess no mines, whose revenue amounts to a million of francs.

The family of the Count de la Valenciana, for example, possesses alone, on the ridge of the Cordillera, a property worth more than 25 millions of francs, without including the mine of Valenciana near Guanaxuato, which, communibus annis, yields a nett revenue of a million and a half of livres.

This family, of which the present head, the young Count de Valenciana, is distinguished for a generous character and a noble desire of instruction, is only divided into three branches; and they possess altogether, even in years when the mine is not very lucrative, more than 2,200,000 francs of revenue.

The Count de Regla, whose youngest son, the Marquis de San Christobal, distinguished himself at Paris for his physical and physiological knowledge, constructed at the Havanah, at his own expence, in acajou and cedar (cedrella) wood, two vessels of the line of the largest size, which he made a present of to his sovereign.

It was the seam of la Biscaina, near Pachuca, which laid the foundation of the fortune of the house of Regla.

The family of Fagoaga, well known for its beneficence, intelligence, and zeal for the public good, exhibits the example of the greatest wealth which was ever derived from a mine.

A single seam which the family of the Marquis of Fagoaga possesses in the district of Sombrerete left in five or six months, all charges deducted, a nett profit of 20 millions of francs.

8334l. sterling. Trans.

25,002l. or 29,169l. sterling. Trans.

3333l. sterling. Trans.

5417l. sterling. Trans.

41,670l. sterling.

Trans.

1,041,750l. sterling. Trans.

62,505l. sterling. Trans.

91,674l. sterling.

Trans.

M. Terreros (this is the name by which this modest savant is known in France) preferred for a long time the instruction which his abode at Paris enabled him to procure, to the great fortune which he could only enjoy living in Mexico.

833,400l. sterling. Trans.

“From these data one would suppose capitals in the Mexican families infinitely greater than what are really observed.

The deceased Count de la Valenciana, the first of the title, sometimes drew from his mine alone, in one year, a nett revenue of no less than six millions of livres.

This annual revenue, during the last twenty-five years of his life, was never below from two to three millions of livres; and yet this extraordinary man, who came without any fortune to America, and who continued to live with great simplicity, left only behind him at his death, besides his mine, which is the richest in the world, ten millions in property and capital.

This fact, which may be relied on, will not surprise those who are acquainted with the interior management of the great Mexican houses.

Money rapidly gained is as rapidly spent.

The working of mines becomes a game in which they embark with unbounded passion.

The rich proprietors of mines lavish immense sums on quacks, who engage them in new undertakings in the most remote provinces.

In a country where the works are conducted on such an extravagant scale, that the pit of a mine frequently requires two millions of francs to pierce, the bad success of a rash project may absorb in a few years all that was gained in working the richest seams.

We must add, that from the internal disorder which prevails in the greatest part of the great houses of both Old and New spain, the head of a family is not unfrequently straitened with a revenue of half a million, though he display no other luxury than that of numerous yokes of mules.

250,020l. sterling. Trans.

From 83,340l. to 125,010l. Trans.

416,700l. sterling. Trans.

20,835l. sterling. Trans.

“The mines have undoubtedly been the principal sources of the great fortunes of Mexico.

Many miners have laid out their wealth in purchasing land, and have addicted themselves with great zeal to agriculture.

But there is also a considerable number of very powerful families who have never had the working of any very lucrative mines.

Such are the rich descendants of Cortez, or the Marquis del Valle.

The Duke of Monteleon, a Neapolitan lord, who is now the head of the house of Cortez, possesses superb estates in the province of Oaxaca, near Toluca, and at Cuernavaca.

The nett produce of his rents is actually no more than 550,000 frances, the king having deprived the duke of the collection of the alcavalas and the duties on tobacco.

The ordinary expenses of management amount to more than 125,000 francs.

However, several governors of the marquesado have become singularly wealthy.

If the descendants of the great conquistador would only live in Mexico, their revenue would immediately rise to more than a million and a half.

22,98l. sterling. Trans.

5208l. sterling. Trans.

62,505l. sterling. Trans.

“To complete the view of the immense wealth centered in the hands of a few individuals in New Spain, which may compete with any thing in Great Britain, or the European possessions in Hindostan, I shall add several exact statements both of the revenues of the Mexican clergy, and the pecuniary sacrifices annnually made by the body of miners (cuerpo de mineria) for the improvement of mining.

This last body, formed by a union of the proprietors of mines, and represented by deputies who sit in the Tribunal de Mineria, advanced in three years, between 1784 and 1787, a sum of four millions of francs to individuals who were in want of the necessary funds to carry on great works.

It is believed in the country that this money has not been very usefully employed (para habilitar); but its distribution proves the generosity and opulence of those who are able to make such considerable largesses.

A European reader will be still more astonished when I inform him of the extraordinary fact, that the respectable family of Fagoagas lent, a few years ago, without interest, a sum of more than three millions and a half of franks to a friend, whose fortune they were in the belief would be made by it in a solid manner; and this sum was irrevocably lost in an unsuccessful new mining undertaking.

The architectural works which are carried on in the capital of Mexico for the embellishment of the city are so expensive, that notwithstanding the low rate of wages, the suberb edifice constructed by order of the Tribunal de Mineria for the School of Mines will cost at least three millions of francs, of which two millions were in readiness before the foundation was laid. To hasten the construction, and particularly to furnish the students immediately with a proper laboratory for metallic experiments on the amalgamation of great masses of minerals (beneficio de patio), the body of Mexican miners contributed monthly, in the year 1803 alone, the sum of 50,000 livres.

Such is the facility with which vast projects are executed in a country where wealth is divided among a small number of individuals.

106,680l. sterling. Trans.

145,945l.

125,010l. sterling. Trans.

2083l. sterling.

“This inequality of fortune is still more conspicuous among the clergy, of whom a number suffer extreme poverty, while others possess revenues which surpass those of many of the sovereign princes of Germany.

The Mexican clergy, less numerous than is believed in Europe, is only composed of ten thousand individuals, the half of whom are regulars who wear the cowl.

If we include lay brothers and sisters, or servants (legos, donados y criados de los conventos), all those who are not in orders, we may estimate the clergy at 13 or 14,000 individuals.

Now the annual revenue of the eight Mexican bishops in the following list amounts to a sum total of 2,695,000 francs:

The number of monks of St. Francis in Spain amounts to 15,600, more than all the ecclesiastics of the kingdom of Mexico.

The clergy in the peninsula exceed 228,000 individuals.

For every thousand inhabitants there are 20 ecclesiastics, while in New Spain there are not above two to the thousand.

The following is a specification of the clergy in several of the intendancies, according to the enumeration in 1793: Including in the enumeration the Donados, or lay brothers, the convents of the capital contain more than 2,500 individuals.—Author.

The clergy of the peninsula, according to M. de La Borde, from whom M. de Humboldt elsewhere professes to take his information regarding Spain, amounts to 147,657 individuals; and, according to M. Townsend, who cites the returns made to the Spanish government, they amount to 118,625. M. de La Borde estimates the population of Spain at 11,000,000, and he states the proportion of the clergy to the population as 1 : 69; though [Formel] = 74,497, say 74 [Formel] , and not 69. But the estimate of 228,000 clergy, and a corresponding proportion of 20 in the thousand, or 1 in 50 to the population, is in every way much beyond the truth. M. de Humboldt having found from M. de la Borde that the proportion between the clergy and population in Madrid was 20 : 1,000, has been led to extend the same proportion over all Spain.

Yet he afterwards, in the Statistical Analysis, states it as a peculiar merit in M. de La Borde, that he had first proved that the proportion of Spanish clergy to the population was less than that of the French clergy to the population before the revolution, which was 460,078 : 25,000,000=1 : 54,444, say 54 [Formel] (and not 1 : 52, as La Borde calculates:) but a clergy of 228,000 in a population of 11 millions would be more numerous in proportion than that of France before the revolution.—Trans.

In the intendancy of la Puebla, 667 {secular ecclesiastics or clerigos, and} 881 regulars.

Valladolid 293 . . . 298 Guanaxuato 225 . . . 197 Oaxaca 306 . . . 342 In the city of Mexico 550 . . . 1646

112,300l. sterling. Trans.

Double Piastres.

Revenues of the Archbishop of Mexico 130,000 Bishop of la Puebla 110,000 Valladolid 100,000 Guadalaxara 90,000 Durango 35,000 Monterey 80,000 Yucatan 20,000 Oaxaca 18,000 Sonora 6,000 539,000

This, at the rate of conversion which the author lays down in a note in the following page, namely five francs five sous per double piastre, does not amount to the sum of 2,695,000, but 2,829,750 francs = 117,915l.—Trans.

“The bishop of Sonora, the poorest of them all, does not draw tithes.

He is paid, like the bishop of Panama, immediately by the king (de Caxas reales).

His income amounts only to the 20th part of that of the bishops of Valladolid and Mechoacan; and, what is truly distressing in the diocese of an archbishop whose revenue amounts to the sum of 650,000 francs, there are clergymen of Indian villages whose yearly income does not exceed five or six hundred francs.

The bishop and chapter of Valladolid sent, at different times, to the king as a voluntary contribution, particularly during the last war against France, the sum of 810,000 francs.

The lands of the Mexican clergy (bienes raices) do not exceed the value of 12 or 15 millions of francs; but the clergy possess immense capitals hypothecated on the property of individuals.

The whole of these capitals (capitales de Capellanias y obras pias, fondos lotales de Communidades religiosas), of which we shall give a detail in the sequel, amounts to the sum of 44 millions and a half of double piastres, or 233,625,000 francs.

Cortez, from the very commencement of the conquest, dreaded the great opulence of the clergy in a country where ecclesiastical discipline is difficult to maintain.

He says very frankly in a letter to Charles the Fifth, “that he beseeches his majesty to send out to the Indies religieux and not canons, because the latter display an extravagant luxury, leave great wealth to their natural children, and give great scandal to the newly converted Indians.”

This advice, dictated by the frankness of an old soldier, was not followed at Madrid.

We have transcribed this curious passage from a work published several years ago by a cardinal.

It is not for us to accuse the conqueror of New Spain of predilection for the regular clergy, or antipathy towards the canons.

27,085l. sterling. Trans.

From 20l. to 25l. sterling. Trans.

33,752l. sterling. Trans.

From 500,040l. to 625,050 sterling. Trans.

13,485,453l. sterling.

Trans.

I have followed the data contained in the Representacion de los vecinos de Valladolid al Excellentissimo Senor Virey (dated 24th October, 1805), a manuscript memoir of great value, I compute in the course of this work the double piastre at 5 livres 5 sous.

Its intrinsic value is 5 livres 8⅓ sous.

We must not confound the pezo, which is sometimes called pezo sencillo, or commercial piastre, which is a fictitious money, with the double piastre of America, or te duro, or te pezo duro.

The double piastre contains 20 reals of vellon, or 170 quartos, or 680 maravedis, while the pero sencillo, which is equal to 3 livres 15 sous, contains only 15 reals of vellon, or 510 maravedis.

Archbishop Lorenzana.

“The rumour spread up and down Europe of the immensity of the Mexican wealth has given rise to very exaggerated ideas relative to the abundance of gold and silver employed in New Spain in plate, furniture, kitchen utensils, and harness.

A traveller, whose imagination has been heated by stories of keys, locks, and hinges of massy silver, will be very much surprised on his arrival at Mexico at seeing no more of the precious metals employed for domestic uses there than in Spain, Portugal, and the rest of the south of Europe; and he will be as much astonished at seeing in Mexico, Peru, or at Santa Fe, people of the lowest order barefooted with enormous silver spurs on, or at finding silver cups and plates a little more common there than in France and England.

The surprise of the traveller will cease when he reflects that porcelain is very rare in these newly civilized regions, that the nature of the roads in the mountains renders the carriage of it extremely difficult; and that in a country of little commercial activity, it is equally indifferent whether a few hundred piastres be possessed in specie or in plate.

Notwithstanding, however, the enormous difference of wealth between Peru and Mexico, considering merely the fortunes of the great proprietors, I am inclined to believe that there is more true comfort at Lima than at Mexico.

The inequality of fortunes is much less in the former; and if it is very rare, as we have already observed, to find individuals there who possess a revenue of 50 or 60,000 francs, we meet, however, with a great number of mulatto artisans and free negros, who, by their industry alone, procure much more than the necessaries of life.

Capitals of 10 and 15000 piastres are very common among this class, while the streets of Mexico swarm with from twenty to thirty thousand wretches (Saragates, Guachinangos), of whom the greatest number pass the night sub dio, and stretch themselves out to the sun during the day with nothing but a flannel covering.

These dregs of the people bear much analogy to the Lazaroni of Naples.

Lazy, careless, and sober like them, the Guachinangos have nothing, however, ferocious in their character, and they never ask alms; for if they work one or two days in the week, they earn as much as will purchase their pulque, or some of the ducks with which the Mexican lakes are covered, which are roasted in their own fat.

The fortune of the Saragates seldom exceeds two or three reals, while the lower people of Lima, more addicted to luxury and pleasure, and perhaps also more industrious, frequently spend two or three piastres in one day.

One would say that the mixture of the European and the negro every where produces a race of men more active and more assiduously industrious than the mixture of the whites with the Mexican Indian.

2,083l. or 2,500l. sterling.

Trans.

If single or commercial piastres = 1560l. and 2340l. sterling. Trans.

“The kingdom of New Spain is, of all the European colonies under the torrid zone, that in which there are the fewest negros.

We may almost say that there are no slaves.

We may go through the whole city of Mexico without seeing a black countenance.

The service of no house is carried on with slaves.

In this point of view especially, Mexico presents a singular contrast to the Havanah, Lima, and Caraccas.

From exact information procured by those employed in the enumeration of 1793, it appears that in all New Spain there are not six thousand negros, and not more than nine or ten thousand slaves, of whom the greatest number belong to the ports of Acapulco and Vera Cruz, or the warm regions of the coasts (tierras calientes).

The slaves are four times more numerous in the capitania general of Caraccas, which does not contain the sixth part of the population of Mexico.

The negros of Jamaica are to those of New Spain in the proportion of 250 to 1!

In the West India islands, Peru, and even Caraccas, the progress of agriculture and industry in general depends on the augmentation of negros.

In the island of Cuba, for example, where the annual exportation of sugar has risen in twelve years from 400,000 to 1,000,000 quintals between 1792 and 1803 nearly 55,000 slaves have been introduced.

But in Mexico the increase of colonial prosperity is nowise occasioned by a more active slave trade.

It is not above twenty years since Mexican sugar was known in Europe; Vera Cruz, at present, exports more than 120,000 quintals; and yet the progress of sugar cultivation which has taken place in New Spain since the revolution of St.

Domingo has not perceptibly increased the number of slaves.

Of the 74,000 negros annually furnished byAfricato the equinoxial regions of America and Asia, and which are worth in the colonies the sum of 111,000,000 francs, not above 100 land on the coast of Mexico.”

According to the custom-house reports of the Havanah, of which I possess a copy, the introduction of negros, from 1799 to 1803, was 34,500, of whom 7 per cent. die annually.

4,625,370l. sterling.

Trans.