From the Baron Humboldt's "Political essay on the kingdom of New- Spain."

"The Indian cultivator is poor, but he is free.

His state is even greatly preferable to that of the peasantry of the north of Europe.

There are neither corvees nor villanage in New-Spain, and the number of slaves is next to nothing.

Sugar is chiefly the produce of free hands.

There the principal objects of agriculture, are not the productions to which European luxury has assigned a valuable and arbitrary value, but cereal gramina, nutritive roots, and the agave, the vine of the Indians.

The appearance of the country proclaims to the traveller that the soul nourishes him who cultivates it, and that the true prosperity of the Mexican people neither depends on the accidents of foreign commerce, nor on the unruly politicks of Europe.

In Mexico, the best cultivated fields--those which recal to the mind of the traveller, the beautiful plains of France--are those which extend from Salamanca towards Siloe, Guanaxato, and the Villa de Leon, and which surround the richest mines of the known world.

Wherever metallick seams have been discovered in the most uncultivated parts of the Cordilleras, on the insulated and desert table lands, the working of mines, far from impeding the cultivation of the soil, has been singularly favourable to it.

Travelling along the ridge of the Andes, or the mountainous part of Mexico, we every where see the most striking examples of the beneficial influence of the mines on agriculture.

Were it not for the establishments formed for the working of the mines, how many places would have remained desert--how many districts uncultivated, in the four intendencies of Guanaxuato, Zacatecas, San Luis Potosi and Durango, between the parallels of 21 and 25 degrees, where the most considerable metallic wealth of New- Spain is to be found?

While the coast, exposed to the violent effect of the solar heat, was, as it continues to be, the seat of disease, we cannot wonder that the higher regions were preferred, as abodes, by the old population of America, and by their successors.

The valley in which the city of Mexico stands, is upwards of 6580 feet above the level of the sea--it is of an oval form, encompassed on all sides by mountains, and contains several lakes.

The largest is salt--formerly it surrounded the city, which was approached only by causeways, constructed in the water--but at present the extent of this lake is diminished, and the city is now on the land, at some distance from the waters edge.

The circumference of the valley is 67 leagues.

Mexico is undoubtedly one of the finest cities ever built by Europeans in either hemispheres.

With the exception of St. Petersburg, Berlin, Philadelphia, and some quarters of Westminster, there does not exist a city of the same extent, which can be compared to the capital of New Spain for the uniform level of the ground on which it stands, for the regularity and breadth of the streets, and the extent of the public places.

The architecture is generally of a pure style, and there are even edifices of very beautiful structure.

The exteriour of the houses is not loaded with ornaments.

The balustrades and gates are all of Biscay iron, ornamented with bronze; and the houses, instead of roofs, have terraces like those in Italy and other southern countries.

Mexico has been very much embellished, since the residence of the Abbe Chappe there, in 1769.

However, it must be agreed, that notwithstanding the progress of the arts within these last thirty years, it is much less from the grandeur and beauty of the monuments, than from the breadth and straitness of the streets--and much less from its edifices, than from its uniform regularity, its extent and population, that the capital of New Spain attracts the admiration of Europeans.

The present population of Mexico is estimated at 135 to 140,000 individuals.

It probably consists of

2,500 white Europeans.

65,000 white Creoles.

83,000 indigenous [copper-coloured] 25,500 Mestizoes, mixture of whites and Indians 10,000 Mulattoes.

137,000 inhabitants.

"There are consequently in Mexico 69,500 men of colour, and 67,500 whites; but a great number of the Mestizoes are almost as white as the Europeans and Spanish Creoles!

"Among the colonies subject to the king of Spain, Mexico occupies at present the first rank, both on account of its favorable position for commerce, with Europe and Asia.

We speak here merely of the political value of the country, considering it in its actual state of civilization, which is very superior to that of the other Spanish possessions.

Many branches of agriculture have undoubtedly attained a higher degree of perfection in the Carraccas than in New Spain.

The fertility of the soil is greater in the provinces of Cumana, of New Barcelona, and Venezuela; and it is greater on the banks of the Lower Orinoco, and in the northern part of New Grenada, than in the kingdom of Mexico, of which several regions are barren, destitute of water, and incapable of vegetation.

But on considering the greatness of the population of Mexico, the number of considerable Cities in the proximity of one another; the enormous value of the metallick produce, and its influence on the commerce of Europe and Asia; in short on examining the imperfect state of cultivation observable in the rest of Spanish America, we are tempted to justify the preference which the court of Madrid has long manifested for Mexico, above its other colonies."