friends, I recognised among the débris of the wreck the very materials that are required to build, upon good and solid foundations, the Mexican Empire. Never, since the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, has such a class of people been found willing to expatriate themselves. From such a wreck Mexico may gather and transfer to her own borders the very intelligence, skill, and labour which made the South what she was in her palmy days—except her bondage.
It would be difficult to say which have suffered, or are suffering, most—the whites from the ravages of war, or the blacks from the so-called kindness of their friends. Hoping to find for them sympathy in the heart of a generous-minded Sovereign, and an asylum in his Empire, here am I, the advocate of Southern immigration, and a humane system of African emancipation in the United States, as the quickest, most certain and best means of affording relief to their sufferings, of giving quiet to this country, stability to the throne, and peace to America.
Though many of the negroes have been set free, and, owing to the abrupt manner of closing it, have run riot, and are afflicted with both pestilence and famine, there are many of them still true to their masters. Let us encourage the owners of these to emancipate also, and then say to the former: "Now bargain with such as are willing to accompany you to Mexico as apprentices, bound to serve as agricultural and other labourers, until they can learn the language of the country, and make themselves acquainted with its customs and its laws, while they are being instructed in the cultivation of the staples that are new to them, and then emigrate with them to these fertile lands. At the expiration of this term of service—say seven years—the apprentice will have earned a home as one of the rewards of his labour, and will be able to take care of himself.
For this, I am now charged by certain of the vindictive prints of the North with "plotting" to re-open the detestable African slave-trade. The negro was set free in Mexico more than a generation ago. The Emperor, the laws, and the people are all opposed to slavery; and any one who could be so wicked as to desire to re-open the African slave-
