Page:Mexico (1829) Volumes 1 and 2.djvu/100

68 MEXICO. and indigo, cacao, and other productions of the Coasts, will form, in the course of a few years, a very considerable mass of exportable commodities. That these, in conjunction with the cochineal, and the precious metals, must render the external trade of New Spain highly interesting to Europe ; while the amount of the population, and the absence of manufactures, give to the internal consumption of the country an importance, which none of the other New States of America possess. Mexico contains nearly one half of the seventeen millions of inhabitants that are said to compose the population of the former colonies of Spain, and this half possesses, perhaps, the largest share of the mineral and vegetable riches of the New World. It is not, therefore, a mere theory to suppose that the progress of such a country must exercise a considerable in- fluence upon the manufacturing industry of the Old World. Of its future consumption, (as I stated in the first sec- tion,) no estimate can be formed by that of former times, when its resources were prevented from developing them- selves by the jealous pohcy of the Mother country, which will form the subject of the following section. Its probable importance may be more easily deduced from the facts which I shall endeavour to embody in the present work, in order to enable my readers to form their own con- clusions upon data, the authenticity of which I need not add that I have taken all possible pains to ascertain.