MEXICO. 321 Thus, in the Capital, European manufactures have often been sold under prime cost, while the same articles, if landed upon other points of the coast, and properly spread through the country, without the addition of unnecessary land-car- riage, (an expense always incurred when goods are transmitted through the Capital to the Interior,) might have been dis- posed of at a moderate rate of profit. This was, perhaps, an unavoidable mistake at first, when the nature of the country was so little known ; but now that the eflPects of the system pursued have been felt, it has often been a matter of surprise to me, that, with some few excep- tions,* there should not be an English house of respectability established any where but in the Capital, or, as agents, at the ports. The consequence is, that a very large proportion of the British manufactures at present consumed in Mexico, passer entirely through the hands of North Americans ; and, after being landed by American ships at TampTco, Soto la Ma- rina, and Refugio, is disposed of, by American merchants, at San Luis PotosT, and Saltillo, where they have formed esta- blishments, and are in almost exclusive possession of the trade of the country. The importance of this branch must not be estimated by its value in former times, for commerce, freed from artificial trammels, has, as usual, opened to itself a thousand new in- lets ; and one of the first fruits of this salutary change has been to free the Northern Provinces from those evils, which Mr. Ramos Arizpe, so forcibly described in 1811. They are now rising daily in prosperity, and have every prospect, from their vicinity to New Orleans, and from the
- The house of Ritchie and Co. at Guadalajara, and that of Mr. Short,
at Culiacan, have, I believe, had reason to be satisfied with the results of their departure from the general rule ; and I have little doubt that a similar experiment in each of the great towns of the Interior, would be eminently successful. VOL. I. Y
