MEXICO. 29 commonwealth ; while in others it is forbidden, under heavy fines, and even corporal punishments, to teach a slave to read or write.* , Mexico is exempt from all these evils. In her territory, the African race is already amalgamated with the Indi- genous ; and when education shall have prepared its de- scendants for exercising the higher rights of citizenship, there is neither law, nor custom, to prevent them from attaining the first offices in the state. In the mean time, they furnish the Tierras calientes with the most useful race of labourers, who, from not being liable to the Vomito, (or Vera Cruz fever,) perform most of the drudgery in the towns upon the coast, and cultivate, in the interior, those productions, which are peculiar to the Tierra caliente. However the question of free labour may be agitated else- where, in Mexico it is already decided. The sugar, coffee, and indigo, which abound in many parts of the country, and which, though not at present exported, are raised in sufficient quantities for a very large home consumption, are all cultivated by free men. There is not a single slave in the valley of Cuer- navaca, or in the environs of drizava and C5rd6va, which are the great marts for sugar, and coffee. The whole labour is performed there by the Indians, and mixed breeds, and a want of hands is seldom, or ever, known. I shall give, upon this subject, some additional details in the following section, which treats of the productions of the Mexican soil. Here, it only remains for me to add, that in the New World, as in the Old, Great Britain has done all that in her lay towards ameliorating the condition of the African race. The aboli- tion of the slave-trade was made a sine qua non condition of her intercourse with the New American States. It is pleas- ing to reflect on the readiness, with which this wish was
- Vide Mr. Politica's Sketch of the Internal Condition of the United
States, from which many of the ahove observations are borrowed.
