in the United States, her bread stuffs; and this, not from any deficiency in the power of producing, to almost any extent, but from the want of a market for the produce when raised. The consumption of the West Indian Islands is extremely limited, and most European nations have been endeavouring, for some years, to render themselves independent of external supplies, by growing a sufficiency of corn for home consumption. The effects which have been produced already by this system upon the United States, prove how little reliance Mexico can place upon the foreign market. The exports of bread stuffs from the United States, amounted in 1817, to 20,388,000 dollars; in 1821, to 5,296,000, (vide Mellish's United States;) and the consequence of this sudden falling off would have been inevitable ruin to the grain-growing states, had they not, instantly, turned to manufactures the capital, and the population, which agriculture had before employed. But the necessity for doing this, in a country where internal navigation afforded to the landowner every facility for disposing of his produce, holds out but little encouragement to the proprietors of a country, where no such facilities exist, to attempt to bring into the market produce of a similar description, however well adapted the nature of the soil may be for its growth.
I do not, therefore, conceive that the exportations of Mexico in corn will ever be very considerable; but in those articles, which we term Colonial pro-
