at liberty to adopt, without restraint, any plans of improvement that may suit the peculiarities of their respective territories.
Their ability to support this system I have had frequent occasion to investigate. To a certain extent it has been already demonstrated; and the journal of my visits to the Interior will prove that, wherever a man of activity has been placed at the head of affairs, a good use has been made by the Provinces of the free agency with which they are entrusted. In Guanajuato, San Luis, Durango, Jalisco, La Puebla, and Veracruz, as well as in some others of the Central and Northern States, important changes have taken place, and much has been done towards that gradual introduction of a better order of things, from which alone permanent improvement can be expected.
I am aware, that in giving this opinion, I expose myself to the attacks of two distinct classes of adversaries; first, those who refuse to admit the fact of any progress at all having been made; and secondly, those, who, from too enthusiastic an admiration of the new institutions, are unwilling to await the mild influence of time, and maintain that, by a proper exercise of Republican energy, roads might have been made, canals traced, rivers rendered navigable, the whole jurisprudence of the country reformed, a system of education generalized, and the work of a century compressed into a twelve-month!
