Page:Mexico (1829) Volumes 1 and 2.djvu/11

 bubbles may have been recommended by a similarity of form to the notice of the Public.

It is possible that, on a closer examination of the subject, we may find that the expectations of 1824, and the despondency of 1828, originate in the same cause, — namely, a want of proper data for the regulation of our opinions; and it is the hope of being able to supply these data, with regard to one very interesting portion of the former dominions of Spain, that has induced me to undertake my present task.

If I have exceeded, in the execution of it, those bounds, within which works of an ephemeral nature, (and such all accounts of a new, and rising, country must be,) are usually confined, I must allege, as my excuse, the impossibility of assuming, amongst the generality of my readers, an acquaintance with any part of my subject, without rendering unintelligible what I have to communicate with regard to the rest.

So little attention has been, hitherto, paid to American affairs, that I generally find the vast territories now distributed amongst the New States, classed as provinces, or counties, belonging to one kingdom, and not as empires occupying half a world. I have been asked repeatedly, since my return to England, whether Captain Head's description of the Pampas is correct, although Mexico is nineteen degrees North, and