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TO THE SECOND EDITION.

submitting to the Public a Second Edition of Mexico, I have to express my gratitude for the favourable reception given to a work, which had little to recommend it beyond the information, which it might be thought to convey.

The facts to be recorded were too numerous to leave room for those lighter details, the want of which has been frequently complained of ; and, although subsequent events have tended to deprive those facts of much of the importance, which I was inclined to attach to them, — although the country has been torn by intestine divisions, and its career of improvement checked by the implacability of party spirit, — yet I cannot regret having traced the history of its ephemeral prosperity, for I am still convinced that the past is the best criterion for the future, and that, under a moderately good government, what has been, may, must, and will, again be.