Page:Mexico (1829) Volumes 1 and 2.djvu/344

 

REFLECTIONS ON THE TRADE OF MEXICO. — ITS FORMER, AND PROBABLE FUTURE IMPORTANCE. — HOW AFFECTED HITHERTO BY REVOLUTION.

After passing in review the great public establishments by which the present Government is supported in Mexico, and examining the tenor of her new laws, and the state of the Army, the Church, and the Revenue, it only remains for me to inquire into the commercial wants of the community thus constituted, and to point out the influence which they are likely to exercise upon the manufacturing industry of the Old World. It will not, I hope, be attributed to any affectation of modesty on my part, if I confess that I enter upon this task with great reluctance, and this, not merely because I feel myself incompetent to treat, properly, a subject, to which my earlier professional duties did not lead me to pay particular attention, but because, it has been extremely difficult, during the last three years, to obtain data, in Mexico, sufficiently exact to warrant any definitive opinion.

It will, therefore, often be impossible for me to demonstrate satisfactorily the correctness of the conclusions which I may be inclined to form, even where general appearances are sufficiently strong to justify them to myself; and this must give an appearance of vagueness to the results of my enquiries.