Page:Mexico (1829) Volumes 1 and 2.djvu/386

 346 MEXICO. their own sakes, the Mexicans must, sooner or later, adopt, there are other essential points, in which a change is hardly less requisite. Very great inconvenience has been occasioned by that part of the existing regulations, by which the Coasting trade is reserved to National vessels ; for, by a strange misinterpre- tation of this article. Foreign merchant ships arriving on the coast of Mexico with a cargo of goods consigned to different ports, and different correspondents, are forced to discharge the whole, at the first port which they enter, and to procure, at an enormous expense, Mexican small craft to convey the goods intended for other ports, to the place of their destina- tion, or to send them overland, which, in most cases, from the total want of roads, and the greatness of the distance, is impracticable. The mischief done by such a regulation as this, in a coun- try where, both to the East and West, the population is scanty, and the extent of the line of coast enormous, is incal- culable : a cargo, for instance, part of which, if landed at Tampico, or Refugio, might be disposed of to advantage, be- comes of no value if landed in toto, at Veracruz, and sent in- land to the already glutted market of the Capital ; and yet the same vessel may have other goods on board, totally unfit for the Northern market. But, after once breaking bulk, she is not allowed to re-embark any part of her original cargo, and is, therefore, compelled to re-ship one portion of it on board a Mexican coasting-vessel, which process is attended not only with great loss of time, but considerable additional risk. On the Western coast, another regulation prevails, of a still more oppressive nature : merchant vessels proceeding from Europe round Cape Horn, generally carry out an as. sorted cargo, calculated to answer the demand of all the different ports at which they may touch. Many of the arti- cles prohibited in Mexico are not contraband in Chile, Peru,