Page:Mexico (1829) Volumes 1 and 2.djvu/394

 354 MEXICO. for improvement in that department still remains,) and a system of general passports established, by which foreigners are secured against the petty persecutions to which they were formerly exposed, on the part of the local authorities. The prejudices originally entertained against them are likewise subsiding, and it is my belief that, with these prejudices, no small portion of the jealousy felt with regard to their sup- posed fraudulent intentions in trade, will likewise disappear. Happy indeed will Mexico be when the Congress discovers that the interests of the Government, if rightly understood, are not only not incompatible with those of the established merchant, but are so far identified with them, that commerce and the revenue must stand or fall together. Then, and then only, will Mexico attain that station which she seems destined to hold hereafter ahiongst the great communities of the world ; for then, and then only, can the wonderful capabili- ties of her soil, and the not less wonderful abundance of her mineral treasures, be turned to full account.