Page:Mexico (1829) Volumes 1 and 2.djvu/472

 432 MEXICO. present state of Mexico, are too scanty to admit of the pos- sibility of arriving at any exact result ; while success, even where facts are not wanting to guide us in our investigations, and where every thing seems to indicate its probability, is always liable to be retarded by those causes, which I have pointed out in the preceding Section, as exercising a general influence upon the Mining interests of New Spain, and con- sequently, as more or less closely identified with the prospects of the present Adventurers. No powers of machinery, for instance, — no exertions, or combinations of private ingenuity, could counterbalance the effects of several successive years of scarcity, or afford secu- rity amidst the desolation of a second civil war. The mines, at the same time that they are the great source of the prosperity of Mexico, are the first to feel any event by which that prosperity is menaced. Like the funds in Europe, they always indicate the approach of a storm ; and require security, as well as a concurrence of other favourable circum- stances, in order to reach their natural level. Every calcula- tion respecting them must, therefore, take as its basis the supposition, that public tranquillity will not be disturbed, nor the ordinary course of nature interrupted by any unusujd visitation, (such as pestilence or famine,) with which the New World is occasionally afflicted. It is upon this supposition, that the gentlemen, of whose authority I shall presently avail myself, have proceeded in their communications with me; and it is upon a similar understanding alone, that I can ven- ture, in justice to them, or to myself, to lay before my readers the resvilt of our joint inquiries. I trust, however, that due weight will be given to this observation, and I shall conse- quently proceed, at once, with my task ; not with a wish to encourage delusive hopes, but merely in order to show the nature of the expectations that may reasonably be entertained by those who have embarked so large a stake in the mines of New Spain.