Page:Mexico (1829) Volumes 1 and 2.djvu/521

 MEXICO. 481 increase or diminution of the Revenue again, that the cre- ditors of Mexico must look for regularity in the payment of the interest due upon the loans contracted ^n this country. Of the ability of Mexico to meet her engagements, under moderately good management, I entertain no doubt; nor would any temporary fluctuations in her receipts or com- merce, alFect my opinion of her resources. It would be melancholy, certainly, were the bountiful intentions of Nature to be frustrated, by civil dissensions, or by injudicious legis- lative interference ; a little tendency to which will, probably, long remain in all the countries formerly subject to Spain ; but my visit to the Interior of Mexico taught me to believe, that the party spirit, which rages occasionally in the capital, ought not to be taken as a criterion of the general feelings of the inhabitants ; and to hope, that few causes in fact exist, by which the general tranquillity of the country is likely to be disturbed. Of those causes, in a work of this na- ture, I am not at liberty to speak ; I shall, therefore, proceed at once to what I must term, in the usual phrase of the day, my Personal Narrative, which will contain some account of my first and second visits to Mexico, (in the autumn of 1823, and January 1825,) together with my subsequent journeys to the Mining Districts, (in 1826 and 1827,) in which I shall endeavour to include all the statistical details, of any inte- rest, respecting the different parts of the country through which I passed, not comprehended in the preceding parts of this work. VOL. I.