Page:Mexico as it was and as it is.djvu/392



By this you will observe, that, from having a trade worth upward of $9,000,000 in 1835, we have been reduced to a comparatively insignificant commerce of $1,000,000, at the extreme, in 1843! If peace be restored in Mexico and mutual confidence reestablished, I can see no cause why our interests may not become replaced on their ancient basis, and a natural alliance firmly established between two sister Republics, who, in addition to a community of political tendencies, are the closest neighbors.

England has striven for a two-fold object in Mexico. She has always looked to her debt from that country as the great means of affecting her commerce and manufactures, and ultimately, perhaps, of affording her a claim for its satisfaction in territory. If our Government was always careful to have herself properly represented in that Republic by vigilant persons, whose eyes were constantly open to the encroachments of foreign Powers, and especially to the grasping tendencies of England; and if, at the same time, it took occasion upon every fitting opportunity, to sustain the rights of our citizens by enforcing the reasonable and friendly appeals of its Representative; I doubt not that, in a few years, Mexico would awake from the spell of her foreign delusions, and remember the hand that was first stretched forth to welcome her into the family of independent nations. She would have every reason to do so. The political feelings of the mass of her intelligent men are decidedly republican. Her own independence would be assured to her. The constant alliance