Page:Mexico in 1827 Vol 1.djvu/471

Rh evidence being adduced in support of any opinion that I may be inclined to form; but the second leads, unavoidably, to much vague speculation, to which my readers will, of course, only attach importance in as far as they conceive the data, upon which it is founded, to be worthy of attention. The third, consists merely of a statement of facts, which it will not be necessary to enter into in great detail, as a new Tariff, which has long been in contemplation, will probably appear before my present work is concluded.

With regard to the first point under consideration, viz., "The amount of the Trade of Mexico in 1827," I have stated, that the first effect of the Revolution of 1821 was to occasion a sudden decrease in the commercial intercourse of Mexico with Europe; which was reduced, in three successive years, from Twenty-one millions and a half of dollars, (the annual average value up to 1821,) to Seventeen, Fourteen, and Six millions of dollars, to which it fell, at Veracruz, in 1823.

Allowing three millions more for the exports and imports of Alvarado and Tampico, we shall find the boná fide trade of Mexico, in 1823, not to have exceeded Nine millions of dollars.

This sudden, and apparently unnatural diminution in the consumption of the country, at the very moment when it was first allowed to taste the advantages of a Free Trade with Europe, is explained, in part, by the simultaneous removal of all those, by whom the