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30 exempt from it; and now that a connexion with the Aborigines has ceased to be disadvantageous, few attempt to deny it. In my sketch of the revolution, I always include this class under the denomination of Creoles; as sharing with the Whites of pure Spanish descent the disadvantages of that privation of political rights, to which all Natives were condemned, and feeling, in common with them, that enmity to the Gachupines, (or old Spaniards,) which the preference constantly accorded to them could not fail to excite.

Next to the pure Indians, whose number, in 1803, was supposed to exceed two millions and a half, the Mestizos are the most numerous caste: it is, however, impossible to ascertain the exact proportion which they bear to the whole population, many of them being, as I have already stated, included amongst the pure Whites, who were estimated, before the revolution, at 1,200,000, including from 70 to 80,000 Europeans, established in different parts of the country.

Of the Mulattoes, Zambos, and other mixed breeds, nothing certain is known.

It will be seen, by this sketch, that the population of New Spain is composed of very heterogeneous elements: indeed, the numberless shades of difference which exist amongst its inhabitants, are not yet, by any means, correctly ascertained.

The Indians, for instance, who appear at first sight, to form one great mass, comprising nearly