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143 sight, that of the consumption of corn, the lists of deaths, births, &c. an excess in the determined quantity may be made apparent.

The present demonstrative plan, which establishes the total amount of the inhabitants of Lima at fifty-two thousand six hundred and twenty-seven, has in its favour all the presumptions which can lead to a belief, that it is the most exact, and the one approaching the nearest to the truth. We are aware that several individuals, either accidentally, or through a false conception of the aim of the enrolment, have baffled the zeal of the commissaries, by the subtraction of a portion of the population, more especially in the class of slaves; but those who have been thus concealed cannot exceed two thousand.

When the provinces which now constitute the viceroyalty of Buenos-Ayres were separated from that of Lima, many gloomy politicians, and false reasoners, predicted the speedy annihilation of this city; at the same time that ignorance expatiated on the necessity of the commerce being again established on the footing of the galleons. Practical experience has demonstrated the falsehood of these conceptions. The free trade, a benefit which has not experienced a meet return of grateful acknowledgment, has filled up the void which the above political partition may have made in the interests and population of the capital of Peru. In reality, since the epoch when every advantage was first taken of this freedom of intercourse, Lima has increased in size about one-fifth, as the buildings which have been recently constructed sufficiently testify. Don Manuel De Leon, perpetual regidor of police, has built over a great extent of ground, which before lay waste, extending from the Piti garden to the ancient erections without