150 AMERICAN MINES. CHAP. XXII. 



armaments or by predatory bands ; but Mexico 

 from its physical position had been subject to no 

 such attacks. It thus presents us with an object 

 scarcely observable in any other part of the globe 

 in any age, of a country which for three centuries 

 had never been exposed to internal or external 

 commotions. As, during the continuance of this 

 long period, there was no fear for the security of 

 capital invested in mines, or for that employed in 

 agricultural improvements, however slow the pro- 

 gress, or however impeded by the colonial re- 

 strictions and the arbitrary power in the hands of 

 the viceroys, there must have been an increase in 

 material wealth correspondent to that which the 

 produce of the mines exhibits. 



Whether the increase be owing to other and 

 to what causes, and to what extent, may be in- 

 teresting to inquire ; but the simple fact that the 

 soil had neither been polluted by the blood of its 

 inhabitants nor by that of invaders, that no hostile 

 foot had trod its surface or attempted to land on 

 its shores for three hundred years, is sufficient 

 alone to account for the progress which Mexico 

 had made up to the time of her fatal revolution. 



In the course of three centuries, though the 

 great mass of the aborigines had remained with 

 but little change in their circumstances, yet many 

 individuals of the tribes, especially of those who 

 resided near the cities, had emancipated them- 

 selves from the low condition of their race, and 



